Blind to leftist and Islamic Anti-semitism....

The German Centre for Research on Anti-Semitism only sees the problem from the right...it ignores leftist and Islamic anti-semitism...

Rising disaffection with the direction of the publicly funded Berlin Center for Research on Anti-Semitism has intensified since it organized a conference equating hatred of Jews with discrimination against Muslims in December.

The center's indifference to the high levels of left-wing and Islamic anti-Semitism in Germany in particular, and in Europe in general, during the IDF's recent offensive against Hamas in Gaza drew sharp criticism from prominent Germans, including a Christian Democratic Union deputy, as well as the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem.

"The [Berlin] center is largely fixated on classic anti-Semitism, right-wing extremism. Left-wing anti-Semitism and Islamic anti-Semitism are largely ignored," Kristina Köhler, a CDU lawmaker and a leading parliamentary expert on Islam, integration and extremism, told The Jerusalem Post last week.

The center was "blind" if it avoided addressing the new forms of anti-Semitism, Köhler said.

The mass anti-Israel demonstrations in Germany in January were largely organized and supported by Arab, Turkish and Palestinian groups. Left Party politicians in the Bundestag urged their members to attend the rallies, which turned into displays of Jew and Israel hatred, including calls to "gas the Jews," "Jews out of Germany," "Kill, kill Jews," and "Kill, kill Israelis."

The Center was displaying "ostrich-like behavior" by failing to address "rising anti-Semitism in the wake of Gaza" and "Holocaust inversion," in which demonstrators in Europe compared Israel with Nazi Germany, said Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem.

The Berlin center was "fearful of offending and alienating Muslims," he said.

Zuroff told the Post that the major threat for Jews was Iran, and criticized the Berlin Center for neglecting the genocidal Iranian threats against Israel. "What are they studying anti-Semitism for if not to combat anti-Semitism?" he asked.

"There has been widespread surprise that the center has been silent - very loudly silent" about the massive outbreak of anti-Semitic protests in Germany, added Dr. Elvira Grözinger, deputy director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East and academic adviser at the Jewish College for Adult Education in Berlin.

Speaking from Frankfurt, the prominent historian and Auschwitz survivor Dr. Arno Lustiger, who has written groundbreaking books about Jewish resistance during the Holocaust, told the Post that "the center has only right-wing anti-Semitism in mind. They do not deal with leftist and Islamic anti-Semitism."

When asked why the center devotes it research largely to Nazi-based anti-Semitism, Lustiger said, "It's an exculpatory motive. If you research what happened, you have a better conscience."

Referring to the anti-Semitic chants at anti-Israeli demonstrations in January and the passivity of the Center, Lustiger asked, "Isn't it anti-Semitism if you'd send the Jews to the gas?"