Podcast
ICCT-SACC SENTINEL Podcast
Hans-Jakob Schindler, senior director at the Counter Extremism Project, joins the ICCT-SACC SENTINEL podcast to examine the escalating threats facing Germany's Jewish community since October 7th, 2023 - and the shifting coalitions behind them.
Schindler traces today's Islamist-far-left alliance, now the leading source of violent threat to German Jews, against its historical predecessor: the 1970s partnership between Palestinian militants and the German far-left, once bound by a shared "anti-imperialist" ideology. That genuine ideological kinship is gone; Schindler argues, what remains is, in his words, "antisemitism dressed in the clothes of anti-Zionism."
He also unpacks two emerging fronts: Hamas operatives reportedly embedded in Europe with instructions to carry out attacks, including against Jewish targets, and a troubling shift following the US/Israel war against Iran, with Tehran allegedly recruiting low-level criminals to carry out deniable attacks on Jewish targets.
For Schindler, these hybrid threats expose a structural blind spot - one that no longer fits neatly into Germany's existing categories of Islamist or far-left terrorism, and demands a fundamental rethink of how the threat is understood and countered.
Photo Credits: Waldemar Brandt on Unsplash
About this series
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Within the framework of the SENTINEL project, ICCT is proud to present a new podcast series with professionals working to directly monitor anti-Semitic extremism around Europe, as well as individuals who are involved in security provision for the Jewish communities across Europe. The first podcase episode saw Kacper Rekawek in discussion over these issues with Ophir Revach. In episode two Kacper is joined in conversation by Noemi di Segni, followed by Jean Yves Camus in episode three. Kacper speaks with Anne-Clementine Larroque in episode four, and the series concludes with Uljana Vlagyimirova speaking with Hans Jakob Schindler.
