The Rise of Anti-Semitism. Germany registers more than 2,600 crimes after the Hamas attack

The German Criminal Investigation Office (BKA) has recorded more than 2,600 related crimes in the federal republic since the attack on Israel by the radical Palestinian movement Hamas, which took place exactly one month ago. According to the DPA agency, the office announced this this evening. Above all, other European countries are also dealing with an increase in expressions of anti-Semitism in connection with the war between Israel and Hamas.

The registered crimes in Germany are primarily cases of damage to property, so-called public harassment and resisting, the BKA said today. The number of violent crimes is then in the order of hundreds.

The German government’s anti-Semitism commissioner, Felix Klein, spoke today of more than 2,000 recorded crimes and said that since the October 7 attack, hatred of Jews in Germany is “at a level that has not been there for decades”.

Since October 7, incidents such as the drawing of the Star of David, which the Nazis used to designate Jews during World War II, on the facades of buildings, the throwing of burning gasoline bottles on synagogues and the desecration of Jewish graves have been reported in Germany. In addition, anti-Israel demonstrations have often accompanied anti-Semitism in the past four weeks.

The head of the conservative opposition, Friedrich Merz, called for stricter laws in response to anti-Israel and anti-Jewish demonstrations in Germany today. “We want anti-Semitism to be understood in the criminal code as a particularly serious case of offending the people,” said Merz. According to him, the conservative union CDU/CSU also demands that every student in Germany visit one of the former concentration camps at least once during their schooling.

Other European countries are also dealing with manifestations of anti-Semitism. For example, the French government announced on Sunday that there has been an “explosion” of anti-Semitic acts in the last month, with more than a thousand recorded across the country. The presidents of both chambers of the French parliament, Yaël Braunová-Pivetová and Gérard Larcher, today, according to the AFP agency, called for participation in Sunday’s “big march” against anti-Semitism.

There have been many pro-Palestinian demonstrations in European capitals over the past four weeks, often with anti-Semitism. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s British Conservative government today called on organizers of another such demonstration planned for Saturday in London to cancel it. Armistice Day falls on the same day, when Britain remembers the millions of victims not only of the First World War.

“We continue to believe that the planning of Armistice Day demonstrations is a provocation and a lack of respect, and we call on the organizers to reconsider their plan,” a spokesman for the British Prime Minister told reporters today, according to AFP.

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