The outgoing left-of-center German government has failed for a second time to include Iran-promoted antisemitism as a threat to Jews in its new federal report on the world’s oldest hatred.
The 98-page document, “Second report on combating antisemitism,” made no mention of the Iranian regime’s attacks on synagogues in Germany. The December 2024 report also omitted the conviction of a Pakistani national involved in an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps plot to assassinate pro-Israel advocates in Germany and France.
This is not the first time Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz has whitewashed Palestinian-animated Jew-hatred.
This is not the first time Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz has whitewashed Palestinian-animated Jew-hatred. In February 2023, Germany’s first national strategy report to combat antisemitism excluded any mention of the activities of Iran’s regime, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine or their proxies inside Germany. The report cites Hamas 33 times and covers the period after that terrorist group’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel and massacre of 1,200 people, including over 40 Americans and German nationals, but neglects any sponsorship of antisemitism by Tehran or Hezbollah.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, called on “incoming Chancellor Friedrich Merz to denounce Iran’s ongoing threats to German Jewish life.” Cooper added, “We all have to acknowledge that German Jews don’t feel safe, as people are still beaten up on the streets for speaking Hebrew and Jewish institutions continue to be under heavy guard to protect German Jews from attacks.”
In February 2022, Cooper urged Felix Klein, Germany’s federal commissioner for combating antisemitism, “to write a second report for Germany that focuses on Iran, its terrorist lackeys and allies, and their impact and threats to German Jews.” Klein declined. Klein also has largely refused to criticize the Iranian regime for its role as the “world’s chief trafficker in antisemitism,” and as the foremost state sponsor of Holocaust denial, yet, in 2019, he blasted Trump as “dangerous for the Jewish community.” Klein’s refusal to criticize Tehran is likely meant to promote and protect Germany’s lucrative trade with the Islamic Republic.
Germany’s lackluster approach to the Islamic Republic’s antisemitism also frustrates Iranian dissidents. Kazem Moussavi, a spokesman for the Green Party of Iran in exile in Germany, also said “of course” the German government should have included the Islamic Republic’s antisemitism in its plan to combat antisemitism. He called the German government measures “ineffective because they do not consistently identify and combat the greatest threat—the Islamist antisemitism of the Iranian mullahs’ regime in Germany.”
Berlin’s refusal to acknowledge the Islamic Republic’s sponsorship of antisemitism is not the only example of German “appeasement policies” toward the clerical regime.
Moussavi said that Berlin’s refusal to acknowledge the Islamic Republic’s sponsorship of antisemitism is not the only example of German “appeasement policies” toward the clerical regime. He cited the decision by the German government to allow the U.S.-sanctioned Al-Mustafa Institute to operate in Berlin despite its active involvement in recruiting for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Other Western countries and corporations take Al-Mustafa Institute’s malfeasance more seriously. PayPal, for example, terminated the account of the Berlin-based Al-Mustafa Institute.
The United States and Canada have sanctioned the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization; Germany, however, refuses to do so.
While Germany’s foreign ministry sends diplomats to commemorate the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, Moussavi and other Iranian dissidents argue that Germany should shutter Iran’s embassy in Berlin and also ban the pro-Khamenei Islamic Community of Shiite Communities.
German-Iranian dissidents also campaign to end the twin city partnership between Freiburg and Isfahan, a manufacturing hub for Iran’s missile, drone, and illicit nuclear weapons program. Mina Ahadi, who led an international campaign against the Islamic Republic’s use of stoning as a punishment, said the omission of Iranian regime antisemitism in the German government report is “really very, very, problematic.” She said the Islamic regime attempts to “organize terror against Jewish institutions” and calls for the “annihilation” of Israel and all its people.
The Middle East Forum Observer sent queries on these issues Klein and to the Social Democrat-run German Interior Ministry; neither responded.
