A German state has decreed that migrants seeking to become citizens must formally acknowledge the state of Israel’s right to exist as the country attempts to deal with rising antisemitism.
The application process for citizenship naturalisation in the state of Saxony-Anhalt will now require that foreigners commit in writing “that they recognise Israel’s right to exist and condemn any efforts directed against the existence of the State of Israel.” Those who refuse to do so will not have their applications rejected and a note of their refusal will be logged in their immigration file.
The move was announced this week by the state’s interior minister, Tamara Zieschang, who argued that the policy should be adopted nationwide, German broadcaster Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk reported.
In addition to a formal commitment to Israel’s right to exist, migrants seeking to become citizens in Saxony-Anhalt will also face a process to determine whether or not they hold antisemitic beliefs, which Zieschang argued would violate the German constitution’s requirement to a commitment to a “free, democratic basic order.”
Zieschang, of the centrist Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party urged for the federal government in Berlin to adopt similar measures, with legislation to do so currently being considered in the Bundestag. It is doubtful that the leftist-led ‘traffic light’ coalition government of Olaf Scholz would back the bill, however, particularly given the open borders preferences of the coalition partner Green Party.
The domestic and legal policy spokesman for Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) parliamentary group in Saxony-Anhalt said that while the measure was in line with current legal regulations, the government may seek to close potential legal gaps.
Helge Lindh, the SPD rapporteur on antisemitism in the Bundestag, said that he believes the actions of the Saxony-Anhalt state government were legal, but warned that the requirement may be insufficient, saying that “the problem of anti-Israel hatred and anti-Semitism cannot be eliminated with a signature alone.”
The efforts to clamp down on antisemitism come amid a drastic increase in anti-Jewish incidents throughout Germany in the wake of the conflict between Israel and Hamas, with a 320 per cent increase in such incidents being recorded in the first month after the October 7th attacks on Israel.
The outpouring of antisemitism in Germany has seen a Jewish synagogue firebombed with Molotov cocktails in Berlin, Stars of David painted on the homes of Jewish people, and Jewish community leaders warning their people to not speak Hebrew or wear religious symbols in public.
The surge in antisemitism may be a feature of Germany’s open borders agenda over the past decade, with analysis from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation think tank finding earlier this year that Muslims in Germany were four times as likely as the rest of the population with antisemitic beliefs.
According to the think tank, Muslims were three times as likely to agree with the notion that Jewish people are “sneaky” and four times as likely than the general public to believe that Israel should not exist as a state.
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