Chancellor Angela Merkel warned Friday that Germany would not tolerate anti-Semitic demonstrations following protests outside synagogues at which demonstrators shouted anti-Jewish slogans and burned Israeli flags over the escalating conflict in the Middle East. "Anyone who attacks a synagogue or defiles Jewish symbols shows that for them it is not about criticising a state or the policies of a government, but about aggression and hate towards a religion and the people who belong to it," Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said, adding that "our democracy will not tolerate anti-Semitic demonstrations." fec/kih/lc