The state was hollowed out
Rampant hatred of Jews is the result of false multicultural tolerance
A guest comment from Falko Liecke
October 23, 2023, 1:47 p.m
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Hatred of Jews is fueled by political Islam. The fact that anti-Semitism is growing in Germany, just like anti-Semitism, is the result of misunderstood tolerance. The state, which is supposed to protect its citizens from violence, has been undermined for too long. That must have an end. Urgent.
I have never understood why the warnings of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which wrote its fingers sore, were ignored and why those who predicted exactly what we are now experiencing in German cities and especially in Berlin were never listened to: openly demonstrated anti-Semitism. For years, the conditions that I know all too well from my time as a city councilor in Neukölln were ignored or even glossed over. I encountered them every day in schools, youth facilities and on the street. I spoke to her openly. But whatever I said came to nothing. Worse still: I was branded a racist and right-wing populist, especially after my book was published in which I predicted what is shocking us today.
At the age of 22, Liecke, who was born in Berlin in 1973, joined the CDU. Since 2023, the State Secretary has been in the Berlin Senate Department for Education, Youth and Family. Falko Liecke was previously a district councilor in Berlin-Neukölln for four years.
Since 2015, Liecke has repeatedly expressed criticism of integration policy. He spoke out in favor of banning various mosque associations and demanded that the influence of Islamic associations be minimized. He also suggested a ban on full-face veils in Germany. Liecke demanded that refugees and migrants recognize the values of the Basic Law. Liecke also called for more attention to be paid to migrant milieus in the areas of early childhood support and juvenile crime. And last but not least, according to Liecke, the state must take a more decisive stance against clan crime. His book “Focal Point Germany: Poverty, Violence, Neglect – Neukölln is just the beginning” was published in 2022.
The deputy state chairman of the CDU Berlin is married and has two children.
Churches, welfare associations, youth organizations, parties, trade unions and some of the media: They all share responsibility for the fact that political Islam was able to gain ground in Germany through trivialization and continues to gain ground – and thus anti-Semitism is growing. The multicultural idea and misunderstood tolerance are now weighing heavily on our feet. The disgusting attacks against synagogues are the sad result of this error. The state, which is supposed to protect its citizens from violence, has been undermined for too long. That must have an end. Urgent.
It is Islamism that carries the fanatical hatred of Jews, driven by the will to destroy, through streets, schoolyards and the political fringes deep into society, even to what we call “the middle”. I’m not exaggerating. And anyone who thinks that right now has not understood the historical scale of the problem. Eliminationist anti-Semitism is socially acceptable again in Germany. Not the dull hatred of old and new right-wing extremists. It is and remains frowned upon and loathed in the vast majority of the country.
It is the hatred of Jewish life that comes across as a liberation struggle, identity politics and international solidarity. After the massacres in Israel, anti-Semites and left-wing extremists dropped their masks. A district councilor from Neukölln incited parents and students at a school to resist the police and distributed leaflets calling for the annihilation of Israel. A member of the Berlin state parliament invented alleged attitude tests for children of Arab origin at a primary school and used them to aggressively incite people on X (formerly Twitter). The left-wing political fringe has an anti-Semitism problem. For years, saying this was dangerous and was dismissed as right-wing or reactionary. It didn’t get any better.
That’s why it’s no surprise that anti-Semitism and hatred are spreading openly on our streets. As early as May 2021, there were serious riots with almost a hundred injured police officers along Neukölln’s infamous Sonnenallee. At that time, several meetings took place in Neukölln over several days, at which hatred of Jews was brought to the public, partly under the guise of criticism of Israel and partly openly. A harbinger of what has now broken out on a broad front.
Even then, the meetings themselves didn’t surprise me. They don’t do it today either. What was surprising at this point in time, however, was the deliberate escalation of violence by sections of immigrants from the Arab world and their – usually left-wing – sympathizers. Leftists saw this as class warfare. And Arab migrants were their willing comrades-in-arms. When you realize that many of them were born in this country and are German citizens, and have therefore never personally experienced the conflict in the homeland of their parents and grandparents, and yet are driven by almost endless hatred of Jews, you have to feel fear and anxiety.
In these families, extreme enemy images are cultivated and formed into entire generational identities that cannot or do not want to distinguish between legitimate criticism of the actions of the State of Israel and contempt for people of the Jewish faith. This hatred is the unifying narrative for tens of thousands from the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Syria and other Middle Eastern states. Passed down and cultivated over generations and fueled by Islamists, it has spread and is firmly anchored in these communities.
Something could change right now. The dream of multiculturalism may have burst for many leftists on October 7, 2023, exactly where it once began: on Neukölln’s Sonnenallee, which stands for almost everything that integration fantasies of recent years have achieved in this country. I have the faint hope that more and more people in the still structurally left-wing capital will recognize their mistakes and finally give in in the face of the monstrosity of their error.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s announcement that “we have to deport people on a large scale” is an important part of this awakening process. However, an announcement is not enough. Simply because it’s too late for that. The vast majority of perpetrators now have German citizenship. They were born here, attended our schools – often unsuccessfully – and will stay here. But if “deport faster” also means “don’t let any of them in anymore,” then the solution is within reach.
The hard work is just beginning. The real integration of people who enrich our society not only economically, but also culturally and personally, will be difficult enough. But it has to be. Successes are visible. Everywhere: in Neukölln as well as in the rest of the country. It is difficult enough to organize urgently needed immigration, to explain it to the population and to allay fears about it. Precisely because there are political vagabonds in Germany who make fear of change their business, without even having answers to tomorrow’s questions. But something has to happen – also so that Jews can live safely here again.