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Berlin Jews Facing ‘Extremely Tense’ Situation, City’s Top Antisemitism Official Warns
A protester wrapped in an Israeli flag at a rally against antisemitism at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Photo: Reuters/Lisi Niesner
Jews in Berlin are facing an “extremely tense” situation amid rising hostility emanating from the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in southern Israel, the German capital’s top official combating antisemitism warned on Wednesday.
“Since the barbaric antisemitic terrorist attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, the security situation for Jews and Israelis in Berlin has been extremely tense,” Samuel Salzborn — the antisemitism officer for the state of Berlin — told the taz news outlet. “We had a series of extremely aggressive antisemitic gatherings and rallies, the daubing of residential buildings with antisemitic symbols, an attempted arson attack on the synagogue on Brunnenstrasse, and most recently several destructions of Hanukkah menorahs. Since then, the whole thing has become more widespread, for example at universities, where Jews are treated with hostility.”
Asked whether stiffer security measures were warranted, Salzborn noted the increased police presence outside synagogues and other Jewish communal buildings. “The big risk is everyday life: situations and places in which you cannot provide full protection,” he said. “You never know exactly where in Berlin something can happen. Many live with the great, understandable, and justified fear that they could be spontaneously attacked if they are identified as Jews, for example by wearing a necklace with the Star of David.”
Salzborn highlighted the role of Islamist and pro-Hamas organizations in stirring antisemitic sentiment, describing groups such as Samidoun — a Palestinian prisoner solidarity organization that was banned following the Oct. 7 atrocities in Israel — as the “drivers” of such discourse.
“I would venture to say cautiously: If the federal minister of the interior had announced the ban earlier, the escalations here would not have been so severe,” Salzborn commented. “An antisemitic meeting does not mobilize several thousand people spontaneously and out of nowhere. These are organizational structures that coordinate this, call for it, and set slogans.”
On the question of antisemitism among Germany’s Muslim communities, Salzborn highlighted the historical context, pointing out that during the Nazi era, support for Hitler’s regime was widespread in the Arab world. “It is clear that not all Muslims hold antisemitic positions,” he remarked. “But what the people representing them say is also crucial in this milieu: How do they control things, how do they influence things? Islamists focus on hatred of Jews, and if there are no opposing voices from a Muslim milieu, it stays in the room.”
The post Berlin Jews Facing ‘Extremely Tense’ Situation, City’s Top Antisemitism Official Warns first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
i24 News – Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that the government would establish an administration to encourage the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
“We are establishing a migration administration, we are preparing for this under the leadership of the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and Defense Minister [Israel Katz],” he said at a Land of Israel Caucus at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. “The budget will not be an obstacle.”
Referring to the plan championed by US President Donald Trump, Smotrich noted the “profound and deep hatred towards Israel” in Gaza, adding that “sources in the American government” agreed “that it’s impossible for two million people with hatred towards Israel to remain at a stone’s throw from the border.”
The administration would be under the Defense Ministry, with the goal of facilitating Trump’s plan to build a “Riviera of the Middle East” and the relocation of hundreds of thousands of Gazans for rebuilding efforts.
“If we remove 5,000 a day, it will take a year,” Smotrich said. “The logistics are complex because you need to know who is going to which country. It’s a potential for historical change.”
The post Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – The Knesset’s (Israeli parliament’s) Special Committee for Foreign Workers held a discussion on Sunday to examine the needs of wounded and disabled IDF soldiers and the response foreign caregivers could provide.
During the discussion, data from the Defense Minister revealed that the number of registered IDF wounded and disabled veterans rose from 62,000 to 78,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023. “Most of them are reservists and 51 percent of the wounded are up to 30 years old,” the ministry’s report said. The number will increase, the ministry assesses, as post-trauma cases emerge.
The committee chairwoman, Knesset member Etty Atiya (Likud), emphasized the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy for the wounded and to remove obstacles. “There is no dispute that the IDF disabled have sacrificed their bodies and souls for the people of Israel, for the state of Israel,” she said. Addressing the veterans, she continued: “And we, as public representatives and public servants alike, must do everything, but everything, to improve your lives in any way possible, to alleviate your pain and the distress of your family members who are no less affected than you.”
Currently, extensions are being given to the IDF veterans on a three-month basis, which Atiya said creates uncertainty and fear among the patients.
“The committee calls on the Interior Minister [Moshe Arbel] to approve as soon as possible the temporary order on our table, so that it will reach the approval of the Knesset,” she said, adding that she “intends to personally approach the Director General of the Population Authority [Shlomo Mor-Yosef] on the matter in order to promote a quick and stable solution.”
The post Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Sky News Arabia in Damascus, Syria in this handout picture released by the Syrian Presidency on August 8, 2023. Syrian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Over 1,300 people were killed in two days of fighting in Syria between security forces under the new Syrian Islamist leaders and fighters from ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect on the other hand, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday.
Since Thursday, 1,311 people had been killed, according to the Observatory, including 830 civilians, mainly Alawites, 231 Syrian government security personnel, and 250 Assad loyalists.
The intense fighting broke out late last week as the Alawite militias launched an offensive against the new government’s fighters in the coastal region of the country, prompting a massive deployment ordered by new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“We must preserve national unity and civil peace as much as possible and… we will be able to live together in this country,” al-Sharaa said, as quoted in the BBC.
The death toll represents the most severe escalations since Assad was ousted late last year, and is one of the most costly in terms of human lives since the civil war began in 2011.
The counter-offensive launched by al-Sharaa’s forces was marked by reported revenge killings and atrocities in the Latakia region, a stronghold of the Alawite minority in the country.
The post Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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