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By Hakan Ersen
WIESBADEN, Germany (Reuters) – The leaders of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) have been reprimanded for downplaying the Nazis' importance and criticizing a memorial of the Nazis. Holocaust, but that did not stop a small group of Jews from supporting their project. celebration.
On Sunday, they trained Jews in the AfD, a political group based in Wiesbaden, in the west of the country, which seeks to strengthen support for the party, claiming that Islam does not exist. 39 is not compatible with the German constitution.
"We are not a religious organization, we are a political organization," told reporters at the inauguration ceremony Wolfgang Fuhl, leader of the AfD, sitting on a podium with Jewish comrades, including some wearing the Jewish cap.
He added that people wishing to join had to fulfill two conditions: to be a member of the AfD and to be an ethnic or religious association of Jewish faith. Twenty people registered for Sunday's meeting.
The AfD entered the German parliament for the first time in an election last year, enjoying the support of a wide range of voters angry against the decision of the Chancellor Angela Merkel to welcome nearly a million people, mainly Muslim asylum seekers.
Its success immediately aroused the concern of Israeli officials and Jewish groups from Europe and the United States.
German politicians reprimanded AfD co-leader Alexander Gauland in June after declaring that "Hitler and the Nazis" are nothing but bullshit in 1,000 years of success. German history ".
And Bjoern Hoecke, leader of the AfD in eastern Thuringia, aroused anger last year after telling his supporters that the memorial commemorating the victims of the Holocaust in Berlin was a "memorial of shame" and as the history books were to be rewritten to focus more on the German victims.
But the Jewish leader for the AfD, Fuhl, dismissed these concerns on Sunday, saying that the AfD was the most pro-Israel party in Germany, not least because it defends the right to freedom of expression. Jewish state of having Jerusalem for capital.
& # 39; PRO-ISRAEL & # 39;
"The AfD is an exceptionally pro-Israel party, supposed to be the most pro-Israeli party in the Bundestag," Fuhl said, referring to the lower house of parliament in which the AfD is the third party.
Palestinians, enjoying broad international support, seek East Jerusalem as the capital of a state they wish to establish in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Israel regards the entire city, including the eastern sector that it captured during the annexed 1967 Middle East War, as "its eternal and indivisible capital".
Germany, where about 200,000 Jews live, has built in the last decades a reputation as a tolerant and safe place of life for Jews. The rise of the AfD has alarmed the community.
The antisemitic crimes reported to the police increased by 4%, reaching 681 in the first eight months of 2017 compared to the same period last year, with an overwhelming majority of incidents related to the Extremist extremism. The actual number is probably much higher.
The members of the Jews in the AfD seem insensitive to these figures.
When a reporter asked him what he was going to say to people who might call him a "Nazi Jew," Bernhard Krauskopf said in English: "I tell them that you are talking to a German-German person whose father lost more than 50 people in the Nazi death camps, you should be a little smarter not to say such nonsense. "
Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said he was skeptical.
"It's not going well for me," he told Reuters. "In the end, I have to assume that these are people who simply have not recognized the real hidden motive, as well as the goals of this right-wing populist party."
He added: "I think there are some who think:" The AFD is a party that is now fighting mainly against refugees, migrants, Muslims or the target. " , I consider that it is totally wrong to place Muslims under suspicion in general.And the formula "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" does not work. "
(Written by Joseph Nasr, edited by William Maclean)
