BERLIN – The chairwoman of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Ileana
Ros- Lehtinen (R-Florida), sent a letter – ahead of the annual Al-Qods Day
marches in Europe on Saturday – to José Manuel Barroso, president of the
European Commission, urging the EU to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist
organization.
European Hezbollah supporters play a key role in the
marches.
Ros-Lehtinen wrote, “Hezbollah has executed attacks in the
Middle East, Europe, and Latin America, killing hundreds of people and wounding
countless others.”
She added that a ban is warranted because of
Hezbollah’s active weapons and financial support for a range of terrorist groups
– including Hamas and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
A former social
democratic deputy in the Bundestag, Gert Weisskirchen, spoke at the “No Al-Qods
Day” rally on Saturday in Berlin and called on the EU “to stand with Israel,
without ifs and ands.”
Germany’s domestic intelligence noted in a new
report that the number of Hezbollah members increased from 900 in 2010 to a
current figure of 950 radical Islamists.
Pro-Israel groups and speakers
called on the German government on Saturday at the anti-Al-Qods Day protest to
ban Hezbollah in the Federal Republic because it promotes terrorism and modern
anti-Semitism.
A police official at the demonstration in the heart of
downtown Berlin told The Jerusalem Post that a total of 340 pro-Israel
demonstrators were present. Jörg Fischer- Aharon, a spokesman for the No Al-Qods
Day coalition, told the Post that 400 pro- Israel supporters appeared at the
event.
Police officials and attendees from the pro-Israel groups told the
Post that 600 Islamists marched at the pro- Iran and pro-Hezbollah event.
According to observers, the Islamists attracted 200 additional supporters at
this year’s event. A number of the Islamists aligned themselves with the Assad
regime in Syria.
Dr. Clemens Heni, a leading German expert on Islamic
anti-Semitism, told the Post that “two of the most dangerous Islamic groups
“organized the Al-Qods Day march.
Heni cited the Muslim- Markt and the
Islamic Center in Hamburg, which are both pro- Iranian Supreme
Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He said it is a “scandal” that the authorities
allowed the group to protest because they are aligned with
Hezbollah.
“Every neo-Nazi demonstration that calls for the destruction
of Israel would be banned,” he added, but the Islamists are permitted to agitate
for the violent end of Israel.
Supporters of Hezbollah at the Al-Qods
demonstration in Berlin sported yellow shirts with the group’s motto and a
machine gun with the English word “Resistance.”
According to Hezbollah
experts, the term “resistance” is employed to mean violence against
Israel.
US and Israeli intelligence officials attributed the suicide
bombing last month in Bulgaria’s Black Sea resort town of Burgas – that killed
five Israelis tourists and their Bulgarian bus driver – to an Iranian-Hezbollah
terrorist operation.
Sharon Adler, editor-in-chief of the Jewish women’s
website AVIVA-Berlin, told the Post that the Al-Qods Day protest and the neo-
Nazi party NPD should be banned.
Daniel Kilpert, a representatives of the
Coordinating Council of German Non- Governmental Organizations against
anti-Semitism, spoke at the protest. Kilpert told the Post that his organization
was slated to send a letter to the Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Bundestag,
urging the German government to outlaw Hezbollah. The German authorities,
including its political class, however, have showed no appetite over the years
for a ban of Hezbollah.
The head of Berlin’s 10,500-member Jewish
community, Dr. Gideon Joffe, told the Post that there was a disconnect in German
society.
The country “does not allow the questioning of the Shoah” in
terms of denying its existence, but permits calls for the “destruction of
Israel.”
Critics have long argued that Germany fails to address lethal
Islamic anti- Semitism in the Federal Republic, largely because the country is
consumed with mainly obsolete forms of anti-Semitism. Joffe urged the government
to outlaw Al-Qods Day.
The Post observed two anti- Zionist Jews from the
fringe group Netorei Karta marching with Hezbollah and Iran supporters. Reuven
Cabelman, a spokesman for Netorei Karta, is thought to have been present.
Cabelman, believed to be a convert to Judaism, is a diehard fan of Iran’s
Islamic system.
It is unclear if the second Netorei Karta member, who was
in a wheelchair, is also a convert to Judaism. At the march, the Netorei
representatives promoted the message that “Judaism is not Zionism and Zionism is
not Judaism.”
The Al-Qods Day marchers held signs in support of the
anti-Israel German Nobel literature laureate Günter Grass. The author slammed
Israel in a poem earlier this year and largely championed the cause of Iran’s
regime.