I CARE - - Foreign ministers of France, Germany and Italy condemn antisemitic protests

27.7.14

I CARE - - News - Internet Centre Anti Racism Europe: In Germany, Dieter Graumann, president of the Central Council of Jews, told reporters some of the demonstrations had been "an explosion of evil and violence-prone hatred of Jews". "Never in our lives did we believe it possible that antisemitism of the nastiest and most primitive kind would be chanted on the streets of Germany," Graumann said. On Monday, after violent clashes between iron bar- and stick-wielding youths and riot police in the Paris suburb of Sarcelles, which has a large Jewish community, France's Jewish leaders warned that the Arab-Israeli conflict risked spilling over on to the streets of Europe. The French president, François Hollande, condemned the violence and told both Jewish and Muslim religious leaders, summoned to the Elysée on Monday, that fighting antisemitism would be a "national cause". Stephan Kramer, director of the European Office on antisemitism of the American Jewish Committee in Brussels said: "We have reached a new level of hatred and violence in all of Europe that cannot even be compared to the antisemitism seen during previous conflicts in Israel." He added: "It needs to be made very clear that violence is not an appropriate means of protesting."