270 grandchildren of Nazis as well as Holocaust survivors and their children from German speaking countries, Israel, the U.S., Belarus and Poland, began a week-long march across Poland Monday, passing alongside the Nazi death camps.

The march began at Auschwitz, near Krakow, in southern Poland and will end on Friday at Treblinka, 65 miles north-east of the capital Warsaw.

MK Lia Shemtov, Knesset Deputy Speaker, will be a special guest at the final ceremonies.

Marchers will visit the sites of several death and concentration camps set up in occupied Poland, including Belzec, Majdanek, Sobibor and Chelmno.

The march was conceived by a Protestant church in Tuebingen, southern Germany, in collaboration with Polish groups.

“The idea came in our church in Tuebingen when a lot of people were looking into their family history and they found out their families were involved in Nazi crimes,” Heinz Reuss, an organizer with the church, told AFP on Monday.

“We want to speak up for Israel and against anti-Semitism, but obviously as Germans you can’t do it without looking into your own families because of their involvement,” he added. “Our first march was in 2007 in Tuebingen. There were several concentration camps around it during the war. At the end of the war there were death marches to Dachau.”

“It was our first march with Holocaust survivors.”

“Participants will march in small relay groups between several death and concentration camps installed in Poland by Nazi Germany. In this way they would like to ask for forgiveness for what their grandparents did in order to break a kind of conspiracy of silence on these acts in Germany,” Zbigniew Judasz, a local Polish organizer, told AFP.

The week-long march began with a ceremony at the Birkenau death campnear Auschwitz.

German marcher Bäerbel Pfeiffer asked for forgiveness for her grandfather, an electrician who installed the electrified barbed wire fence at Auschwitz-Birkenau and wired the camp’s gas chambers.

Waving German and Israeli flags, the marchers then began their march to Kielce, 105 miles south of Warsaw.

A few hundred Jews and non-Jews marched in the southern-Swedish city of Malmo to protest intolerance and anti-Semitic attacks in Sweden.

Malmo, with a large immigrant Muslim community, saw a surge in hate crimes against Jews after Israel’s operation in Gaza in 2009.

Some marchers wore a kippa.

Willy Silberstein of the Swedish Committee Against Anti-Semitism, which organized the march, described it as a success. The march ended without incident.

“It was impressive. There was much more people than we expected,” Silberstein said, adding that most of the participants were not Jewish.

Sweden’s minister for EU affairs, Birgitta Ohlsson, walked in the march. In her speech to the marchers she declared that Malmo was open to everyone, regardless of background or beliefs.

In recent years, Sweden’s government has been criticized for failing to protect the country’s Jewish community from anti-Semitism. But last year the government allocated funds to this end.

It is estimated that 20,000 Jews live in Sweden.

30,000 boy and girls from schools around the country participated in the Jerusalem Day Dance and Flag Parade on Sunday, May 20, 2012.

The parade began with dancing in front of the Great Synagogue, followed by a march to the Old City, walking through the gates of Jerusalem, and finally, culminating at the Kotel.

The parade celebrates the reunification of Jerusalem in 1967.

Photo Credits: Stephen Leavitt, Flash90: Noam Moskowitz,  Miriam Alster

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood launched presidential candidate Muhammad Mursi’s campaign with the promise that “the capital of the Caliphate – the capital of the United States of the Arabs – will be Jerusalem,” according to a transcript obtained by MEMRI.

Egyptian Cleric Safwat Higazi, chosen to initiate Mursi’s campaign at a rally aired on Al-Nas TV on May 1, 2012, began by describing Mursi as the man that would restore a supra-national Islamic government: “We can see how the dream of the Islamic Caliphate is being realized, Allah willing, by Dr. Muhammad Mursi…his supporters, and his political party. We can see how the great dream, shared by us all – that of the United States of the Arabs… will be restored by this man and his supporters.

“The capital of the Caliphate – the capital of the United States of the Arabs,” he continued, “will be Jerusalem, Allah willing!”

Not long afterward, Higazi reiterated the campaign promise, but this time in more unequivocal language: “Our capital shall not be Cairo, Mecca, or Medina. It shall be Jerusalem, Allah willing. Our cry shall be: ‘Millions of martyrs march toward Jerusalem! Millions of martyrs march toward Jerusalem!’”

The crowd responded in kind: “Millions of martyrs march toward Jerusalem! Millions of martyrs march toward Jerusalem! Millions of martyrs march toward Jerusalem!”

Taking his cue from Higazi, the attending master of ceremonies embarked on a lengthy anti-Semitic ode, repeating over and over again, to the delight of the eager crowd, “[b]anish the sleep from the eyes of all Jews…Come on, you lovers of martyrdom, you are all Hamas. From the eyes of all Jews… Forget about the whole world, forget about all the conferences…Brandish your weapons… Say your prayers…”

“We say it loud and clear,” Higazi intoned, “Yes, Jerusalem is our goal. We shall pray in Jerusalem, or else we shall die as martyrs on its threshold. Millions of martyrs march toward Jerusalem!”

“Millions of martyrs march toward Jerusalem!” the crowd responded.

Egyptian Presidential elections are scheduled to take place May 23-24. Of the twelve candidates, Mursi, former Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa, and Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh are considered the frontrunners. Moussa, unabashed in his anti-Israel and anti-American views, and has been quoted as saying that the Egypt-Israel peace treaty is “dead and buried.” Aboul Fotouh, formerly of the Muslim Brotherhood and currently considered the “moderate” frontrunner, is endorsed by the the radical Salafi Al-Nour Party, which believes in implementing strict Sharia law.

MEMRI contributed to this report.

“Slutwalk”, a controversial rally aiming to counter the claim that revealing clothing provokes rape and sexual assault, will come to Jerusalem on Friday unless it is stopped by conservative and religious elements in the city.  On such rally has already occurred in Tel Aviv.

The march is set to begin at Paris square and arrive at Gan HaSus.  The march began in April 2011, after a Canadian police officer recommended that a way women could reduce rapes and sexual assaults is to “avoid dressing like sluts”.

Approximately 160 people are anticipated at the Friday march, which has been authorized by law enforcement.  However, Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Yossi Deutsch told Yediot Aharonot that he intends to prevent the rally, the idea of which left him “shocked, ashamed and disgusted”, particularly because many of the women objecting to the notion of being treated as sex objects because of their attire will be walking in the rally in revealing and suggestive clothing.

The Naharnet website reports that some 4,000 Lebanese, Palestinian and “foreign” demonstrators (i.e. Iranians) are expected to march to the Beaufort Castle in Nabatiyeh on Friday morning, marking Land Day.

The Lebanese army and security forces have taken strong measures to prevent uncontrolled escalation of the protest. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon is patrolling and monitoring suspicious activity from its bases near the Israeli border.

The Lebanese daily Al-Joumhouria quotes high-ranking Palestinian sources as saying that the mainstream Fatah movement has leased 50 buses for Palestinians in the refugee camps of Sidon, Tyre and Beirut around.

The Islamic Jihad and Hizbullah have leased 30 and 40 buses respectively.

A million Arabs plan to march on Jerusalem highlighting strange “accusations” that Israel is seeking to retain the Jewish character of its holy capital.

In a nutshell, the week’s news is this: A bunch of Islamic terrorists are organizing a million-man march on Yerushalayim, disingenuously portraying this potentially murderous initiative as a simple peaceful protest.

The march, which is to begin simultaneously from all four of Israel’s neighbors – Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt – has been billed as protesting the “Judaization of Jerusalem” – as if the Holy City has not been the capital of the Jewish people for nearly 3,000 years.

Known as the Global March to Jerusalem (GMJ), it is scheduled for this Friday. Its aim is to have one million people march on and infiltrate Israel’s borders, with the ultimate goal being Jerusalem. If they succeed in breaking through at just one spot, the dangers of bloodshed on both sides are clearly acute.

Who is organizing it? Outspokenly hostile Muslim terrorists: Members of Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and others – all backed and sponsored by Iran.

CiF Watch, a pro-Israel organization tracking preparations for the march, notes that one of the senior organizers is Hamas MP Ahmed Abo Halabiya, who in 2000 said in a sermon, “Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them.”

Sitting on the GMJ’s advisory board members are President Obama’s former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright; Sheikh Raed Salah of the militant Islamic Movement in Israel; and Hamas leaders.

Why have they chosen to highlight Jerusalem, as opposed to the entirety of Israel? The answer is clear: They well know that our connection to our holy city is the key to our connection to the entire Land of Israel. Wherever they weaken our hold on Yerushalayim, they weaken the entire Zionist enterprise.

The IDF is concerned that the “non-violent” march could easily spin out of control, as happened last year when over a dozen Syrians were killed when they burst through the Israeli border in the Golan. Taking a broader view, some fear that, given the current volatile state of the Middle East, the true goal of the GMJ is to spark yet another intifada.

Israel is not taking the threat lightly and has explicitly warned its neighboring countries not to permit demonstrators near its borders this Friday, vowing it will take all means necessary against anyone trying to cross the borders.

Lebanon, for its part, has said it will allow marchers to reach only as far south as the Beaufort, three miles from the border. Lebanese sources say the country does not want a repeat of last year’s events. Jordan, however, has announced that it will permit its citizens to approach the Israeli border as long as they “do not act with violence.”

Of course, the most effective response to this affront to our sovereignty would simply be to constantly reaffirm exclusive Jewish rights to Jerusalem. The more we assert our rights, the more they will be respected.

Because amidst all the details, we must not lose sight of the big picture: The stated Muslim ideology behind this march is to prevent the “Judaization of Jerusalem.” Interestingly, there is an entire Wikipedia entry on this topic – and its history of Jerusalem does not even mention King David or the Holy Temples. Its overview begins instead with the generalization that Jerusalem “has a long history of settlement predating that of the three monotheistic faiths” and that “members of all three religions and others have made Jerusalem their home over the years.” The history of the city begins, according to this article, in the year 638, when it came under Muslim rule.

Let us therefore review some basic truths; though they are self-evident to readers of this column, they need to be repeated and disseminated at every opportunity:

Jerusalem has been central to the Jewish nation for some four millennia, ever since Abraham nearly sacrificed his son Isaac on Mt. Moriah; 1,000 years later, after nearly five centuries of Jewish control over the land, King David made the city Israel’s capital; we mention Yerushalayim constantly in our prayers, which we recite while facing it; we constantly remember its centerpiece’s destruction on days of mourning as well as happy occasions; Jerusalem is mentioned directly in the Bible some 650 times – and not even once in the Koran; Muslims actually turn their backs on Jerusalem when they pray.

Canadian historian Jacques Gauthier concluded in his doctoral dissertation that “Jerusalem belongs to the Jews, by international law.” His research is based on a non-broken series of international treaties and resolutions over the past 90 years, beginning with the 1920 San Remo Conference (later unanimously backed by the League of Nations), which affirmed the Balfour Declaration and create a Jewish national home in what is now Israel.