Hundreds of Islamist protestors in Hamburg mounted a sinister display last Friday that brought to mind demonstrations by neo-Nazi groups.
By Ben Cohen, The Algemeiner
Anti-Semitic demonstrations targeting Israel have continued to be staged by Islamist groups in Germany, despite the May 21 ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza.
In a sinister display last Friday that brought to mind demonstrations by neo-Nazi groups, hundreds of Islamist protestors lined the Steindamm in the St. Georg district of the port city of Hamburg.
Video of the rally showed more than 200 men clad in black clothing and lined up in military fashion. Several carried coffins bearing Arabic inscriptions as they angrily chanted slogans accusing Israel of being a “child murderer.”
According to Philipp Stricharz, the head of the Jewish community in Hamburg, Friday’s demonstration was organized by a splinter group within the city’s Muslim community of 90,000.
Stricharz told local media outlets that the rally had violated German laws against public displays of anti-Semitism, and that he would be consulting with the police and municipal authorities in the coming days.
“We consider the demonstration on Friday to be an attempt by a fringe group to drive a wedge into Hamburg society,” Stricharz declared. “We will not allow that, and we are certain that the overwhelming majority of Hamburg’s Muslims will see it the same way.”
The group behind the demonstration, Muslim Interaktiv, is considered to be a successor to Hizb ut Tahrir, a rabidly anti-Semitic Islamist organization that was banned by the German Interior Ministry in 2003.
According to the findings of the Hamburg Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Muslim Interaktiv has been active since the beginning of last year and maintains a strong presence on social networks, the Jüdische Allgemeine Jewish news outlet reported on Monday.
The Hamburg branch of Germany’s ruling CDU Party separately demanded an answer as to “why a successor organization to the Hizb ut-Tahrir can spread its anti-Jewish slogans unhindered on Hamburg’s streets?”
The CDU claimed that the city’s Social Democratic and Green administration had shied away from an outright ban on the rally.
One city leader did respond that while the sight of the rally had been “unbearable,” it was nonetheless a legal assembly.
“According to the Basic Law, intolerance is not a reason to prohibit a meeting,” Andy Grote of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) told local journalists.
The head of Germany’s Kurdish community also condemned the demonstration, remarking that the Islamists had staged “a martial show of power to which our politics simply has no answer, and they take advantage of this vacuum of helplessness.”
Ali Ertan Toprak — the federal chairman of the Kurdish Community in Germany — declared on Twitter that Hamburg had witnessed a “rise in hatred.”
“We can no longer leave the streets to these Islamist anti-Semites!” Toprak emphasized.