The German film ratings agency (FSK) has barred those under the age of 18 from seeing a Turkish action film widely considered as anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli. Jewish groups have expressed concern about the release in Europe of ‘Valley of the Wolves: Palestine’ which critics say demonizes Israelis and contains virulent anti-Semitic stereotypes of Jews as bloodthirsty killers of children. The movie is a sequel to the 2006 production ‘Valley of the Wolves: Iraq’ which focused on a fictitious Jewish doctor harvesting organs of Iraqi soldiers for use in Israeli hospitals. The film was very popular among young men of Turkish background in Germany. In all, some 3.5 million people of Turkish origin live in Germany.

The new film involves a group of Turks who set out to avenge the deaths of nine activists killed by Israeli naval commandos on the Mavi Marmara vessel in May 2010, which attempted to break Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza. The opening scenes use actual footage from Israel’s military raid. In a dramatic battle scene, the TUrkish activists resist and are mowed down by the Israeli commandos. A Turkish commando team led by Polat Alemdar then travels to Israel, where they launch a campaign of destruction and murder against Israeli forces in an attempt to track down and eliminate the Israeli commander responsible for the flotilla raid.

Mainstream political parties have joined in condemning the movie as anti-Semitic and expressed concern about its potential to cause further harm to Israel-Turkey relations, which were damaged already by the Mavi Marmara incident and earlier the Gaza war.