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ISRAEL

Sweden ‘anti-Semitic’ for tennis fan ban

Sweden has been accused of anti-Semitism in a leading Israeli newspaper, following the weekend's Davis Cup tennis match between Israel and Sweden, which was held behind closed doors in Malmö.

Sweden 'anti-Semitic' for tennis fan ban

In an article in the Jerusalem Post, writers Abraham Cooper and Harold Brackman say the decision not to allow spectators at the match was dictated by biases “that have echoes in Nazi Europe’s anti-Semitism.

The writers accuse politicians on Malmö Council’s sports and leisure committee for giving in to pressure from the city’s anti-Israeli Muslim minority by refusing to allow spectators into the match.

“The security card was invoked not to protect but to stigmatize Israeli athletes as pariahs,” they write, adding: “None of this is about sports. It’s about Jews.”

Malmö’s mayor, Ilmar Reepalu, said the criticism was unwarranted.

“It’s absurd. We’ve made it clear from the outset that this was about security, not about Jews. And after what happened on Saturday it is clear to everyone that a dangerous situation could have arisen if we had been forced to evacuate 4,000 people from the hall into what was going on outside, with stones being thrown at the police,” Reepalu told news agency TT.

Nine people were arrested in the disturbances outside Baltiska Hallen, where the match was being played. A 22-year-old man was detained on suspicion of attempted serious assault.

Police say that several of the masked activists who took part in the disturbances have now been identified.

ISRAEL

Former Israeli soldier attacked on Berlin street

A former Israeli soldier was attacked in the German capital Berlin, police said Saturday, with one or several unknown assailants spraying him with an irritant and throwing him to the ground.

Former Israeli soldier attacked on Berlin street
Israeli soldiers on operation near the Gaza Strip. Photo: dpa | Ilia Yefimovich

The 29-year-old was wearing a top with the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) logo when the attackers started harassing him on Friday about his religion, the police added, calling it “an anti-Semitic attack”.

Officers are seeking the assailants, who fled immediately after the attack, on suspicion of a politically-motivated crime.

Saturday is the second anniversary of an attack by a far-right gunman on a synagogue in the eastern German city of Halle, who killed two in a rampage when he failed to break into the house of worship.

It was one of a string of incidents that led authorities to declare the far right and neo-Nazis Germany’s top security threat.

Also this week, a musician claimed he was turned away from a hotel in eastern city Leipzig for wearing a Star-of-David pendant.

While the allegations prompted a fierce response from a Jewish community unsettled by increasing anti-Semitic crimes, several investigations have been mounted into contradictory accounts of the incident.

In 2019, police recorded 2,032 anti-Semitic crimes, an increase of 13 percent year-on-year.

“The threat is complex and comes from different directions” from jihadists to the far right, the federal government’s commissioner for the fight against anti-Semitism Felix Klein said recently.

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