GERMANY: The synagogues of Berlin are easy to recognise from the armed police and tanks that stand guard outside their gates day and night. Berlin has the fastest-growing Jewish community in the world, but the city's 11,000 Jews say they feel under threat from growing anti-Semitism.
One rabbi has warned the men in his congregation to wear baseball caps to disguise their kippah skull caps and two synagogues were attacked in recent weeks with homemade bombs.
Feelings already were running high among Berlin's huge Muslim population when a German politician ignited an anti-Semitism controversy by reopening a decades-old debate about just how Germans may criticise Israel.
Mr Jürgen Möllemann, the deputy leader of Germany's third-largest political party, the Free Democrats (FDP), said Israel was "trampling over international law" in its treatment of Palestinians.
He said the hardline stance of the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, and the "arrogant and hateful manner" of a prominent German-Jewish leader, were fuelling anti-Semitism in Germany. Mr Möllemann also defended a party member who accused the Israelis of "employing Nazi methods" against Palestinians.
Mr Paul Spiegel, leader of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, called Mr Möllemann's comments "anti-Semitic" and "the worst insult a political party has delivered in the history of the Federal Republic since the Holocaust".
Mr Alexander Brenner, the head of Berlin's Jewish community, added: "By saying that the Jews themselves are to blame for anti-Semitism, Mr Möllemann is using the tactics employed by Goebbels." Even Chancellor Gerhard Schröder got involved, dismissing the FDP, viewed as likely coalition king-makers after September's election, as "willing but not suitable for government".
Still, the controversy increased support for the FDP from 9 to 12 per cent in the opinion polls, confirming the suspicions of some observers that Mr Möllemann was courting Muslim and disaffected far-right voters.
FDP leader Mr Guido Westerwelle partly confirmed this suspicion in an interview, saying: "We welcome anyone who wants to turn his sense of frustration into constructive political behaviour."
The long shadow of the Holocaust still hangs over any discussion of Germany's relationship with Israel. But the violence in the Middle East and the growing criticism of Mr Sharon has a younger generation of Germans asking why the Nazi crimes of the past continue to prevent Germany being able to have a critical opinion towards Israel.
A new report by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) into German media coverage of Israel found that "insinuations, imputations and racist stereotypes" are rampant and that the German media "tend to reproduce existing anti-Semitic and racist prejudices in German public discourses, or even to construct them anew".
The results were surprising, considering they studied Germany's most respectable newspapers and magazines, which bend over backwards to be neutral in their Middle East coverage. A look at the researchers' methods, however, revealed that they defined almost every negative judgment in the articles as anti-Semitic.
Descriptions of Mr Sharon as a "butcher" or as a "fat and lonely man" are viewed suspiciously, as is the alleged brutality of Israeli soldiers. A condemnation of Mr Sharon is read as a condemnation of Israel.
The report considers it next to impossible for German criticism of Israel to be at once negative and appropriate. In the end, the report concludes that German reporting of the conflict is shot-through with a "German view of things".
Mr Möllemann bowed to pressure from his party leader last Thursday and apologised for his remarks. That ended the controversy and the best chance in years to discuss one of the last great taboos in German society.
