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Photo: ANNEGRET HILSE / REUTERS
Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) announces tough measures in the fight against anti-Semitism.
"Anyone who spreads anti-Semitic hatred will feel the full harshness of the rule of law," Seehofer told "Bild am Sonntag".
"We will not tolerate Israeli flags burning on German soil and attacking Jewish facilities," he said.
In view of ongoing attacks and anti-Israel demonstrations, he will offer the police in the federal states personnel and material support from the federal government.
Jews should never again live in fear in Germany.
The security authorities do everything to protect them.
The head of the Christian Democrats in the European Parliament, Manfred Weber, has given parties like the AfD joint responsibility for the anti-Semitic protests.
"Radicals like the AfD in Germany or Le Pen in France have fueled border shifts in anti-Semitism," said the deputy CSU chairman in the newspapers of the Funke media group.
You should also be named as the “founder of such excesses”.
Weber advocated making incitement against religions a criminal offense across the EU.
Freedom of belief is a core of the European model of society.
North Rhine-Westphalia's Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) fears that the conflicts will worsen if the violence in the Middle East continues.
"We are already seeing a high level of emotionalization and mobilization, especially among young people of Arab origin, but also among Turkish right-wing extremists," he told "Welt am Sonntag".
"Sheer anti-Semitism"
This is not about criticizing Israel.
"The connecting bracket is sheer anti-Semitism, which we consistently pursue with all the means of the constitutional state," said Reul.
The Israeli ambassador Jeremy Issacharoff pleaded for a common stand by Muslims and Jews against the increasing polarization in Germany.
"The Jewish and Muslim communities can have a lot in common, and in some places in Germany there are close contacts between these communities," Issacharoff told Welt am Sonntag.
»It helps when Jews and Muslims come together, exchange ideas and discuss common challenges.
That can also be a basis for jointly counteracting the currently growing hatred, «said Issacharoff.
Internationally, too, Israel and some Arab states worked ever closer together.
Israeli flag burned in Mannheim
An Israeli flag was burned in Mannheim on Saturday after a rally was broken off.
The perpetrator had been arrested and was reported for incitement to hatred, the police said in the evening.
Up to 500 people reportedly attended the gathering against the Israeli attacks in Gaza, although only a maximum of 150 were approved.
Since many participants did not adhere to the Corona requirements, the meeting was dissolved in the early evening.
The lighting of a second flag would have prevented the emergency services.
There were further arrests because of a banner with "criminally relevant content".
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Numerous people march through the city center of Stuttgart with flags at the pro-Palestinian demonstration
Photo: Christoph Schmidt / dpa
Several participants acted "extremely aggressively" against the stewards and the emergency services and threw stones and sticks, the police said.
Three officers were slightly injured.
According to the information, 16 criminal proceedings were initiated, among other things for sedition, dangerous and community bodily harm, resistance to law enforcement officers and insult.
There were also riots in other cities such as Stuttgart or Berlin (read more here).
mjm / jpz / AFP / Reuters
