Panel discussion with Ahmad Mansour (European Foundation for Democracy) and Dr. Günther Jikeli (Fellow at the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

When: 26. September um 7:30 p.m. Where: Hörsaal 2002, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6 Event in German language Please register: spaney@mideastfreedomforum.org In July 2014 after the killing of three Jewish teenagers in the Westbank and constant rocket attacks from Hamas on Israeli civilian centers, the Israel Defense Forces launched “ Operation Protective Edge”. Following this escalation we witnessed an explosion of anti-Semitic violence on the streets of Germany and Europe. The demonstrations against Israel were dominated by blatant Jew-hatred. Inflamed by reports of Islamists from the Middle East, extremist imams in Europe and Islamist propaganda in the social media, in Germany a hardliner Islamist scene also took to the streets and committed arson attacks against synagogues, attacked people wearing kippot and assaulted police officers with knifes. Many observers were suprised by the blatant anti-Semitism. As they were marching under the banners of Hamas, Hizballah, ISIS as well as Turkish and Iranian flags, a wider German public became aware that in some communities there is Jew-hatred equivalent to the anti-Semitism in the Neo-Nazi scene. It became also obvious, what for years now, is reality: that it is dangerous to be noticeable as a Jew in mainly Muslim neighborhoods. In light of these events we would like to discuss, what are the sources of this anti-Semitism? What kind of a correlation has this with the islamization of the Muslim communities in recent years and a broader dissemination of Islamist ideology? But we would also like to discuss what can be done. Are there education programs that could be useful? How should we act against preachers of hate in mosques? And what is the situation in other European countries? To discuss these issues, we invited Ahmad Mansour and Dr. Günther Jikeli. Ahmad Mansour, European Foundation for Democracy, Gruppenleiter HEROES-Projekt Berlin, Member of the German government's "Islamkonferenz". Ahmad Mansour is laureate of the Moses-Mendelssohn-Preis 2014 of the Berlin administration. Dr. Günther Jikeli is a fellow with the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and at the Moses Mendelssohn Zentrum of University Potsdam. In 2014 as a guest lecturer he taught at Indiana University. In 2013 he received the Raoul Wallenberg Prize in Human Rights and Holocaust Studies. From 2011 to 2012 he was an advisor for the fight against Anti-Semitism of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OECD).