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Germany bans neo-Nazi group to send ‘signal against racism and antisemitism’
(JTA) — Germany has banned a neo-Nazi group after raiding the homes of its leaders across the country, in a move the government said “sends a clear signal against racism and antisemitism.”
The Hammerskins, a local spinoff of a group founded in the United States in the late 1980s, are accused of promoting criminal activities and of opposing the German constitution. According to a recent report from Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the group was the only the only remaining neo-Nazi organization active nationwide.
“The ban of the Hammerskins Germany is a hard blow against organized right-wing extremism,” German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said on Tuesday. “With this ban, we are putting an end to the inhumane activities of an internationally active neo-Nazi association in Germany… This sends a clear signal against racism and antisemitism.”
The German group, founded in the 1990s, reportedly has only 130 known members but is considered influential in the neo-Nazi scene. German police raided the homes of 28 suspected leading Hammerskins members in 10 states across Germany on Tuesday.
It is rare for Germany to ban a political organization, thanks to postwar guarantees of free speech and assembly. Exceptions occur when an organization threatens the democratic state, or if it denies or glorifies the country’s Nazi past.
The Hammerskins are reportedly the 20th right-wing extremist organization that Germany has banned. For example, in 2007, Germany banned Collegium Humanum, its member organization Bauernhilfe and the Association for the Rehabilitation of Those Persecuted for Denying the Holocaust” as “reservoirs of organized Holocaust denial.” In 2020, the government banned the groups Combat 18, Nordadler, and Sturmbrigade 44/Wolfsbrigade 44; and in 2021, they banned Nationale Sozialisten Rostock and its spinoff, the Baltik Korps.
But in 2017, to the disappointment of Jewish groups in Germany, the supreme court rejected a ban on the far-right party NPD — the National Democratic Party of Germany, which changed its name this year to “The Homeland” — saying they were not dangerous enough to warrant such an extreme response. The NPD never succeeded in gaining parliamentary seats on the national level.
Meanwhile, the right-wing party Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, founded in 2013, has made continual political headway, reaching the national parliament, the Bundestag, and thus receiving taxpayer funding for their activities and infrastructure. There have been calls for it to be banned from politics over its anti-immigrant platform and the Holocaust relativization of some leading members.
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The post Germany bans neo-Nazi group to send ‘signal against racism and antisemitism’ appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Treasure Trove: An Israeli stamp reflects the complex mix of emotions about Oct. 7
Michelle Shalmiev was born in a village in the Caucasian mountains and immigrated to Israel and settled on a kibbutz when she was 14. Her series “Putting Your Stamp on History” […]
The post Treasure Trove: An Israeli stamp reflects the complex mix of emotions about Oct. 7 appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Download a special Oct. 7 print edition of The Canadian Jewish News
Printable obituaries of eight Canadian victims and more of our original coverage.
The post Download a special Oct. 7 print edition of The Canadian Jewish News appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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The Jewish People Perform Another Miracle
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is seen addressing supporters, in Beirut, Lebanon. Photo: Reuters.
JNS.org – This Oct. 7 will not only be an anniversary of tears, of pure contrition, even if the memory is burning as the people of Israel live. As to how, it wasn’t at all obvious. Our whole history is made of miracles—from the splitting of the sea to escape from the Egyptians to the Inquisition to the pogroms to the thousand other genocidal attacks to which the Jews have been subjected. In every case, the results are always incredible and surprising, especially for how we have emerged active, faithful to our Torah tradition and committed to the return to Jerusalem until we made it happen.
The War of Independence in 1948 was fought by concentration-camp veterans, yet we defeated all the Arab armies, united in hatred, who marched against us. Later, in 1967, 1973 wars were won by a hair’s breadth with miraculous strokes of imagination and leaders who gave birth to ideas that people would have expected. No one would have ever bet a euro, penny or shekel on the idea that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and his entire hierarchy could be eliminated, petrifying Iran, especially since we have already reduced its other favorite proxy, Hamas, to pieces. And now we have bombed Iran’s other proxy, the Houthis, some 2,000 kilometers away, destroying the airport from which they receive their weapons and aid from the ayatollahs. The Islamic Republic’s leader, Ali Khamenei, is reportedly hiding underground, the Iraqi and Syrian Shi’ites are waiting to see if they are next, and cities controlled by Tehran are shaking.
As President Joe Biden said, it is a measure of justice, but one that Israel has undertaken in an impossible fashion, defending its citizens amid a thousand prohibitions with determination and without fear. Only in this way can a 76-year-old young state, which has been attacked from all sides, defend itself. The country’s existence is the latest chapter in the history of a people born many millennia ago in the Land of Israel, who are finally back home and defending their state.
The war is certainly not over, as Hezbollah reportedly had 100,000 fighters. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows that he must see this fight through to the end, despite the international pressure to which Israel has been subjected for nearly a year. Israel’s leadership understands that its very existence is at definitive risk if there is no “new Middle East” in the aftermath of Oct. 7.
While previous generations and Israeli leaders hoped that peace agreements would establish peace in the region, today’s leaders know that there is also a need for battle to stop those who, dominated by absurd fanatical and religious beliefs, wish to kill you. (After all, what do the Houthi rebels in Yemen have to do with the Jews and Israel?)
This is the lesson of our time—not just for Israel and the Jewish people but for everyone. The Jewish people are writing a new page in history, one in which the free world must write and fight alongside them, as it is a battle for the survival of Western ideals. Israel has eliminated the two most dangerous terrorist groups in the world—Hamas and Hezbollah—with operations that will set a precedent for decades. And it challenges Iran. I would like to hear the applause, please.
The post The Jewish People Perform Another Miracle first appeared on Algemeiner.com.