Strangers attacked a former Israeli soldier in Berlin-Rummelsburg with irritant gas. As the Police announced on Saturday, the 29-year-old was wearing a sweater with the Israel Defense Forces logo on it on Friday night. In front of the Nöldnerplatz S-Bahn station in the east of Berlin, the police said he was asked about his belief and – when he turned around – immediately attacked with irritant gas in his face and pushed to the ground.
According to the information, he could not determine whether it was a single perpetrator or several people who then fled. The victim found help in a shop and was able to alert the police. The man was treated on an outpatient basis by the rescue workers. The police state security is investigating suspicion of politically motivated dangerous bodily harm.
“In the last few weeks we have seen a social climate in which anti-Semitism is repeatedly played down and denied,” said the anti-Semitism commissioner for the state of Berlin, Samuel Salzborn. In such a climate, violent criminals felt encouraged to follow up their thinking with anti-Semitic acts like on Friday. “You have to understand this connection: Whoever plays down anti-Semitism, objectively strengthens a climate of hatred, anti-Semitic hatred of Jews and Israel, whether wanted it or not.”
The President of the German-Israeli Society, Uwe Becker, also condemned the attack. “A dangerous path leads from the Star of David in the Leipzig hotel to the symbol of the Israeli Defense Forces in Berlin,” he said. “Anyone who is brought to anti-Semitic acts by Jewish symbols or symbols of the State of Israel and its institutions has no place in our society.” The incident shows how much anti-Semitism related to Israel is poisoning the social climate. “As a preventive measure, children and young people must be given an objective image of Israel at school, and exchange and encounters must be encouraged,” said Becker.