RSS
Thousands of Germans and wide range of politicians show up to pro-Israel Berlin rally
(JTA) — Several thousand Berliners joined a rally in support of Israel and against antisemitism on Sunday at the city’s famed Brandenburg Gate as incidents targeting Jews, tied to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, continue to rise across the continent.
Organizers estimated over 20,000 participants turned up for the rally, which included exhortations from politicians, Christian leaders and relatives of families held hostage by Hamas in Gaza. Police did not report any disruptions but estimated a crowd closer to 10,000, which would still make the gathering likely the largest in Europe since Hamas’ attacks on Israel on Oct. 7.
The rally came against the background of a surge in antisemitic incidents in Germany, as well as several large anti-Israel protests across the country. A subsequent crackdown on hate speech related to Israel and Jews has drawn resentment from some on the left who say German authorities are curbing their freedom to criticize Israel.
But speakers at Sunday’s rally urged Germany to take an even tougher stand against those who call for Israel’s destruction and who threaten Jews living in Germany.
Speakers, including Germany’s president, Jewish leaders and Israel’s ambassador to Germany, stood up for Israel’s so-called special relationship with Germany, as an outgrowth of the Holocaust. Pacifists and hawks alike agreed that Israel has the right to defend itself and that Jews in Germany must be protected from antisemitic acts. And several called on German and European politicians to harden their positions against Iran, which they described as an exporter of terror.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that protecting Jewish life was a “civic duty” as well as a federal mandate. “Nothing has been the same since Oct. 7th,” he said at the event, which was broadcast live.
“Never since the end of the Shoah have so many Jews been murdered in an attack. Israel has the right to defend itself against this terror,” Steinmeier said, turning to address relatives of German-Israeli hostages, who stood with him on the stage. “We Germans are suffering, we are praying, we are pleading with you.”
Many speakers referred to the suffering of Gazan civilians under Hamas and called for humanitarian corridors to be set up. Steinmeier said Hamas only “pretends” to represent the population under their control. It is left to others, like Germany, to protect them.
In Germany, Jews and their institutions must be protected from terrorist threats, said Daniel Botmann, managing director of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, noting that perpetrators tried to firebomb a synagogue in Berlin last week.
“The mobs in the streets of Germany don’t represent the Palestinian people,” Botmann said. But perpetrators and agitators who turn out not to be citizens should be deported, he said, and there should be severe punishment for those who are citizens, so that they will think it over “100 times” before trying something like this again.
“We need more than just empathy and promises of solidarity. We need action,” he said.
If Germany does not crack down on extremists in its midst, “the terror from the Gaza Strip will also reach Germany,” said Ron Prosor, Israel’s ambassador to Germany.
“Synagogues in Germany have become targets. Stars of David have been painted on houses where Jews live. This cannot be tolerated,” he said.
“We will be measured by deeds and not just words,” continued Prosor, whose grandparents and father fled Nazi Germany. “All of us here are on the right side of history and we are strong if we stand together.”
Much mention was made of Germany’s support for Israel and Jewish life, given the history of the Holocaust. “There is a clear line between good and evil,” said Green Party leader Omid Nouripour, who is Muslim. “Hamas is evil, and we have to reject it.”
“It is high time that all those who were abused and taken away, all those whose suffering … come home,” he added. “We have to do everything possible” to that end. “We stand firmly on the side of Israel and democracy.”
In Berlin “there were people who were happy, who handed out candy and celebrated” after the events of Oct. 7, said the Iranian-born politician Bijan Djir-Sarai, who is general secretary of the Free Democratic Party. “We don’t want these people here.”
But most Muslims in Germany reject such attitudes, emphasized Social Democratic Party leader Saskia Esken. “The Muslims who live with us do not deserve this hatred,” she said, warning against allowing right-wing extremists to whitewash themselves by “turning the Hamas’ terror into a fundamental hatred of Islam.”
The event included words by relatives of Israeli hostages who hold dual citizenship with Germany, musical performances, and recitations of Jewish prayers for healing and mourning, led by Yitzchak Ehrenberg, a local Orthodox rabbi.
It was organized under the motto “Stand up against terror, hatred and anti-Semitism – in solidarity and compassion with Israel,” and it included a broad alliance of political initiatives and parties, trade unions and religious groups — including the Council of the Protestant Church of Germany and the German Catholic Bishops’ Conference.
—
The post Thousands of Germans and wide range of politicians show up to pro-Israel Berlin rally appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
How the Left and Right Converge to Form a Horseshoe of Antisemitism
US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) speaks at a press conference with activists calling for a ceasefire in Gaza in front of the Capitol in Washington, DC, Dec. 14, 2023. Photo: Annabelle Gordon / CNP/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
“One of the things that antisemitism does is, it creates coalitions,” Rabbi David Wolpe recently observed.
How ironic that he made this comment on the show of Theo Von, a right-wing podcaster who interviewed Trump during the 2024 election campaign. Some months later, upon his return from a trip to Qatar, Von suddenly felt the need to talk about the alleged “genocide” in Gaza, only to be quoted favorably in the hard-left music magazine Rolling Stone.
The far-right and the far-left have been coming together over antisemitism at least since 1961, when 10 members of the American Nazi Party attended a Nation of Islam (NOI) rally. Members of the NOI escorted the Nazis to front-row seats for a speech by Malcolm X, who was filling in for the originally scheduled speaker, Elijah Muhammad.
More recently, in 2019, former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke called Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN) “the most important member of the US Congress” for her “Defiance to Z.O.G. [Zionist Occupied Government].”
That same year, the shooter at the Chabad synagogue in Poway, California, left behind a manifesto that both embraced white supremacist ideology and incorporated tropes promoted by the Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan and the anti-Israel BDS movement, such as the false claims that Jews had a “large role in every slave trade for the past two thousand years” or that Jews persecute “Christians of modern day Syria and Palestine.” In 2021, left-wing academics adopted the language of David Duke and of the Nazis when they accused Israel of “Jewish supremacy.”
So it shouldn’t really have been a huge surprise to see this marriage of convenience beginning to make its way into today’s free-for-all media landscape. Rolling Stone, whose political slant generally is hard left and whose coverage of Israel, as CAMERA has documented at length, is egregiously biased, gushed over Von:
On Tuesday [May 19], comedian and podcaster Theo Von — who promoted the president during his 2024 campaign and accompanied him on a trip to Qatar last week — said the U.S. was “complicit” in creating the horrors that were taking place in Gaza.
“It feels to me like it’s a genocide that’s happening while we’re alive here … in front of our lives. And I feel like I should say something,” Von said on this week’s episode of the This Past Weekend podcast….
Pope Leo and Von couldn’t be more different, but frustration with the lack of progress toward a sustained cease-fire in Gaza, and the looming threat of more devastation to the region, reflect sentiments both in the U.S. and abroad.
There was a similar love-fest between Dave Smith, the conservative libertarian comedian best known for spouting nonsense on The Joe Rogan Experience, and Krystal Ball, the hard-left host of the online political news show Breaking Point, on Monday. Once again, Dave Smith let loose a dizzying blitz of false information, including making the claim that Iran was in compliance with non-proliferation agreements.
Smith said, “we’re left in the position where you’re supposed to sit here and justify a sneak aggressive, preemptive attack, like somehow you’re supposed to feel like you’re the good guys in an absolute war of choice, against a country that does not have nuclear weapons … Iran is a member of the non-proliferation treaty….”
But despite Iran’s (partial) ratification of the NPT, there have long been concerns about its enrichment capabilities, its building of new nuclear facilities, and its lack of cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, leading up to the June 12 declaration by the IAEA that Iran was out of compliance with its NPT obligations, just a day before Israel’s attack. After that report, Iran threatened to leave the NPT altogether (although it’s clear it was not complying with the treaty).
And yet, instead of pointing any of this out, Ball responded, “and they’re [Israel] a rogue nation attacking like six of their neighbors as we speak and are not part of the non-proliferation [treaty] and we’re supposed to be cool with that” — while Smith nodded in agreement. Later in the show, in what may have been the only accurate claim made on that program, Ball remarked, “that’s the Israel horseshoe, between you and me, Dave.”
The October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel functioned as a siren call to antisemites everywhere: “It’s open season on the Jews.” Not only has this signal been heeded by certain individuals from both the far-left and the far-right, but a media environment that has no guardrails provides ample opportunities for these two nefarious groups to come together over their ignorance-fueled bigotry.
Karen Bekker is the Assistant Director in the Media Response Team at CAMERA, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis, and frequently writes about antisemitism in the media.
The post How the Left and Right Converge to Form a Horseshoe of Antisemitism first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Anti-Israel Activists Damage Planes at UK Military Base
An activist from Palestine Action sprays a military aircraft engine with red paint at RAF Brize Norton, to damage it, in Carterton, Britain, June 20, 2025, in this still image obtained from handout video. The group’s action was in protest of British military assistance to Israel, claiming that they, “interrupted Britain’s direct participation in the commission of genocide and war crimes across the Middle East”, stating on their website. Photo: Palestine Action/Handout via REUTERS
Anti-Israel activists broke into a Royal Air Force base in central England on Friday, damaging and spraying red paint over two planes used for refueling and transport.
Palestine Action said two members had entered the Brize Norton base in Oxfordshire, putting paint into the engines of the Voyager aircraft and further damaging them with crowbars.
“Despite publicly condemning the Israeli government, Britain continues to send military cargo, fly spy planes over Gaza and refuel US/Israeli fighter jets,” the group said in a statement, posting a video of the incident on X.
“Britain isn’t just complicit, it’s an active participant in the Gaza genocide and war crimes across the Middle East.”
Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned the “vandalism” as “disgraceful” in a post on X.
Britain’s defense ministry and police were investigating.
“It is our responsibility to support those who defend us,” the defense ministry said.
A spokesperson for Starmer said the government was reviewing security across all British defense sites.
Palestine Action is among groups that have regularly targeted defense firms and other companies in Britain linked to Israel since the start of the conflict in Gaza.
The group said it had also sprayed paint on the runway and left a Palestine flag there.
The Gaza war was triggered when Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists attacked Israel in October 2023, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages.
US ally Israel subsequently launched a military campaign in Gaza aimed at dismantling Hamas and freeing the hostages.
The post Anti-Israel Activists Damage Planes at UK Military Base first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
US Supreme Court Upholds Law on Suing Palestinian Authorities Over Terror Attacks
The US Supreme Court building is seen the morning before justices are expected to issue opinions in pending cases, in Washington, DC, June 14, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
The US Supreme Court upheld on Friday a statute passed by Congress to facilitate lawsuits against Palestinian authorities by Americans killed or injured in terrorist attacks abroad as plaintiffs pursue monetary damages for violence years ago in Israel and the West Bank.
The 9-0 ruling overturned a lower court’s decision that the 2019 law, the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, violated the rights of the Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organization to due process under the US Constitution.
Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, who authored the ruling, said the 2019 jurisdictional law comported with due process rights enshrined in the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment.
“It is permissible for the federal government to craft a narrow jurisdictional provision that ensures, as part of a broader foreign policy agenda, that Americans injured or killed by acts of terror have an adequate forum in which to vindicate their right” to compensation under a federal law known as the Antiterrorism Act of 1990, Roberts wrote.
The US government and a group of American victims and their families had appealed the lower court’s decision that struck down a provision of the law.
Among the plaintiffs are families who in 2015 won a $655 million judgment in a civil case alleging that the Palestinian organizations were responsible for a series of shootings and bombings around Jerusalem from 2002 to 2004. They also include relatives of Israeli-American Ari Fuld, who was fatally stabbed by a Palestinian in 2018.
“The plaintiffs, US families who had loved ones maimed or murdered in PLO-sponsored terror attacks, have been waiting for justice for many years,” said Kent Yalowitz, a lawyer for the plaintiffs.
“I am very hopeful that the case will soon be resolved without subjecting these families to further protracted and unnecessary litigation,” Yalowitz added.
The ongoing violence involving Israel and the Palestinians served as a backdrop to the case.
US courts for years have grappled over whether they have jurisdiction in cases involving the Palestinian Authority and PLO for actions taken abroad.
Under the language at issue in the 2019 law, the PLO and Palestinian Authority automatically “consent” to jurisdiction if they conduct certain activities in the United States or make payments to people who attack Americans.
Roberts in Friday’s ruling wrote that Congress and the president enacted the jurisdictional law based on their “considered judgment to subject the PLO and PA [Palestinian Authority] to liability in US courts as part of a comprehensive legal response to ‘halt, deter, and disrupt’ acts of international terrorism that threaten the life and limb of American citizens.”
New York-based US District Judge Jesse Furman ruled in 2022 that the law violated the due process rights of the PLO and Palestinian Authority. The New York-based 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling.
President Joe Biden’s administration initiated the government’s appeal, which subsequently was taken up by President Donald Trump’s administration. The Supreme Court heard arguments in the case on April 1.
The post US Supreme Court Upholds Law on Suing Palestinian Authorities Over Terror Attacks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.