These are threatening and hateful scenes that unfold on May 19, 2022, as part of a anti-Israel demonstration in Bern approved by the police, at the culmination of which a Bible in Arabic is publicly burned.
The “Palestine Group Bern” had called for a “square rally in Bern” to “mourn and protest” on Bern’s station square. The reason for the mourning and protest was, according to the event flyer, the alleged “murder of the Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh by Israeli occupation forces”, “another Israeli crime”. Prejudgements and unsubstantiated accusations with which the predominantly Lebanese Muslim demonstrators announced their anti-Israeli march.
The flyer was distributed by the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions against Israel) movement, which is classified as “clearly anti-Semitic” by leading anti-Semitism experts and the German Parliament.
Once a month, the pro-Israeli “Israel Forum Bern” also runs a stand on Bern’s station square selling dates from Israel and educational reading material, including on the day of the Palestinian demo. “We have set ourselves the goal of supporting and actively participating in the fair dissemination of information to Israel,” reads the association’s mission statement. By means of “correct public relations work” we want to counteract the “tendentious reporting on Israel in Switzerland” and “anti-Semitic tendencies”.
“We don’t actively approach people, but wait and then talk to people who are interested in the stand,” writes Israel Forum Bern member C. F. (name known to the editors), who describes on Facebook the aggression of the BDS-porting demonstrators, which was also captured on video.
“Often it’s about prejudices that are harboured towards Israel and in conversation we break them down. That usually works out well. Yesterday, however, it did not,” said F.
“A bawling mob with flags and anti-Semitic hate slogans” had besieged the stand decorated with Israel flags, where mainly Christian Israel lovers of an older age were. Some had made Hitler salutes, and hate slogans such as “Israel terrorist” could be heard on the videos. People spat on the ground in front of the stand and the atmosphere became increasingly aggressive.
“We were afraid, but remained calm,” F. continued. “To calm them down” and as a gesture of peacefulness, the angry anti-Israeli demonstrators were given a Bible in Arabic, which did not calm them down, but incited them even more.
With a martial roar, the Muslims begin to burn the Bible. One would not like to imagine what would have happened if right-wing extremists had burnt a Koran in front of a Muslim information stand. But when Bibles are burnt in public, neither the bystanders nor the police react.
Now, this is by no means the first time that Muslim hatred of Jews has found its way onto Swiss streets. On Facebook pages mobilising for the Zurich pro-Gaza demo in July 2014, there were comments such as “only a dead Jew is a good Jew”, “the only medicine against Jews was Adolf Hitler” or “we must exterminate the Jews”. The march route approved by the Zurich city administration was to be moved to the “Jewish quarter”. There, one could “smash the faces” of the “shitty Jews” and “Israel sympathisers” and “stone every Zionist in the Jewish quarter”.
Dr Jonathan Kreutner, Secretary General of the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities (SIG) in “Schweiz aktuell” of July 17, 2014: “All these statements come from Muslims.”
But there are also recent examples. In Basel, a Muslim seller of Palestinian olive oil, who openly promotes the BDS movement on his website, prevented the Christian entrepreneur René Sigg from selling his olive oil from Israel at the “olive oil special market” in the Basel market hall.
The Markthalle’s promise was revoked after payment of the stall fee, due to the “problematic situation in connection with the origin of your oils”, as Markthalle administrator Christoph Schön wrote by email. In the case of the Muslim trader, however, the same place of production is not an issue.
The fact that the trader in question is hoisting a Palestine flag with the inscription “Jerusalem is ours, we are coming” at his stand is also not a problem for Schön and the Markthalle.
In Basel, the Israelite Community of Basel (IGB) has meanwhile reached the point where, on the occasion of planned anti-Israeli rallies, it warns its community members “for security reasons” to “avoid the places on a large scale at the times mentioned”, as the Basler Zeitung 2021 reported.
Anti-Israeli agitation, which often crosses the line into open anti-Semitism, becomes particularly problematic when elements of Christian “liberation theology” mix with Muslim hostility towards Jews as well as Marxist-anti-imperialist hatred of Israel to form a highly toxic brew and supposedly “anti-fascist” alliances such as “Basel Nazifrei” suddenly polemicise against Israel with a socialist clenched fist, and anti-Israel Muslims march with Palestine flags in the Migrantifa block at demonstrations on May 1st.
In Bern, after the Bible burning, the furore of the pro-Palestinian Hezbollah sympathisers had died down and they withdrew from the Israel Forum Bern stand.
“After a while, two police officers showed up and there were subsequent discussions about what had happened,” writes F., “and the police explained to us that Hitler salutes and burning books were not forbidden in Switzerland.”
The Bern cantonal police, when asked by Audiatur-Online, confirmed ” a deployment at the station square in Bern on May 19, 2022, at around 8.15 pm. However, when our patrol arrived, no acute confrontation or anything criminally liable could be detected.”
Conclusion: In a country where the Hitler salute is permitted by a federal court decision, where Jews are forced to use their tax money to support a population group with hundreds of millions that calls for the destruction of Israel (Fatah/PLO) or all Jews (Hamas) in its constitutions, and where parliamentarians are obsessively engaged against Israel, there are considerable dangers in publicly standing up for the Jewish state.
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