Pro-Israel leftists raised flag and act is not antisemitic, says state official
By BENJAMIN WEINTHALA bloodied Israeli flag hangs on the main building at the University of Cape Town on Monday at the start of Israel-Apartheid Week.(photo credit: SAUJS/FACEBOOK)
Unknown individuals raised an Israeli flag on a 40-meter high smokestack in the eastern German city of Leipzig on Monday – the day the international community commemorated the liberation of Auschwitz on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The Jerusalem Post initially reported that Andreas Ricken, a state prosecutor, said that they consider the incident a hate crime, and were investigating accordingly.The authorities removed the flag from the smokestack. However, on Wednesday, Thomas Feist, an official responsible for Jewish life in the state of Saxony, where Leipzig is located, said pro-Israel leftists raised the flag on the smokestack and there is not an antisemitic motive behind the action.The Bild reporter Markus Langer first reported on the outbreak of antisemitism, terming it a “disgusting provocation.”Andres Iglesias-Frey, the owner of the factory site, said that “I am horrified that such provocations take place here.”Kai-Alexander Berg, a Leipzig police official, told Bild: “First of all, we investigate because of disturbance to the public order. In view of today’s date, the state security was also informed.”The authorities are looking for DNA at the scene of the crime.
