also with us is kristin helberg, a widely published commentator on syria. she is convinced the path to peace goes through moscow. we are joined by dw's own maissun melhem. she was born in syria, and she says it is not aleppo that is the real cause for shame but the suffering of the syrian people and the fact the international community has been in denial for so long. i would like to begin with you. you were born in syria. we have tended, in recent times, to act as though the conflict could not get any worse. it seems there is a definite escalation. what are your thoughts and what are your feelings? maissun: you start your day with a cup of coffee and a feeling of satisfaction that your child is sleeping in his bedroom, and you start reading the news. the first thing you see, like what i saw today, a bunch of children swimming in a crater, explosion crater, resulting from the bombings of yesterday, filled with the water of the broken water supply, which civilians in aleppo do not have any more. then you see the syrian ambassador at the u.n. laughing when a j

and kristin helberg is a featured mideast analyst a number of european publications she points out. hi yes is militarily defeated but not ideologically the west must help the kurds in dealing with the jocks. a warm welcome to all of you and to those of you joining us from around the world kristin if we could -- let's start with you you've also written two books about this topic about hi yes about syria. you spend a lot of time in the country let's get a a demographic of our average i. s. fighter jihadists who is he and what drew him. to fight in syria to fight in iraq well it's not that easy because behind the one thousand fifty german i as fighters that i'll one thousand personal stories. they are quite young the majority of them they have radicalized very quickly usually over the internet. so some of them are converts german citizens convert some of them are migration of they have a migration background in germany but i think what generalizes them would be that they feel a limit at elated from german society that felt that this is not the country this would be. from women for exam

melinda: kristen helberg, would you agree? are we seeing a rise in intolerance? kristin: i think what has really changed is the climate in discussion,ublic private discussion. a lot of things are being said that would have been impossible 10 years ago. and this does not go only for anti-jewish resentment but it goes for anything that is considered different, that is considered alien to germany somehow. we have a growing sentiment that everything should be as it is and germans are one nation and they look like this and whoever comes here has to act like this. assimilation. a goes not only against jews but especially against muslims right now. if you read texts and replace "jewish""muslim" with it is very frightening. stigmatization against minorities. this is a big problem inside germany. melinda: i want to talk about what affects the change in climate has. we have a short film. in recent years, berlin has seen a rebirth of jewish life but could this increasingly be perceived as a less than welcoming place? we can listen now to the voices children.michalski's [ vi