Germany rejects Angela Merkel's 'Willkommenskultur' welcoming immigration policy
Germany has made a «serious mistake» by opening its borders to so many foreigners, Henry Kissinger said after people celebrated Hamas' terrorist attack on Israel in «painful» scenes on the streets of Berlin.
The former US secretary of state, a Jew, fled Nazi Germany when he was 15, and he said that these scenes were “painful” to watch.
“It was a serious mistake to let so many people of completely different cultures, religions and concepts come here because it creates pressure groups within each country,” the 100-year-old said.
Kissinger's intervention sparked long-standing European concerns about “parallel societies,” a term referring to groups of immigrants who isolate themselves from their host country.
There are now fears that the war between Israel and Hamas will be fought on the streets of European capitals, as well as in the Middle East. “When I hear Muslim religious leaders speak the language of sectarian conflict and directly state that Europe is a party to this conflict, I feel storm clouds are approaching,” Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, warned on Wednesday.
Charles Michel, president of the European Council, warned the conflict would have «serious security consequences» as he called a meeting of EU leaders to discuss the crisis. “If we are not careful, this could exacerbate tensions between communities and fuel extremism,” he told the prime ministers and presidents of the 27 member states on Tuesday.
French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin has ordered a ban on pro-Palestinian demonstrations (such as the one pictured in Place de la République) and arrests their participants. Photo: Sarah Meyssonnier/Reuters
But by then the EU was already playing the trap. up. Belgium and France were on high terror alert following the Islamist killings. In Brussels, a failed asylum seeker shot dead two Swedish citizens and a teacher was stabbed to death in Arras in what French President Emmanuel Macron called «the barbarity of Islamist terrorism.»
Jewish schools have been closed across Europe over fears of anti-Semitic terrorist attacks , and guards were posted near synagogues and other Jewish sites. In France there were fears of bomb explosions, including at the Louvre.
In the Netherlands, protesters burned flags outside the Israeli embassy, and there were clashes with police in the Berlin district of Neukölln, home to a large Arab community, including 15,000 Palestinians. Some 65 officers were injured despite a ban on demonstrations. There was also an arson attack on the Jewish cultural center.
Attitudes towards migrants in Fortress Europe have hardened in the years since the 2015 migration crisis. More than a million people ordered by the Israeli Defense Forces to evacuate Gaza are not welcome in the EU.
Eurostat, the EU's statistics agency, warns that Europe's population is shrinking and aging. The report predicts that by 2100 the population will decline by 27.3 million people. Denmark and soon Slovakia.
“Europe does not want to import the Middle East conflict any more than it already has,” said Claude Moniquet, president of the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Think Tank in Brussels. “And it is very clear that if we take more than a few hundred people, we are importing conflict.”
So what are the risks in each country?
Germany
No other European country has received as many migrants as Germany, which once prided itself on its “Willkommenskultur”.
Angela Merkel decided that Germany would accept more than a million refugees, most of them Syrians, during the migration crisis in the previous decade.
In Brussels, the grand gesture was credited with saving freedom of movement in the EU as member states reinstated border controls as huge numbers of people crossed the continent. Over the past decade, the proportion of people born outside the EU in Germany has exceeded ten percent of the population.
About 924,000 Syrians now live in Germany, up from about 118,000 in 2014. Integration has not always been easy. More than 600 women were sexually assaulted by migrants during New Year's attacks in Cologne in early 2016.
Later that year, a rejected Tunisian asylum seeker drove a truck into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 people. But Merkel's determination that «Wir schaffen es» («We can handle this») also brought success.
By 2021, more than half of the asylum seekers who arrived in 2015 were employed and paying taxes. There were more Syrian doctors in Germany than doctors of any other nationality except German.
But now Olaf Scholz, Merkel's successor and former vice-chancellor, has abandoned the policy as local authorities complain it is on the brink of breaking point. He has tightened border controls with other EU members after the number of migrants arriving in Italy rose to heights not seen since 2016.
“The number of refugees trying to get into Germany is too high at the moment,” said the center-left chancellor, who faces falling approval ratings and rising support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. />A boat carries migrants near the port of the Sicilian island of Lampedusa in September Photo: Cecilia Fabiano/LaPresse via AP
Concerns about parallel societies are not new in Germany, where Turks make up the largest share (18 percent) of the 8.3 million foreign-born residents. The world's largest group of Turks abroad has its roots in the 1961 guest worker (guest worker) program and fiercely supports Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's authoritarian president.
In June there were scenes of jubilation on the streets of Germany. following Erdogan's election, reigniting concerns about Berlin's long-standing failure to integrate guest workers.
France
“We are all Frenchmen and Frenchwomen, we must not import this conflict,” Macron warned after the outbreak of hostilities in the Middle East.
Music channel MTV has canceled a European awards show due to take place in Paris next month, citing the war between Israel and Hamas. The statement said it was not the right time for celebrations, but security concerns may also have played a role in the decision.
Muslims make up 10 percent of the population in France, where more than 260 people have been killed. in Islamist terrorist attacks since 2012.
Unauthorized demonstration in support of Palestinians in Republic Square Photo: Sarah Meyssonnier/Reuters
In November 2015, terrorists killed 130 people, including 90 at the Bataclan theater in Paris. French Jews are fleeing en masse to Israel after a series of anti-Semitic terrorist attacks.
France, home to Europe's largest Jewish community, said it would ban all pro-Palestinian demonstrations following the Hamas attack on the grounds they posed a threat to public order. This decision was later overturned by a French court.
«The Palestinian cause has long been close to the hearts of French Muslims, who often identify with the suffering of Palestinians due to their own experiences of discrimination,» said Camille Lons. , a think tank of the European Council on Foreign Relations.
There are also tensions with the Muslim community due to government actions to enforce French secularism, such as the veil ban. June saw days of unrest after police shot and killed 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk, a 17-year-old Frenchman of Moroccan and Algerian descent.
About 80 percent of France's 6.8 million Muslims come from former French colonies in North Africa. Of these, 43.2 percent are from Algeria, 27.5 percent from Morocco and 11.4 percent from Tunisia.
If you combine 1.4 million Algerians, 1 million Moroccans and about 434,000 Tunisians, this is equivalent to approximately 4 percent of the total French population. Until recently, they could take advantage of favorable visa conditions.
Macron is now trying to push through a new immigration bill, France's 29th since 1980, that would create new powers to strip foreigners of their residence permits if they do not adhere to the values of the French Republic.
Authorities expect that There will be 140,000 asylum applications this year, after 130,000 last year, when the majority of applications came from Afghans. Gérald Darmanin, the interior minister, recently estimated the number of illegal immigrants in France at “between 600,000 and 900,000.”
He vowed not to allow any migrants to land on the Italian island of Lampedusa in France. Mr Darmanin lamented the «jihadist atmosphere» in France after the latest terrorist attack.
Many migrants arriving are believed to in Italy (for example, those depicted on the Sicilian island of Lamepedusa) move to other countries. Photo: Valeria Ferraro/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
French literature teacher Dominique Bernard was killed and three others were seriously injured in a knife attack at Gambetta-Carnot secondary school in Arras on October 13.
The attacker, Mohammed Mogouchkov, a former student, had previously pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. The 20-year-old Chechen came to France from Russia as a refugee in 2008.
Almost a year has passed since another Chechen refugee beheaded teacher Samuel Paty. “I studied in your schools for many years, I lived among you for many years free of charge. (…) You taught me what democracy and human rights are, and you pushed me into hell,” Mogouchkov said in audio material that was reportedly found on his phone.
Spain
Spain must stop illegal immigration to avoid the creation of “parallel societies like those in Belgium and France,” said Ignacio Garriga, Vox leader in Catalonia.
The far-right party, Spain's third-largest political force, has called for a suspension of all citizenship processes involving Muslims due to the «exceptional situation» of the Hamas attack.
There are 2.3 million Muslims in Spain, mostly immigrants from Morocco or second-generation Moroccans. There are 845,000 Moroccan citizens living legally in Spain, as well as undocumented migrants arriving in the south of Spain or the Canary Islands on small boats.
The country's two worst terrorist attacks this century were carried out by Muslims living in Spain, including the March 2004 commuter train bombings that killed 191 people in Madrid and the Barcelona van attack that killed 16 people. This month, police have increased vigilance against 300 people seen as potential «lone wolf» attackers.
Governments fear that sectarian conflicts will erupt on the streets of Western European countries. Photo: Anadolu via Getty Images Belgium
About one in ten people in Belgium was born outside the country, up from 6.7 percent in 2009. Moroccans earn the largest share, about 2 percent, but none are as notorious as Salah Abdelslam.
The only surviving member of the group that carried out the Bataclan attacks in Paris has French citizenship but was born and raised in the Brussels district of Molenbeek. Four days after his arrest, his terrorist cell carried out two bombings that killed 32 people at Zaventem airport near the Belgian capital and at the Maelbeek metro station in Brussels.
The deadliest attack on Belgium since World War II war. attention to a country that is said to have more jihadists per capita fighting in Iraq and Syria than any other Western European country.
It was only in 2021 that the Belgian government ended the military protection of Jewish sites that had been in place since the deadly shooting at the Jewish Museum of Brussels in 2014. Last November, a policeman was stabbed to death in central Brussels by a Belgian-Moroccan man who was on a radical watch list.
Inevitably, bad memories came flooding back Monday night after a 45-year-old failed asylum seeker shot dead two Swedish citizens in Belgium at an international football match.
Abdeselam Lassoued, who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, was shot dead by police in a cafe the next day. Security guards were previously sent to protect Ikea amid fears that Swedes were being targeted following a wave of Koran-burning demonstrations in the Scandinavian country.
Sweden
“This is a time for greater security, we cannot be naive. «said Ulf Kristersson, Sweden's prime minister, demanding tighter European border controls following the news from Brussels.
More than one in seven people were born abroad in Sweden, which received the highest number of migrants per capita in the EU during the 2015 crisis. These included almost 200,000 Syrians — about one for every 50 people living in Sweden — 150,000 Iraqis and 81,000 Iranians.
Famously tolerant Sweden is experiencing violent gang conflict as immigrant gangs fight for control of the drug trade. In September alone, 19 people died as the situation became so dire that the military was called in.
“Segregation went so far that parallel societies emerged in Sweden. We live in the same country, but in completely different realities,” Magdalena Andersson, the center-left prime minister, said last August. A month later it was defeated in the elections and was replaced by Kristerrson's right-wing coalition.
Italy
The terrorist who killed two Swedes in Brussels arrived in Europe on Lampedusa in 2011. Lassouede moved to Sweden before being deported. returned to Italy under EU rules, where authorities lost track of him in 2016.
His journey through Europe is familiar. Some 141,000 migrants have arrived in Italy this year; many of them land in Lampedusa, the closest EU territory to the Tunisian coast. Until the end of June, more than two-thirds of all migrants arriving in Europe this year had landed in Italy by sea, with the majority coming from Tunisia and Libya.
Migrants from Syria walk through Serbia Photo: Marko Djurica/Reuters
“Obviously I was hoping to do better on migrants,” said Georgia Meloni, the far-right prime minister who campaigned on a promise to stop the boats, in an interview marking her first year in office. Following the Hamas attack, its government was warned by security officials of the risk of «possible terrorist infiltration» across the Mediterranean and overland.
Italy tightened security controls on its border with Slovenia on Thursday amid fears that foreign fighters could infiltrate to the country after traveling through the Balkans. “We can't sit back about this. Islamist extremism is a disease, not a religion,” said Matteo Salvini, Deputy Prime Minister.
Italy's foreign-born population represents a relatively small share of 7.8 percent of the total population, which has remained largely unchanged in the past. decade; assuming that migrants arriving in the country go elsewhere.
Guido Crosetto, Italy's defense minister, said security services were «very effective» in stopping «dangerous people» but that this was only possible for a small number of people. “If you open the door (to more migration), there will be a feeling that this is not a war between Israel and Hamas, but a war between the Islamic world and the West,” he said. “We have seen that it only takes a few dozen people to cause deep wounds.”
And in the UK…
The head of the UK Countering Extremism Commission warned on Thursday that pro-Palestinian demonstrations in London were sparked by a “sophisticated” network of Iran and Hamas , operating in the UK.
In evidence that European fears are shared here, a Doncaster woman made headlines after she fearfully mistook innocent paragliders for Hamas terrorists attacking Yorkshire.
The UK has the second largest Jewish community in Europe, numbering around 300,000 people. According to the 2021 census, there are 331,844 Arabs living in England and Wales.
Red paint sprayed on an Orthodox Jewish girls' school in Stamford -Hill in north London. Photo: Ben Cawthra/LNP
Amnesty International's Steve Valdes-Symonds said that «any serious politician should strive for inclusion and diversity rather than preach isolationism.» and incitement to hatred.» He added: “Multiculturalism is not just a fact of modern society – it has been and remains vital to centuries of economic, social and cultural enrichment.”
But European Jews are scared after receiving death threats, the chairman of the European Jewish Association has warned. “Ever since the war began in Israel, 2 million Jews living in Europe have not slept at night,” Rabbi Menachem Margolin told the Telegraph.
“There are many, many thousands of people in Europe who support the protests in support of Hamas, which means that these are people who support terror and calls to kill Jews,” he said.
“I I don't want to be too dramatic. But I am not sure that, under the current circumstances, the Jewish people will be able to continue to live safely in Europe if the governments do not wake up.”
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