Even a youth football team is considered fair game by some extremist attackers, as long as the players are—or appear to be—Jewish. The 13-to-16-year-olds squad of Germany’s Makkabi Berlin, a team set up in the 1970s by Holocaust survivors, was attacked last week.
While playing in the Berlin borough of Neukölln, known for its large Arab and Turkish population, players were reportedly “hunted down” by a gang of Arab youths, armed with sticks and knives and shouting “free Palestine” and “f*****g Jews.”
One father took to social media to describe how his son was “deeply shaken” after being “insulted and even spat on several times.” He also accused the match’s referee of failing to properly intervene.
Law enforcers told German paper Der Tagesspiegel shortly after the incident that “no operation” was underway. But Britain’s Daily Telegraph now reports that Makkabi Berlin’s youth side has been put under police protection. The opposing club, Schwarz-Weiss Neukölln, said that perpetrators from its own fanbase will be thrown out once they have been identified.
The attack came just days after a 50-year-old supporter of Makkabi Berlin was punched in the face in Kreuzberg, Berlin, because he was wearing a scarf associated with the German-Jewish club. This incident prompted Welt journalist Gerrit Seebald to suggest that “Jewish life in Germany obviously needs better protection”—a call that has clearly not yet been heeded.
Israel’s National Security Council put out a shocking warning to Europe’s Jewish population on Sunday, telling it to “categorically avoid” large events across the continent and to be “extra careful about concealing anything that could identify you as Israeli/Jewish,” all because of the growing threat of violence from pro-Palestine thugs.
