German FM: Refugees Must Reject anti-Semitism

'Anti-Semitism is against our constitution, against our civilization — against everything we believe in and everything we have learned,' says Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

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A child stands next to a Germany flag as protesting migrants stage a sit in protest on the railway tracks at the northern Greek border station of Idomeni, Wednesday, March 9, 2016.
AP

Germany's foreign minister says refugees who find shelter in his country must reject anti-Semitism.

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Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier says Tuesday that whoever comes to Germany has to accept that "anti-Semitism is against our constitution, against our civilization — against everything we believe in and everything we have learned."

Germany has been debating how to integrate more than 1 million asylum-seekers who arrived last year, most of them Muslims from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The country has also seen a recent rise in nationalism, partly driven by groups who dispute Germany's sole responsibility for the historical crimes of the Nazis.

Steinmeier told a conference on anti-Semitism in Berlin that "there is and can be no place for anti-Semitism in our understanding of a free, democratic and tolerant Germany."

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