Merkel again permits Iranian protest calling for Israel’s destruction

German Jews and politicians urged Berlin authorities to cancel the scheduled May Al Quds Day protest against the existence of Israel, in which Hezbollah and neo-Nazi members routinely take part.

By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL
Demonstrators attend an 'al-Quds Day' protest rally in Berlin, Germany, July 11, 2015 (photo credit: FABRIZIO BENSCH / REUTERS)
Demonstrators attend an 'al-Quds Day' protest rally in Berlin, Germany, July 11, 2015
(photo credit: FABRIZIO BENSCH / REUTERS)
The German federal government is again slated to allow an Iranian regime-sponsored demonstration that calls for the obliteration of Israel’s nearly seven million Jews to take place in the heart of Berlin.
German Jews and politicians urged the Berlin authorities to pull the plug on the Quds Day protest against the existence of Israel scheduled for May.
“A deeply divisive and inhuman demonstration,” Free Democratic Party politician Sebastian Czaja told the B.Z., a German tabloid paper. “We must not let this mindset take public space away from us.”
The Jerusalem Post reported on Sunday that the Classic Days auto show in Berlin’s main shopping district was canceled because, according to the B.Z., “the anti-Jewish Quds Day demonstration was permitted by the authorities at the same time.”
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, launched Quds Day in 1979, calling for the destruction of Israel. Al-Quds is the Arabic word for Jerusalem. The Berlin Quds Day demonstration has been held each year since 1996.
The Quds Day rally attracts members of the terrorist organizations Hezbollah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Neo-Nazis have also participated in the demonstration, where salutes to Hitler have been documented, according to the B.Z.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told the Post: “Berlin leaders should spare us crocodile tears when [a] spate of anti-Jewish attacks continue. They accurately tally antisemitic incidents while abetting Jew-hatred and Holocaust deniers. Despicable. Mocks the dead and endangers living Jews.”
Kai Wegner, the state chairman of the Christian Democratic Union party in Berlin, told the B.Z.: “I have no understanding that the Classic Days, a favorite of the public, is being replaced by a hate demonstration.”
“The Quds demonstration should be prohibited,” he said. “A march of fanatical enemies of Israel who openly express their antisemitism does not fit into the heart of our cosmopolitan and tolerant city.”
Berlin Mayor Michael Müller has claimed that legal action to stop the Quds Day demonstration would not meet the court’s criteria for a ban. There are doubts as to whether Müller’s contention is true because the law has not been tested.
Dr. Elio Adler, chairman of the German-Jewish organization Values Initiative, told the Berlin paper: “If the antisemites use the loopholes of the rule of law without being disturbed, then we have to clarify, in the same detail, how they can be stopped in the future.”
US officials, including Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell, who is also the ambassador to Germany, have urged Merkel’s administration to ban the entire terrorist entity Hezbollah, a main force behind Quds Day in the federal republic.
Merkel and Interior Minister Horst Seehofer from her Christian Union Party have opted to not crackdown on Hezbollah, to the frustration of German Jews and counterterrorism experts.
German intelligence agencies have said there are 1,050 Hezbollah operatives in Germany. The Hezbollah members and supporters raise funds for Hezbollah in Lebanon and recruit new members.
The Quds Day demonstration is supported by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Last May, Germany’s Bundestag defined BDS as antisemitic.
The Post sent press queries to Dr. Felix Klein, the federal commissioner for combating antisemitism, and Berlin’s official for dealing with antisemitism, Lorenz Korgel. Klein has refused to call for a full ban of Hezbollah, an organization that has murdered Jews and Iranian dissidents in Europe.
Cooper told the Post: “Of course there should be a chorus of German officials at all levels of government, led by Dr. Klein, calling for the permanent banning of al-Quds this year and forever.”
Klein, Korgel and the next Berlin mayor, as well the state secretary of Berlin’s intelligence, “should demand action” for a ban of Hezbollah, Cooper said.


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