German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday warned against any show of anti-Semitic or racist behaviour ahead of expected weekend pro-Palestinian rallies in the wake of days of fighting in the Middle East.

Several German cities saw pro-Palestinian demonstrations during the deadly 11-day conflict between Israel and Hamas, the Islamist movement which controls the Gaza Strip, prompting Merkel to issue a call for calm.

“Those who bear hatred towards Jews in the street, those who incite racial hatred put themselves outside our Basic Law,” Merkel declared in her weekly podcast.
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“Such acts must be punished severely,” she insisted.

German police made some 60 arrests last Saturday while some 100 officers were hurt as a pro-Palestinian rally in Berlin turned violent.

Some participants at marches in towns across Germany shouted anti-Semitic slogans, which Merkel blasted as “unacceptable”. Others burned Israeli flags and in one case stoned the entrance to a synagogue.

Merkel noted that Germany’s constitution “guarantees the right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. But it offers no place for attacks on people of a different confession, no place for violence, racism or denigration” of others and their beliefs.
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