Members of the new Jewish factions for Germany’s far-right AfD Party sing the traditional Jewish song “Shalom Alechem” on stage together. Credit: Orit Arfa.

Judging from the number of cameras and reporters present—from Deutsche Welle to The New York Times magazine—it would seem that this was the most important Jewish event in Germany since the opening of Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.

The press conference felt more like a trial: This could be the AfD’s moment of redemption, a chance to prove that it’s not the party of anti-Semites or neo-Nazis that the mainstream media (and the official German Jewish establishment) claims it is. For Jews, it was an ultimate act of defiance—not against the ruling German coalition, but against their co-religionists.

Since its founding in 2013 as a Euro-skeptic party, the AfD has been sidelined by the official German Jewish community. As the media got wind of the group’s formation, 17 Jewish organizations united together with a gusto unseen over other issues of Jewish concern, such as Germany’s support of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal; Germany’s funding of anti-Israel NGOs; and, more locally, allegedly anti-Israel content at the Berlin’s pubic Jewish Museum. Led by the Zentralat der Juden (Central Council of Jews), organizations like the Abraham Geiger College and the American Jewish Committee Berlin signed a joint statement categorically calling AFD “anti-Semitic,” “anti-democratic” and “no party for Jews.”

Ten members of “Jews in the AfD” (JAfD) sat on stage, with men donning kipahs they don’t normally wear, to answer media questions and defend their decision with equal gusto. The founders didn’t expect this much attention, but they expected opposition, even to the extent of being barred from their original Frankfurt location due to pressure—a German boycott of Jews the Zentralat didn’t mind. The Zentralat also sponsored chartered buses for a demonstration of Jewish university students held in Frankfurt at the time of the caucus. There, signs came out against certifying the AfD as “kosher.”

To some, the new location for the caucus turned out to be symbolic. When a speaker recounted German cities where Muslim migrants attacked young girls, one Jewish member, Micha, shouted: “And right here!”

Just a few hundred meters away, the murdered, violated body of Jewish schoolgirl, Susanna Feldman, was found near train tracks. Micha, a family friend who recalls a young Susanna playing on his lap, switched from the Linke (“Left”) Party to the AfD after her murder by an Iraqi asylum-seeker who stayed in the country illegally.

“It finished me,” he said. At his request, the musical interlude of “Kol Nidrei” was played in Feldmann’s memory.

Russian-Jewish participation

JAfD members support the party as the only one speaking out against massive Muslim migration that they link to a rise in anti-Semitism and terror, viewing themselves as part of a growing, conservative European movement battling a left-wing trend towards open borders, globalization and what they view as the breakdown of Judeo-Christian values caused by mass Muslim migration.

Wolfgang Fuhl, co-chair of JAfD and a former Zentralat board member, reserved his harshest criticism for German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) Party.

“I used to be a member of the SPD (Social Democratic Party), but I got more conservative as I got older and joined the CDU,” he said at the press conference. “I didn’t leave the CDU. The CDU left me. Under Merkel, the CDU has shifted to the left.”

He declined to respond to his Jewish foes, except to accuse the Zentralat of becoming an arm of the Merkel government in the spirit of “don’t bite the hand that feeds you.”

Unlike in the United States, Germany does not separate religion and state. German Jews (and other religious members) can opt to register and be taxed as members of their religious community. The Zentralat today receives government funding to the tune of 13 million euros a year (nearly $15 million). Of the 200,000 Jews estimated to be living in Germany, the majority hail from the former Soviet Union, who were welcomed to Germany after the fall of the Iron Curtain.

Russian-speaking Jews form half of the founding members of “Jews in the AfD.”

The idea for the faction began with Fuhl’s internal, informal talks with fellow AfD members. A WhatsApp group soon formed for the like-minded, “rebellious” Jews to dish on “Fake (German) News,” the perceived weakness of the German Jewish community, and bona-fide “neo-Nazis.”

A representative from the office of Bundestag member and party leader Beatrix Von Storch eventually joined the chat. The Jews in the AfD happily got what the Jewish community made taboo: direct lines of communication with Germany’s most controversial political party.

‘I know that Jews are patriots’

At the event, AfD politicians across the political hierarchy seemed to compete over who could give the more pro-Jewish, pro-Israel speech.

“I was really shocked to see what was written about your meeting. Just shocked,” said Erika Steinbach, a former CDU leader and now chair of the AfD-affiliated Desiderius Erasmus

Foundation. “I could never imagine that in a democracy, a decision freely made by people, by Jews, irrespective of their party, would be treated in such a terrible way.”

She, along with other party members, cited causes for concern for Jews in Germany: attacks against Jews for wearing kipahs and reported taunting of Jewish schoolchildren.

“I know that Jews are patriots,” she said, adding that she would never join an anti-Semitic party. A common refrain at the caucus was: “Judaism belongs to Germany,” unlike Islam.

Beatrix von Storch likened the Jewish criticism of JAfD to criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom she categorizes along with a hero among European patriots, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

The Netanyahu government, including the Israeli Ambassador to Germany, Jeremy Issacharoff, however, has maintained distance to the AfD.

Likud Party Knesset member Yehuda Glick, who has also been lobbying to forge diplomatic contacts with the right-wing Freedom Party in Austria, arguing that they have eschewed any Nazi roots, is one of the few Israeli politicians openly calling for dialogue with the AfD.

“AfD members have come out with very strong statements in support of Israel and the Jewish people, and, with polls showing it is now ranked as the second-largest party in Germany, it would be extremely unwise to dogmatically shun dialogue with them,” he said.

Addressing Israeli policy, Bundestag member Petr Bystron hailed the “historic day” and castigated the German government’s increase of funding to UNWRA, as well as its criticism of U.S. President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. “I can pledge in my name and in the name of the members of the Bundestag that we’re the only party that wants this European support of Palestinian terrorism to come to an end,” he said.

‘That doesn’t automatically make it an anti-Semitic party’

Jews in the AfD hope to engage the party about incidents, policies and statements that have been cited as proof of anti-Semitism endemic to the party. For instance, the AfD platform forbids kosher ritual animal slaughter, which subsumes the Jewish shechitah—a target of the Muslim population.

“It’s a problem, but that doesn’t automatically make it an anti-Semitic party,” said Fuhl. “There is disagreement about it within the party, and we’ll address it.”

Other oft-cited problematic AfD statements include AfD chair Alexander Gauland calling the Holocaust a “bird speck in glorious German history,” and regional parliament member Björn Höcke saying the grand Berlin Holocaust memorial is a “monument of shame.” JAfD doesn’t necessarily see these comments as trivializing the Shoah, believing such words have been interpreted out of context or overplayed by the media.

“I prefer to be part of a party that wants to help living Jews, not dead Jews,” Fuhl said to applause.

Perhaps as an unintended consequence, the event has snaked out alleged anti-Semites. In condemning the founding of JAfD, regional AfD parliament member Wolfgang Gedeon who has been accused of trafficking in Jewish conspiracy theories, wrote on Facebook: “The AfD has adopted a positive attitude towards the real, Christian identity of the European continent for good reason. In the best case, this group [the JAfD] is completely unnecessary; in the worst case, it is a Zionist lobby organization which runs against the interests of Germany and the Germans.”

Beatrix von Storch rejected Gedeon’s message, telling JNS: “The founding of the JAfD enjoys enormous support within the party. [Gedeon’s] statements are inherently false, politically irrelevant and isolated within the party.”

Source: http://www.jwire.com.au/jewish-supporters-of-germanys-far-right-afd-see-party-as-means-to-counter-anti-semitism/

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Even in the face of a rising tide of anti-immigration feeling in Germany that threatens her party’s continued rule, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has actually worked out a deal with the legislative partners of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) to attract even more foreigners into the country.

In Germany, as in other multi-party parliamentary systems, it is rare for one political party to hold enough seats to govern without seeking a coalition with other parties. Merkel’s CDU works with the Bavarian CSU and the center-left SPD, and she was able to come to an agreement with them to import more immigrants into Germany.

The reason given for this new policy is to alleviate Germany’s worker shortage.

Merkel’s pro-immigration policy, however, is opposed by the Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has risen to become the party with the second-highest number of seats in the Bundestag, now holding more than 90 seats. Opposition to the increased number of immigrants coming from outside the European Union (EU), mostly from Middle Eastern countries, has led to speculation that Merkel’s coalition may eventually lose control, mainly over this issue.

AfD leader Alexander Gauland accused the government of mixing policies on immigration with policies on how to deal with those seeking asylum. He argued that the new policy has only “greatly expanded” the ability of the asylum seekers to avoid expulsion.

The deal provides that foreigners without residency permits who are seeking asylum to stay in the country may now get to stay if they are employed and can demonstrate that they have assimilated into German society. In addition, those from outside the EU can immigrate to take jobs if they can speak German.

However, these job-seekers would be forbidden from taking advantage of Germany’s generous social welfare system.

Hubertus Heil, the German employment minister, defended the new policy as a “pragmatic solution that reflects reality,” adding that he did not want to be “sending the wrong people back.” Germany’s economy is expanding, and the German Economic Institute in Cologne claims that over 300,000 jobs have gone unfilled in September.

What has caused the shortage of available workers?

More than anything else, the Germans, like most Europeans, are having few children. Abortion is widely used as a means of birth control, and the population is rapidly ageing. In contrast, the immigrant population is growing not only through the influx of new immigrants, but also because the mostly Muslim immigrants have more children than native Germans. If this trend continues, the population of Germany will no longer be ethnically German, but rather Middle Eastern and Muslim. The social consequences of this can be enormous.

Germany has taken in 1.6 million migrants since 2014. Finding a solution to this migration crisis is necessary to the survival of the EU, Merkel recently told the German Parliament. “Europe faces many challenges, but that of migration could become the make-or-break one for the EU,” Merkel said. She added that Germany and other EU nations should be “guided by values and believe in multilateralism, not unilateralism.”

In contrast, some of the nations in eastern Europe, such as Poland and Hungary, see the solution as maintaining their separate national identities, rather than in the survival of the “multilateralism” held up as a “value” by the globalist Merkel.

At some point, Europeans, not just Germans, are going to have to decide which is more important — having more workers to do menial jobs, or their survival as separate nations having distinct cultural and ethnic identities. Many Germans have already decided that they want to remain German, and Merkel’s continued insistence on bringing in more “workers” who are largely antagonistic to the existing German culture will lead them to put someone else in power who will put a stop to this path to national suicide.

Certainly, “Germany” will continue to exist in some form, either as an administrative unit of the EU, or as a place on the map, but it will be a far different Germany than has existed since the Middle Ages.

Americans, on the other hand, should understand that, with the incessant Taliban-like attacks upon our culture, the nation’s founding, and its Founders, we are only a generation or so behind the Germans.

Photo: Sven Mandel / Wikimedia Commons

Source: https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/30231-germany-s-merkel-favors-even-more-immigrants

The post Germany’s Merkel Favors Even More Immigrants first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said judicial authorities should use all means at their disposal to respond to the leak of the warrant for the arrest of the 22-year-old Iraqi suspect over the fatal stabbing of a 35-year-old German man.

The death sparked violent anti-foreigner protests in the eastern city of Chemnitz.

The leak of the warrant was a highly unusual occurrence that drew sharp criticism across Germany, which has strict privacy guidelines for judicial proceedings, and raised concerns of possible links between police and anti-migrant parties.

Critics said the warrant, which contained details of the number of stab wounds, may have been leaked to further inflame anger against migrants.

The stabbing and subsequent protests have exposed deep divisions in German society over Chancellor Angela Merkel’s 2015 decision to open the door to more than one million migrants, mostly Muslims fleeing Middle East conflicts.

The incident has also laid bare close links between a range of anti-migrant groups, including soccer hooligans and the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, and their ability to quickly mobilize thousands of demonstrators.

Prosecutors on Wednesday said they had launched an investigation into the leak and had taken steps to protect two witnesses named in the document.

The deputy premier of the state, Martin Dulig, a Social Democrat, suggested in two German media interviews that the leak had likely come from police or judicial authorities. “We have a bigger problem to deal with there,” he told broadcaster MDR.

A spokesman for the Dresden prosecutor’s office, which is handling the investigation, said the circle of those who had access to the document was not small.

ANTI-MIGRANT RIOTS

Neither the Iraqi, nor a second suspect arrested in the stabbing, a 23-year-old Syrian man, had engaged an attorney, making it unlikely the leak came from them, experts said.

Saxon police last week apologized for a separate incident involving an off-duty police employee at an anti-Islam rally.

The AfD and PEGIDA, a far-right group that is under observation by intelligence agencies, say they will march again in Chemnitz on Saturday to “mourn Daniel H. (the stabbing victim) and the others killed by Germany’s forced multiculturalisation.”

PEGIDA co-founder Lutz Bachmann was among the first to publish the arrest warrant on Tuesday evening, along with a group called “Pro Chemnitz” and a local AfD politician.

Fifty-seven percent of Germans view the anti-migrant riots, during which at least 10 people raised their arms in the banned “Hitler salute”, as a danger to democracy, a new Civey poll showed.

Ninety percent of AfD backers did not see the protests as a threat to democracy, it showed.

AfD leader Alexander Gauland justified the anti-migrant riots as self-defense in an interview with Die Welt newspaper. “When a homicide like this occurs, it’s normal that people flip out. Self-defense is certainly not vigilante justice.”

Merkel and her cabinet discussed the situation during a cabinet meeting on Wednesday and underscored their opposition to any form of vigilance justice, Seehofer told reporters. Such actions were “completely unacceptable.”

But U.N. human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein called for more widespread denunciation of what he called “shocking” images from Chemnitz. “We really need a concentration of voices now to say that when we have incitement to hatred this is prohibited under international human rights law,” he told reporters.

The post Germany probes leak of arrest warrant after Chemnitz stabbing first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.