Arab groups in Berlin once again protested against the U.S. plan to move its Israeli embassy to Jerusalem with demonstrators calling for an “intifada,” or violent uprising, against the Jewish state.
The Tuesday evening protests occurred in front of the Berlin central train station and saw a crowd of a few hundred protestors participate. Many chanted various anti-Israel slogans such as “Down, Down Israel” while others were arrested for giving the single finger hand gesture associated with support for the Islamic State terror group Kronen Zeitung reports.
Before the protest took place, Berlin police warned the organisers that burning the Israeli flag and overtly anti-Semitic chants would not be tolerated. While no Israeli flags were burned at the event several anti-Israeli chants were heard, though none of the 400 police present arrested any of those chanting them.
Violent clashes did briefly break out among the protestors which were caught on video by a journalist from German paper Die Welt. The cause of the violence was unknown.
Heftige Rangeleien bei Anti-Israel-Demo am #Washingtonplatz in Berlin. @welt pic.twitter.com/bzReZJJgkc
— Martin Heller (@Ma_Heller) December 12, 2017
The protest comes only days after a similar protest over the weekend at the Brandenburg Gate in which protesters burned Israeli flags.
The event was soundly condemned by German politicians including Chancellor Angela Merkel who said Monday, “We oppose all forms of anti-Semitism and xenophobia. The state must intervene by all means of the rule of law.”
German Police Union Boss: Politicians Give Empty Words Against Antisemitic Incidents While Migrant Policies Make It Worse https://t.co/BHFMj1OUPV
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) December 12, 2017
The condemnations were not good enough for German police union head Rainer Wendt who slammed the mass migration policies of the German government which he said had made the problem of anti-Semitism worse.
“The same politicians who continue this immigration and deportation drama by illegally allowing in more and more foreigners from the most anti-Semitic region of the world and not even deporting the offenders among them, then proclaim that they are doing everything against anti-Semitism,” he said.
Similar protests occurred over the weekend in Sweden in the heavily migrant populated city of Malmö where anti-Israeli activists chanted, “We have announced the intifada from Malmö. We want our freedom back, and we will shoot the Jews.”
A synagogue in the Swedish city of Gothenburg was also attacked over the weekend when masked men attempted to burn it to the ground with firebombs. Three men were later arrested and according to some sources were recently arrived migrants from the Middle East.
On Monday, another firebombing attack was reported at a Jewish chapel in Malmö.
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