Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said the AfD had promised to protect Jewish life, but there is “anti-Semitism” in every corner of the party, she claimed on Sunday.
The anti-immigration party has even brought “anti-Semitism into the state parliaments”. Kramp-Karrenbauer said: “Where we want to learn from the horrors of the past, their representatives speak of a ‘monument of shame’.”
AfD party leader Jörg Meuthen countered Kramp-Karrenbauer’s statements. She “seems to have an acute tendency to bold scholasticism that oppresses the simple insight that it is the policy of her own party that endangers Jewish life in this country like nothing else,” he remarked.
The AFD is “the only party that has the courage to be clear about this fact” Meuthen added. To blame the AfD for problems it caused itself is evidence of great despair and bad style, he said.
At the same time, the former prime minister of Saarland fiercely criticized anti-Semitism from the left and from the Islamic spectrum. Anti-Semitism also comes today “under the guise of Israel criticism”. “Left and extreme left anti-Semites speak of supposedly legitimate criticism of Israel, but deny the right of the existence of Israel,” she said.
Kramp-Karrenbauer also demanded increased vigilance against Islamic hatred of Jews in Germany. “Anti-Semitism is preached in mosques, runs on TV screens and YouTube clips, and is alive in schoolyards,” she said.
“In the past, too little attention was paid to this problem.” This will be strengthened “in those who come and in those who are already here,” she added.
Meanwhile, a rally against anti-Semitism on the Hermannplatz in Berlin had to be stopped prematurely, after Jewish participants were attacked and insulted.
In December, a demonstration of 1 200 Muslims at the Brandenburg Gate got out of hand when participants burned Israeli flags and chanted “Death to Israel” as well as “Child Murder Israel”.
Some 116 Palestinians have been killed and thousands injured by Israeli snipers in recent weeks, drawing international outrage at Israel’s deadly tactics against a peaceful march, Reuters reported.
Ahead of an EU meeting on Monday, Israeli politician Yair Lapid wrote in a letter to EU Ambassador to Israel Emanuele Giaufret to warn European Union foreign ministers to “think about how their government would respond to violent riots on their borders” The Jerusalem Post reported.
European foreign ministers discussed the killings of Palestinians in Gaza during a “working lunch” at their monthly meeting in Brussels on Monday, but did not release a statement.
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