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‘Horrifying’: Germany Registers 29 Antisemitic Incidents Per Day Since Hamas Pogrom in Israel
A march against antisemitism in the German city of Dusseldorf. Photo: Reuters/Ying Tang
Germany has registered at least 29 antisemitic incidents per day since the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in southern Israel — a four-fold increase on the previous year that was labeled “horrifying” in a statement from the Central Council of German Jews.
New data published on Tuesday by Rias, a federally-funded body monitoring antisemitic incidents, counted a total of 994 antisemitic incidents since the Hamas onslaught. Germany is home to a Jewish community of approximately 118,000.
Benjamin Steinitz, the managing director of Rias, told the Zeit news outlet that while the troughs and peaks of antisemitic activity have always been influenced by the situation in the Middle East, the present period marked a “different dimension.”
Significantly, the Rias report demonstrated that false or inaccurate media reporting of the conflict in Gaza directly impacted antisemitic agitation. It pointed out that following the false claim pushed by Hamas that an Israeli strike on Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza City on Oct. 17 killed 500 people, the number of antisemitic incidents almost doubled from an average of 31 over the previous weeks to 61.
The report also noted that 59 of the incidents occurred at the homes of Jewish residents, for example the daubing of the Star of David on the outer walls of a house. In one incident in the southwestern town of Giessen, two men forced their way into the home of a 34-year-old Israeli man who had hung an Israeli flag from his balcony. When the Israeli refused to remove the flag, he was showered with antisemitic abuse before one of the assailants punched him in the face.
In another incident, Cyrus Overbeck — an artist and campaigner against extremism who lives in the city of Duisburg — rose one morning to find that 30 leaflets bearing the image of the Israeli flag had been left outside his studio with the text, “Step on the flag, spit on it, burn it: Free Palestine.” When he walked outside, he was confronted by a “highly aggressive” man wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf who regaled him with antisemitic abuse.
Since the incident, “we only leave the house to go shopping,” Overbeck said.
Daniel Poensgen, a consultant with Rias, told broadcaster DW on Tuesday that the targeting of private homes represented a worrying escalation.
“There are places, such as certain neighborhoods or soccer matches, where Jews say, ‘OK, the mood is aggressive right now, I won’t go there,’” he said. “That’s not possible in your own living environment. The stairwell comes first in an apartment, you have to pass through it every day, and that’s why these incidents are particularly threatening.”
Poensgen also observed that “antisemitism acts as a bridging ideology and brings people from very different parts of the political spectrum together.” He pointed out that “people who actually see themselves as left-wing demonstrate together with Islamists and perhaps also together with right-wing extremists such as supporters of the [Turkish fascist organization] Gray Wolves.”
The number of incidents registered by Rias is notably higher than the 680 registered by the interior ministry since Oct. 7. The discrepancy lies in the fact that Rias registers as antisemitic those incidents that do not necessarily meet a criminality threshold.
In its analysis accompanying the data, Rias observed that many German Jews were removing outwardly Jewish symbols such as kippot and Star of David necklaces before venturing outside. “We also received reports from parents who temporarily stopped sending their children to schools or daycare centers for fear of antisemitic attacks,” the organization said.
The post ‘Horrifying’: Germany Registers 29 Antisemitic Incidents Per Day Since Hamas Pogrom in Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran Says Eight Arrested for Suspected Links to Israel’s Mossad Spy Agency
The Mossad recruitment ad. Photo: Screenshot.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday they had arrested eight people suspected of trying to transmit the coordinates of sensitive sites and details about senior military figures to Israel’s Mossad, Iranian state media reported.
They are accused of having provided the information to the Mossad spy agency during Israel’s air war on Iran in June, when it attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and killed top military commanders as well as civilians in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq.
Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities. The United States entered the war on June 22 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
A Guards statement alleged that the suspects had received specialized training from Mossad via online platforms. It said they were apprehended in northeastern Iran before carrying out their plans, and that materials for making launchers, bombs, explosives and booby traps had been seized.
State media reported earlier this month that Iranian police had arrested as many as 21,000 “suspects” during the 12-day war with Israel, though they did not say what these people had been suspected of doing.
Security forces conducted a campaign of widespread arrests and also stepped up their street presence during the brief war that ended in a US-brokered ceasefire.
Iran has executed at least eight people in recent months, including nuclear scientist Rouzbeh Vadi, hanged on August 9 for passing information to Israel about another scientist killed in Israeli airstrikes.
Human rights groups say Iran uses espionage charges and fast-tracked executions as tools for broader political repression.
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Body of Idan Shtivi, Murdered on Oct. 7, Retrieved from Gaza in Special IDF Operation
Idan Shtivi. Photo: Courtesy of the family
i24 News – The body of Idan Shtivi, a 28-year-old murdered by Palestinian jihadists at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, was recovered in a joint operation by the IDF and Shin Bet in central Gaza, it was cleared for publication on Saturday.
Shtivi’s remains were returned to Israel alongside the body of Ilan Weiss, another hostage killed during the October 7 massacre.
“Idan Shtivi was abducted from the Tel Gama area and brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists after acting to rescue and evacuate others from the Nova music festival on October 7th, 2023. He was 28 years old at the time of his death,” read an IDF press release.
“Following an identification process conducted at the National Center for Forensic Medicine, along with the Israel Police and the Military Rabbinate, the Hostages and Missing Persons Headquarters notified his family.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Shviti “was a gifted student of sustainability and governance, and a courageous individual” who acted heroically on October 7, helping others flee.
“He was killed in the process and his body was abducted to Gaza by Hamas. My wife and I send our heartfelt condolences to the Shtivi family. So far, 207 hostages have been returned, 148 of them alive. We will continue to act tirelessly and decisively to bring back all our hostages—living and deceased.”
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Woman Stabbed at Ottawa Grocery Store in Latest Antisemitic Attack
A social media post by the alleged attacker, Joseph Rooke of Cornwall, Ontario. Photo: Screenshot via i24
i24 News – The stabbing of a Jewish woman at an Ottawa grocery by a man with a long history of antisemitic posts on social media, the latest antisemitic hate crime in Canada, sparked outrage and prompted condemnation from officials including the prime minister.
Both the victim and the attacker are in their 70s. The woman is reportedly in serious condition.
The suspect was identified as Joseph Rooke, who has authored a series of lengthy rambling screeds on social media, ranting against Israel and Jews.
“Judaism is the world’s oldest cult,” he writes in one post, going on to say “over time jews have become insidious in governments, businesses, media conglomerates, and educational institutions in order to do what they do better than anyone else. Jews are the world’s masters of propaganda, gaslighting, demonization, demagoguery, and outright lying. Using their collective wealth they have become masters of reprisal.”
“I am under no obligation whatsoever, legal, moral, or otherwise, to like jews and I do not. If that means I meet the jewish definition of an anti-semite, so be it.”
Canada has seen a steep spike in antisemitic attacks over the past two years, including a recent incident in Montreal where a Hasidic Jew was beaten in front on his children.
After Prime Minister Mark Carney condemned the incident, many, including former Israel’s ambassador the US Michael Oren, pointed out that Carney’s rhetoric and policies contribute to the increasing insecurity of Canada’s Jewish community through uncritical embrace of outrageous and easily disprovable allegations that Israel and its supporters were guilty of the worst crimes against humanity.