At the request of Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal, rabbi of the Jewish community in Berlin, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel has made it clear that he supports the European Parliament's decision to support the expansion of the definition of anti-Semitism.
Among other things, the definition applies to accusing the Jews of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust, accusing Jews around the world of controlling the governments and media, denying the Jewish people the right to self-determination, and expressions directed against the state of Israel, when perceived as a Jewish collective. Gabriel's support is surprising, because of his meeting a few months ago with meeting with representatives of Israeli groups Breaking the Silence and B'Tselem, which oppose Israel's presence beyond the1949 Armistice Line. Those meetings prompted Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to cancel a meeting Gabriel.