A German regional court ruled that the setting fire to a synagogue was not an anti-Semitic act, but rather was intended to draw “attention to the Gaza conflict.”
As such, the three men convicted of the crime – identified only as Muhammad E., 31, Ismail A., 26, and Muhammad A., 20 – were given suspended sentences. The men threw a firebomb into the synagogue in Wuppertal which caused $850 of damage in the summer of 2014 during Operation Protective Edge, Israel’s response to continuous rockets and missiles fired into its territory by Hamas.