German Police Raid Far-Right Extremists : Violence: Weapons, explosives are confiscated. Israeli lawmaker threatens travel boycott if trouble isn’t controlled.

Police raided dozens of homes of right-wing extremists across Germany and found explosives, weapons and neo-Nazi propaganda, officials said Saturday.

Tens of thousands demonstrated peacefully in more than 20 German cities to protest violence against foreigners, though trouble erupted during a march in the northern town of Moelln, where three Turks died when their home was firebombed Monday.

An Interior Ministry spokesman, discussing further steps that might be taken to halt xenophobic violence in Germany, said rightist leaders might be banned from making public statements.

In Jerusalem, an Israeli Cabinet minister proposed that Israelis and world Jewry not travel to Germany if the German government fails to crack down on neo-Nazis.

“We have a moral right as a nation, if not a moral obligation due to our experience, to warn the world and tell the honorable German government to take matters into their hands,” Israeli Education Minister Shulamit Aloni told Israel army radio.

Aloni said she will ask Israel’s Cabinet today to demand that Germany take immediate steps against right-wing extremists or face the travel boycott.

The head of the opposition Likud Party in Israel’s Parliament, Moshe Katzav, said Israel should cut diplomatic ties with Germany if immediate steps are not taken to curb neo-Nazis, Israel radio reported.

Many Germans and people in other countries have been outraged by far-right violence that has left 16 dead in almost 1,800 attacks this year. The worst attack was the killing of the three Turks.

The bodies of the three were flown home Saturday. Hundreds of mourners, some holding banners denouncing neo-Nazis, gathered as they arrived in Carsamba, Turkey, the Turkish Anatolian News Agency reported.

The police raids, which began Friday and continued into the night, involved homes of members of the Nationalist Front, which the government outlawed Friday.

The banning of the group, which has not been linked to the Moelln firebombing, was intended “as a clear sign to other rightist groups,” Interior Minister Rudolf Seiters said.

In Bavaria, state Interior Minister Edmund Stoiber said weapons and ammunition were found in raids in six towns. Two Nationalist Front members were held on suspicion of violating weapons laws.

Anti-Nazi laws permit the outlawing of groups that spread Nazi propaganda, and authorities can confiscate assets of banned groups.

Demonstrators in 28 cities protested the violence against foreigners and refugees.

A march in Moelln was marred by fighting between Turks and Turkish Kurds. They threw stones, used flagstaffs as clubs and shot flare pistols at each other.

Many Turkish Kurds in Germany are refugees from Turkey, which seeks to crush a Turkish Kurdish separatist movement. Their left-oriented political groups are opposed by most other Turks in Germany.