A senior German government official accused the opposition far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party of helping make anti-Semitism “presentable” again in Germany by challenging a longtime consensus about how to deal with its Nazi past.

Felix Klein, who holds a newly created government post tasked with fighting anti-Semitism, said in remarks to online news site watson.de on Thursday that the AfD tolerated party members calling for a new “culture of remembrance”.

“I don’t want to say the AfD is anti-Semitic, per se, but it tolerates representatives who are demanding a new policy of remembrance,” he said. “They initiated this discussion about drawing a line (under the Holocaust) and that is very dangerous because it helps make anti-Semitism presentable again.”

The AfD had no immediate comment on Klein’s comments. The party has denied being anti-Semitic or racist but has drawn sharp criticism for not sanctioning a key party figure after he called for a “180 degree turnaround” in the way Germany seeks to atone for Nazi crimes.

The AfD swept into the lower house of parliament for the first time after September elections, tapping into widespread frustration about Chancellor Angela Merkel’s 2015 decision to open the borders to over 1 million mostly Muslim migrants.

Klein’s post was created by Merkel’s conservatives and the centre-left Social Democrats as part of their coalition pact amid reports from Germany’s small Jewish community about what they see as rising levels of prejudice and hatred.

Anti-Semitism is a highly sensitive issue in Germany, whose 1933-45 Nazi regime murdered 6 million Jews in the Holocaust.

Klein said last month anti-Semitism was still rooted largely in extreme right-wing ideology and was not only being driven by Germany’s growing Muslim population.

German schools have long taught about the Holocaust, but rights groups say the rise of the AfD and other far-right parties has frayed taboos against anti-Semitic utterances and other hate speech.

Klein has also called for a national database to record anti-Semitic incidents, including by Muslims, that are not included in crime statistics.

He told watson.de that he would raise the issue with the German Conference on Islam, and encourage Muslim groups across Germany to take on the fight against anti-Semitism.

“This would not only send an important signal, but would allow Muslim groups to ask for solidarity when a mosque or a woman wearing a head covering are attacked,” he said.

]]> 7317 https://www.faith-matters.org/germany-to-step-up-efforts-to-combat-anti-semitism/ Sun, 21 Jan 2018 13:32:49 +0000 https://www.faith-matters.org/?p=7050

Germany’s lower house of parliament on Thursday voted to step up efforts to combat anti-Semitism and called for the creation of a new government post to oversee the issue, backed by an independent panel of experts.

The proposal was jointly introduced and backed by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives, the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), the pro-business Free Democrats and the Greens.

The far-right Alternative for Germany party also voted for the measure, while the radical Left party voted against, citing what it called substantive deficiencies in the proposal.

The voice vote, which lays the groundwork for a spate of legislative initiatives during this session of parliament, was welcomed widely by Jewish groups.

Volker Kauder, head of the conservatives in parliament, spoke in favour of the proposal given Germany’s Nazi past and the murder of 6 million Jews during the Third Reich.

“We have a particular responsibility to ensure that anti-Semitism does not continue to grow in our country,” he said during the parliamentary debate.

Kauder also vowed to examine whether Germany could ban the burning of Israeli flags, following incidents in December during protests against a U.S. decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Anti-Semitism remains a hugely sensitive issue in Germany more than 70 years after the end of the Nazi-era Holocaust.

Jewish and civil rights groups have long called for the appointment of a special commissioner to address growing anti-Semitism, which they say has been fuelled by right-wing populism and the arrival of many migrants from mostly Muslim countries.

The Central Council of Jews welcomed the vote, calling it an important signal that their concerns were being addressed.

“The fight against anti-Semitism is all of our responsibility,” the group said in a statement. “The respectful treatment of minorities is part of the core values of our democracy.”

Josef Schuster, the group’s president, called for increased efforts to include anti-bias training in integration courses for migrants, but explicitly rejected any effort to instrumentalise the issue to discriminate against Muslims or others.

Jewish groups last month called for legal changes and increased enforcement to crack down on anti-Semitic acts following the burning of Jewish symbols and Israeli flags.

The proposal calls for the creation of a new commissioner post to coordinate efforts to tackle anti-Semitism by the federal government, states and civil society.

It foresees the creation of an independent advisory panel with Jewish and non-Jewish experts from academic, education and other sectors, as well as a federal-state commission.

The proposal also calls for improved gathering of statistics on anti-Semitic incidents, tighter laws banning Holocaust denial on the internet and consequences for the immigration status of foreign citizens who incite hatred.

]]> 7050 https://www.faith-matters.org/merkel-fire-call-turks-germany-show-loyalty/ Thu, 25 Aug 2016 01:13:10 +0000 https://faith-matters.org/?p=5814

German politicians on Wednesday criticised Chancellor Angela Merkel for saying that people with a Turkish background who live in Germany should show “loyalty to our country”, calling her comment unnecessarily divisive at a particularly difficult time.

Adding to mounting strains on relations between Germany and Turkey, a major partner in regional attempts to stem mass migration, a leaked government report last Wednesday alleged that Turkey was a hub for Islamist groups.

German media have also reported that the Turkish government’s MIT intelligence service had a network of 6,000 informants in Germany.

In an interview published on Tuesday, Merkel had told the Passauer Neuen Presse newspaper: “We expect those with a Turkish background who have lived in Germany for a long time to develop a high degree of loyalty to our country.”

In exchange, she said, Germany was trying to be open to their concerns and to understand them.

German integration commissioner Aydan Ozugus, a member of the Social Democrats that rule in coalition with Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats, criticised her comments in an interview with newspaper chain Funke Mediengruppe.

She said a clear majority of those with a Turkish background “felt allegiance to our country” and should not be assumed to have conflicting loyalties.

Volker Beck, migration spokesman for the Green party, told the Handelsblatt newspaper: “Questioning the loyalty of your own citizens without any particular reason is a practice that we generally see only in authoritarian regimes.”

He said people with a Turkish background needed to support German values such as human dignity and human rights, regardless of language, religion and ethnic origin, not declare “loyalty” to one country.

Tensions are already high in the 3-million strong Turkish community in Germany between supporters of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and those of a U.S.-based cleric he blames for a thwarted coup on July 15.

Erdogan backers have demonstrated in several German cities since the attempted coup, shops have been boycotted by rival sides and hate mail has been sent to anti-Erdogan politicians.