Demonstrations in Germany in recent weeks have revealed a profound imbalance in popular support of the Israeli and
Palestinians causes, although supporters on both sides appear to disagree about what exactly they are fighting
for.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrations have been attracting thousands of demonstrators, including students on the left, German
politicians and Arab asylum seekers. The numbers at pro-Israel demonstrations have been markedly lower.
On Saturday, April 13, about 20,000 marched through Berlin, Frankfurt and Düsseldorf in support of the Palestinian side.
Pro-Israel rallies in Berlin and Frankfurt the same week pulled in only between 1,500 and 2,000 demonstrators.
Not all pro-Palestinian marchers had the same agenda. Pockets of demonstrators in Berlin waved Hezbollah banners and burned
the Israeli flag. 'Jenin is totally destroyed. 500 Palestinians are dead just because of the Jews,' shouted 27-year-old Akran Gandul,
who claimed he was a member of Hezbollah passing through Germany. Gandul, who has only been in the country for four months,
said he did not distinguish between the Israeli government and the Jews.
A girl waving an Israeli flag at a pro-Israel rally in Frankfurt/Main.
Photo: ddp/Alexander Heimann
Although the majority of the marchers remained peaceful, a breakaway group pelted the British Embassy with cobblestones until
the police forced them back with batons and pepper spray. A Muslim woman with a baby carriage pleaded with the rabblerousers
to remain calm.
Demonstrations in Frankfurt and Düsseldorf occurred without incident.
Student groups who helped organize the protest in Berlin regretted the extremist presence. They said they had told local mosques
to leave Hezbollah banners at home.
'This is not a war between Jews and Muslims,' said Reuven Neuman (30), a member of the Jewish community who helped
organize the pro-Palestinian demonstration. 'I can't excuse the people who were shouting 'Jewish swine,' but in a way, I can
understand their anger and their fear.'
Over loudspeakers, Holocaust survivor Fritz Teppich compared the Israeli occupation to Hitler's war.
Pro-Israeli demonstrators also used images of the Holocaust in their rhetoric in Frankfurt and Berlin. 'Europe is not neutral,'
Maximilian Eiden told a crowd of 1,500 at a rally organized by a secular group in Berlin. 'People are talking of sending German
peace troops to Israel. That's probably because the Germans have already shown how they deal with the Jews.'
Uriel Kashi of the Jewish Student Association was more moderate. 'This is a demonstration for peace,' he said. 'Some of us don't
question the need for a Palestinian state. But the Intifada is not the same as a freedom fight.'
Other incidents in Berlin include two American Jews who were attacked on the street on April 3, and a 21-year-old woman who
was punched in the face on the subway, on Sunday, April 14, by two 'southern-looking' men after they tore off her star-of-David
necklace. The German- Jewish community is confident that these are isolated events.
'There has been no tension here at all,' said Michael Szentei-Heize, superintendent of the Jewish community in Düsseldorf,
where a synagogue was damaged in October 2000. 'The people in the Jewish community are not afraid.'
In Düsseldorf, as in the rest of Germany, the Jewish community has been getting six times as many insulting letters than usual.
Szentei-Heize says 99 per cent of them are from Germans who are using the present debate to voice latent anti-Semitism.
'I think you can make a theoretical distinction between anti-Semitism and protests against the Israeli government,' Szentei-Heize
said, commenting on the argument by German-Jewish and secular intellectuals to that effect. 'But with these people, a discussion
is out of the question. With them, anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic is the same. They just feel justified in their anti-Semitism.'
Meanwhile, both sides are vowing that the protests in Germany will continue until the conflict in the Middle East is resolved. 'I
think the conflict in the Middle East is playing itself out in the form of demonstrations on the street in the capital,' police
representative Thomas Goldack told the newspaper Berliner Zeitung. 'The demos on the weekend [of April 13] were just the
beginning.'
Gästebuch
