You can see better with the Zweites? Not at all: Muslim anti-Semitism is consistently overlooked on public broadcaster Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF).
In a report, ZDF news programme “heute” called a Syrian-Palestinian refugee a champion “against Jew-hatred”. Yet the man is an open Israel-hater. “His” country has been occupied “for 73 years”, he declares on Facebook: “We are against Israel.” In other words, the founding of the Jewish state 73 years ago is already an illegal act for him!
But the ZDF report denies the anti-Semitic statements. “He condemns anti-Semitism, but Israel as well,” it says distortingly. His hatred of Israel is not classified. The absurd headline of the article: “Muslims against anti-Semitism.” ZDF did not answer a enquiry from the newspaper BILD about the programme.
ZDF comedian Jan Böhmermann (40) also does not want to know anything about Muslim anti-Semitism. “The only ‘imported anti-Semitism’ that really exists is that which is imported from the past,” he tweeted.
The reality of life for Jews in Germany looks different: in 2018, 41% of German Jews surveyed in an EU poll said that the perpetrators of anti-Semitic attacks were Muslims (right-wingers 20%, left-wingers 16%).
The satirical programme “heute show” drew a clear distinction on Twitter between “criticism of Israel” and anti-Semitism. Bitter: The ZDF programme ignores that there is a separate term only for criticism of the Jewish state. The words Syria-criticism, North Korea-criticism do not exist in German usage.
The “heute show” does not want to realise that the so-called “criticism of Israel” is not criticism of the Israeli government, but criticism of the Jewish state as such. Otherwise it would simply be called criticism of the Israeli government.