The city of Stuttgart, home to German auto giant Mercedes-Benz, has become dotted with no-go zones for Jews due to pro-Hamas events.
The executive board of the Jewish community in Württemberg, the region where Stuttgart is located, published a shocking notice on its website on Friday: “Dear ladies and gentlemen, dear community members! As usual, above you will find an overview of the anti-Israel demos in Stuttgart this weekend. We recommend avoiding these areas at the times listed.”
The statement linked to a list of “no-go” areas for Jews in Stuttgart.
The acknowledgment of no-go zones in European cities should not jolt serious observers of mushrooming Palestinian, Islamist, and left-wing antisemitism. After all, in March, Robin Simcox, the counter-extremism commissioner for Britain’s then-Tory government, said London has become a “no-go zone for Jews” during weekend pro-Palestinian (and pro-Hamas) marches.
While there is some level of intellectual honesty within conservative British discourse about the collapse of security for Jews, denial remains the order of the day about the lack of freedom for the dwindling Jewish community in Germany.
Both the United Kingdom and Federal Republic have engaged in soggy appeasement toward the mass movements of Islamism and high-intensity antisemitism that pepper their cities and towns.
German journalist and author Henryk M. Broder first drew attention to the scandal in Stuttgart in his January 4 article, titled “Stuttgart: No-go areas for Jews.”
German journalist and author Henryk M. Broder first drew attention to the scandal in Stuttgart in his January 4 article, titled “Stuttgart: No-go areas for Jews,” published on his The Axis of Good website. Broder mocked anti-Israel bureaucrat Michael Blume, tasked with fighting Jew-hatred in the southwestern German state where the city is located. “In itself, that would be a case for the antisemitism commissioner of Baden-Württemberg, a man with many virtues, especially that of praising himself. If he took his job seriously, he could wrap himself in an Israeli flag and take part in the rallies. … And hold up a sign that reads: ‘Release the hostages!’”
Two German courts in Hamburg held that Blume can be termed antisemitic because of his slashing attacks on German Jews and Israeli national hero Orde Wingate. Blume goes to great lengths to make political Islam socially and politically accepted in Germany.
Barbara Traub, chairwoman of the Jewish community in Württemberg, told her members to not allow themselves to be “provoked” by the anti-Israel demonstrations. Sadly, Traub and many other community leaders and members have embraced a mindset of crude servility toward the modern German state.
A German-Jewish writer summed up this condition with a joke: Two Jews are incarcerated in a concentration camp. One says, “Shlomo, there goes an SS man. Ask him what they plan to do with us.” Shlomo replies: “Just don’t provoke him, Moishe; the German could get angry.”
Traub, who won’t publicly urge the mayor of Stuttgart, Frank Nopper, to delete a notice for a pro-Hamas and pro-Samidoun group on the city’s website (including how to donate to the NGO), displays slavish loyalty to the German government, perhaps motivated by an obvious conflict of interest—Jewish communities depend on the federal and state governments for their budgets.
Germany has banned both Hamas and Samidoun, which is linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization.
Nearly 17 years ago, Daniel Pipes, president of the Middle East Forum, correctly predicted at an Israeli government conference on combating antisemitism that European Jews would face the same dire conditions that the Jews of Muslim nations confront—namely, rising Islamic antisemitism and persecution. Most of the Jews of Islam, to use Bernard Lewis’s famous phrase, escaped the oppression of the Muslim-controlled Middle East and joined in the rebirth of Israel. Will European Jews follow their lead?
