Het verzwegen antisemitisme rapport online

[Pascal L.]

Het rapport van het onderzoeksteam van het Berlin Centre for Research on Anti-Semitism, dat in opdracht het onderzoek verricht heeft en het desbetreffende rapport ook heeft opgesteld en ingeleverd wordt gehekeld door het het European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), de opdrachtgever

Nu te lezen op:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...=1070259994583


Manifestations of anti-Semitism in the European Union


What follows is an as yet unpublished EU report on anti-Semitism in Europe. This report was leaked to The Jerusalem Post by the CRIF, the umbrella body representing the French Jewish organized community and by the European Jewish Congress, an affiliate of the WJC.

Manifestations of anti-Semitism in the European Union

Synthesis Report on behalf of the EUMC [European Monitoring Centre] on Racism and Xenophobia

by Werner Bergmann and Juliane Wetzel

Zentrum fur Antisemitismusforschung / Center for Research on Antisemitism Technische Universiteit Berlin.

Vienna, March 2003

Preface

Although we know – and opinion polls show - that anti-Semitism is permanently present in Europe in a more or less hidden way, many of us have hoped that manifest forms of anti-Semitism will not see any revival in Europe again. At present, Jews are rather well integrated economically, socially and culturally in the Member States of the European Union (EU). But the attacks in New York and Washington on September 11 and the conflict in the Middle East have contributed to an atmosphere in Europe, which gives latent anti-Semitism and hate and incitement a new strength and power of seduction. Even rumours that Israel was responsible for 11 September 2001, for the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, and that Jews bring about a situation in their interest in order to put the blame on somebody else, found a receptive audience in some places. Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories are spreading over the Internet, which provides a cheap vehicle for the distribution of hate.

Immediately after 11 September our primary concern was increased Islamophobia in the European Union. Right away the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia implemented a monitoring process in the Member States. The country-by-country results and a synthesis report have already been published. But early in 2002 there was additional concern about open anti-Semitic incidents in several Member States. The European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia found it necessary to carry out a more detailed investigation of the prevalence and kinds of anti-Semitism and to study, how it affects Jewish people living in Europe. It is the first study of this kind. It provides a flashlight on anti-Semitism in each of the 15 Member States.

The EUMC, through its RAXEN Information Network of National Focal Points in the EU Member States, received reports on anti-Semitism in the 15 Member States. The Center for Research on Anti-Semitism (CRA), Berlin, supplemented the country reports and brought them into a European perspective.

The report shows clearly an increase of anti-Semitic activities since the escalation of the Middle East conflict in 2000 with a peak in early spring 2002. But it reveals also positive developments. By 2003 the legal basis to fight against any discrimination on ethnic or religious grounds will be implemented in each of the EU Member States; all the governments and leading statesmen condemned anti-Semitic events and attitudes; many leaders of religious communities, political parties and NGOs are currently cooperating in the fight against anti-Semitism.

On the other hand, the EUMC is aware that more than only short-term measures have to be done. There is a need to implement activities on a continuous, long-term basis. For that end the report offers examples and recommendations to various groups of society on how to proceed and succeed in the struggle against the shadows of the European past.

Bob Purkiss, Beate Winkler
Chair of the EUMC, Director of the EUMC

Executive Summary

Alerted early in 2002 by worrying news on anti-Semitic incidents in some Member States the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) decided to commission a report on "Manifestations of Anti-Semitism in the EU" covering the first half of 2002. The report is based partly on short-term information provided to the authors by National Focal Points (NFPs) of the EUMC, giving special emphasis to the period between May 15 and June 15. The NFPs are the contact points to national networks in the Member States reporting regularly to the EUMC within its European Information Network RAXEN.

In their reports the National Focal Points were asked to cover the following issues:
–Physical acts of violence towards Jews, their communities, organisations or their
property;
–Verbal aggression/hate speech and other, subtler forms of discrimination towards Jews;
–Research studies reporting anti-Semitic violence or opinion polls on changed attitudes towards Jews;
–Good practices for reducing prejudice, violence and aggression by NGOs;
–Reactions by politicians and other opinion leaders including initiatives to reduce polarization and counteract negative national trends.

The situation in the EU Member States
The reports and our own investigations show that in spring 2002 many EU Member States experienced a wave of anti-Semitic incidents. They were tied to public discussion on the dividing line between legitimate criticism of Israeli government policy and anti-Semitic argumentation. This wave of anti-Semitism started with the "Al-Aqsa-Intifada" in October 2000 and was fuelled by the conflict in the Middle East and the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 11September 2001 , which triggered off a fierce debate on the causes of radical Islamic terrorism.

During the first half of 2002 the rise of anti-Semitism reached a climax in the period between the end of March and mid-May, running parallel to the escalation of the Middle East conflict, whereas factors which usually determine the frequency of anti-Semitic incidents in the respective countries, such as the strength and the degree of mobilisation extremist far-right parties and groups can generate, have not played the decisive role.

In the months following the monitoring period the sometimes heated discussions about the Middle East conflict in the public sphere and the media died down and the number of incidents decreased. In countries like Denmark, Greece, Spain, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Austria, Portugal and Finland there are only a few or no incidents known for the period after July 2002. In some Member States like Belgium, France and Sweden anti-Semitic incidents, including violent attacks and threatening phone calls, increased again in September and October, but not that much as in the period monitored. Anti-Semitic leaflets, hate mail and phone calls were also reported for Germany and the United Kingdom.

This leads to the conclusion that the increase in anti-Semitic attacks was in this case set off by the events in the Middle East, a foreign event that however exerted a varying impact on the individual Member States. An exact quantitative comparison is not possible because of:
1)the difficult and varied classification of anti-Semitic incidents;
2)the difficulty of differentiating between criticism of Israeli governmental policy and anti-Semitism; and
3)the differences in systematically collating information about anti-Semitic incidents in the EU Member States.

While there is no common pattern of incidents for all countries, some similarities occur. But it must be underlined that some countries (such as Germany, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom) have a very effective data and monitoring system, and this is not the case elsewhere .

There are a number of EU Member States, namely Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal and Finland, where the Jewish communities are rather small and anti-Semitic incidents in general seldom occur. This was true during the monitoring period. At most, threatening letters were sent to the Israeli consulate or to local Jews. Portugal and Finland each also suffered one attack on a synagogue.

On the other hand, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK witnessed rather serious anti-Semitic incidents (see the respective country reports) such as numerous physical attacks and insults directed against Jews and the vandalism of Jewish institutions (synagogues, shops, cemeteries). Fewer anti-Semitic attacks were reported from Denmark and Sweden.

Other countries also experienced incidents of anti-Semitism. Greece suffered desecrations of cemeteries and memorials by the far-right . Anti-Semitic statements and sentiments often linked to Israeli government policy were found in the mass media and were also expressed by some politicians and opinion leaders. Spain, where the traditionally strong presence of neo-Nazi groups was evident suffered a series of attacks by people with a radical Islamist background . Italy showed a certain similarity with Germany; although no physical attacks were evident, there were threatening telephone calls, insulting letters, slogans and graffiti. From Austria no physical attacks were reported; and few verbal threats and insults. Anti-Semitic stereotypes in relation to Israel were to be found essentially in right-wing newspapers and amongst far-right groups.

In the public domain in Spain, France, Italy and Sweden, sections of the political left and Arab-Muslim groups unified to stage pro-Palestinian demonstrations. While the right to demonstrate is of course a civil right, and these demonstrations are not intrinsically anti-Semitic, at some of these anti-Semitic slogans could be heard and placards seen; and some demonstrations resulted in attacks upon Jews or Jewish institutions. In the Netherlands pro-Palestine demonstrators of Moroccan origin used anti-Semitic symbols and slogans. In Finland however, pro-Palestinian demonstrations passed without any anti-Semitic incidents.

In Germany, and less so in Austria, public political discourse was dominated by a debate on the link between Israeli policy in the Middle East conflict and anti-Semitism, a debate in which the cultural and political elite were involved. In Germany and the United Kingdom the critical reporting of the media was also a topic for controversy. In other countries such as Denmark, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, and Finland there was no such heated public discussion on the theme of criticism of Israel/anti-Semitism (see country reports).

Perpetrators and kinds of anti-Semitic activities
For many anti-Semitic incidents, especially for violent and other punishable offences, it is typical that the perpetrators attempt to remain anonymous. Thus, in many cases the perpetrators could not be identified, so an assignment to a political or ideological camp must remain open.

Nevertheless, from the perpetrators identified or at least identifiable with some certainty, it can be concluded that the anti-Semitic incidents in the monitoring period were committed above all either by right-wing extremists or radical Islamists or young Muslims mostly of Arab descent, who are often themselves potential victims of exclusion and racism ; but also that anti-Semitic statements came from pro-Palestinian groups (see country report Italy: public discourse) as well as from politicians (see country reports Germany, Greece, Finland, Austria) and citizens from the political mainstream (see anti-Semitic letters, e-mails and phone calls in Germany as well as in other countries).

The following forms of anti-Semitic activities have been experienced:
–Desecration of synagogues, cemeteries, swastika graffiti, threatening and insulting mail as well as the denial of the Holocaust as a theme, particularly on the Internet. These are the forms of action to be primarily assigned to the far-right.
–Physical attacks on Jews and the desecration and destruction of synagogues were acts often committed by young Muslim perpetrators in the monitoring period. Many of these attacks occurred either during or after pro-Palestinian demonstrations, which were also used by radical Islamists for hurling verbal abuse. In addition, radical Islamist circles were responsible for placing anti-Semitic propaganda on the Internet and in Arab-language media.
–Anti-Semitism on the streets also appears to be expressed by young people without any specific anti-Semitic prejudices, so that "many incidents are committed just for fun". Other cases where young people were the perpetrators could be classified as "thrill hate crimes", a well-known type of xenophobic attack.

–In the extreme left-wing scene anti-Semitic remarks were to be found mainly in the context of pro-Palestinian and anti-globalisation rallies and in newspaper articles using anti-Semitic stereotypes in their criticism of Israel. Often this generated a combination of anti-Zionist and anti-American views that formed an important element in the emergence of an anti-Semitic mood in Europe. Israel, seen as a capitalistic, imperialistic power, the "Zionist lobby", and the United States are depicted as the evildoers in the Middle East conflict as well as exerting negative influence on global affairs. The convergence of these motives served both critics of colonialism and globalisation from the extreme left and the traditional anti-Semitic right-wing extremism as well as parts of the radical Islamists in some European countries.

–More difficult to record and to evaluate in its scale than the "street-level violence" against Jews is "salon anti-Semitism" as it is manifested "in the media, university common rooms, and at dinner parties of the chattering classes".
–In the heated public debate on Israeli politics and the boundary between criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism, individuals who are not politically active and do not belong to one of the ideological camps mentioned above become motivated to voice their latent anti-Semitic attitudes (mostly in the form of telephone calls and insulting letters). Opinion polls prove that in some European countries a large percentage of the population harbours anti-Semitic attitudes and views, but that these usually remain latent.

Media

Some commentators discuss the possible influence of the mass media on an escalation of anti-Semitic incidents. The question at issue is whether this escalation was merely an agenda setting effect of the daily media coverage of the violence in the Middle East or whether the reporting itself had an anti-Semitic bias.

–The Jewish communities regarded the one-sidedness, the aggressive tone of the reporting on Israeli policy in the Middle East conflict and references to old Christian anti-Jewish sentiments as problematic.
–The country reports (Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, and Sweden) list some cases of anti-Semitic arguments or stereotypes (cartoons) in the quality press, but only very few systematic media analyses are available. Anti-Semitic reporting can mainly be found in the far-right spectrum of the European press.
–One study of the German quality press (see country report on Germany) concludes that the reporting concentrated greatly on the violent events and the conflicts and was not free of anti-Semitic clich s; at the same time this negative view also applies to the description of the Palestinian actors. The report on Austria identified anti-Semitic allusions in the far right press.

–Observers point to an "increasingly blatant anti-Semitic Arab and Muslim media", including audiotapes and sermons, in which the call is not only made to join the struggle against Israel but also against Jews across the world. Although leading Muslim organisations express their opposition to this propaganda, observers assume that calling for the use of violence may influence readers and listeners.

Internet

The Internet reflects a development observable since 2000, namely the networking of the extreme right via links with sections of radical Islamists, some sites from anti-globalisation campaigners and from the anti-American far left. Since the end of the 1990s there has been a dramatic increase in the number of homepages present on the web from far-right groups and parties, which quite often also have ties to radical Islamic fundamentalists. In addition, the Internet provides easy access to music from the far right, which glorifies violence and is often anti-Semitic. Sales and distribution centres for such music are mainly located in Scandinavia. Up till now, state organs have paid too little attention to the Arab language publications which spread anti-Semitic propaganda in European countries, whether through newspapers, audiotapes or the Internet .

Prevalent anti-Semitic prejudices

As almost all reports emphasise, Jews in the EU Member States are well integrated socially, economically and culturally, and as such the typical motives of xenophobia (fear of competition for jobs, housing and social welfare, linguistic and cultural otherness of migrants, external appearance) are hardly of consequence. Instead, the Jews are basically imagined to be a nationally and internationally influential group, allegedly controlling politics and the economy. Hence, anti-Semitism has other motives and a different structure from racism.

–The dominating assumption of contemporary anti-Semitism is still that of a Jewish world conspiracy, i.e. the assumption that Jews are in control of what happens in the world, whether it be through financial or media power, whether it be the concealed political influence mainly exerted on the USA, but also on European countries.

This basic assumption is applied to explain very different phenomena. The Holocaust denial assumes a central role in European right-wing extremism. It is purported that the Holocaust has never taken place and that the Jewish side, exploiting their victim status, use the "Auschwitz lie" to apply moral pressure on mainly European governments (restitution, support for Israeli policies), but also to influence US policy towards Israel. Furthermore, the thesis of the "Auschwitz lie" naturally also negates the assertion that the foundation of the state of Israel was historically necessary in order to create a secure homeland for the survivors of the Holocaust and Jews in general. Precisely at this point, extreme right-wing propaganda becomes employable ideologically for radical Islamist groups in their struggle against Israel, for the victim status and Israel's right to exist are challenged by the "Auschwitz lie".

Here a learning process has taken place in which "revisionist" thought has been adopted by some people in the Arab world. The influence of these ideas is supported by a number of Western Holocaust deniers like J rgen Graf, Gerd Honsik, Wolfgang Fr hlich who fled prosecution in their homelands and found asylum in Arab countries, and last but not least by Roger Garaudy who was hailed as a hero throughout the Middle East when he faced prosecution by the French government for inciting racial hatred. Via Arab-language media (newspapers, satellite TV and internet) in Europe these notions reach a small section of the Arab speaking population in European countries.

–Following September 11, 2001, some hold that Islamist terrorism is a natural consequence of the unsolved Middle East conflict, for which Israel alone is held responsible. They ascribe to Jews a major influence over the USA's allegedly biased pro-Israel policies. This is where anti-American and anti-Semitic attitudes could converge and conspiracy theories over "Jewish world domination" might flare up again.
–The assumption of close ties between the US and Israel gives rise to a further motive for an anti-Semitic attitude. Amongst the political left, anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism are very closely tied together. Due to its occupation policy, sections of the peace movement, opponents of globalisation as well as some Third World countries view Israel as aggressive, imperialistic and colonialist. Taken on its own terms this is naturally not to be viewed as anti-Semitic; and yet there are exaggerated formulations which witness a turn from criticism into anti-Semitism, for example when Israel and the Jews are reproached for replicating the most horrific crimes of the National Socialists like the Holocaust.

In the form of anti-Semitism it could be said that the tradition of demonising Jews in the past is now being transferred to the state of Israel. In this way traditional anti-Semitism is translated into a new form, less deprived of legitimacy, whose employment today in Europe could become part of the political mainstream.

–Israeli policies toward the Palestinians provide a reason to denounce Jews generally as perpetrators, thereby questioning their moral status as victims that they had assumed as a consequence of the Holocaust. The connection between anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli sentiment lies in this opportunity for a perpetrator-victim role reversal. In particular there is an attempt by the right-wing to compare Israeli policies with the crimes perpetrated against Jews throughout history in order to minimize or even deny the guilt and responsibility of their own nations.

–The fact that the Middle East conflict is taking place in the Holy Land of the Christians has led in a number of countries to a revitalisation of anti-Judaist motives by church leaders, and confessional and some liberal newspapers.

Recommendations

The upsurge of anti-Semitic criminal offences and verbal assaults against Jewish citizens and institutions, but also against Muslims, indicates that joint action has to be initiated. This action should not be restricted to one area of society, but has to deal with a multitude of combined activities. Actions on the political level should be backed by sound data and information about the phenomena in question. The civil society has to be mobilized to establish dialogues, the press, TV and the Internet has to be addressed to report about ethnic and cultural groups in a responsible way. Also for large-scale sporting events, preventive measures fighting racist attacks have to be implemented.

We recommend that the EUMC requests state authorities to acknowledge at the highest level the extraordinary dangers posed by anti-Semitic violence in the European context.

Legal

The EUMC should propose to the Member States to adopt the proposed framework decision on combating racism and xenophobia (COM 2001/664) as soon as possible and call on the Council of Ministers to ensure that it is amended to be as effective as possible to deal with reported incidents of anti-Semitism.

The EUMC should propose to the European Commission and to the Member States that they consider a decision for police cooperation according to Article 34 of the Treaty of European Union, which shall bind all Member States to collect and disseminate data on anti-Semitic offences. This decision should also involve EUROPOL and EUROJUST.

To achieve effective regulation of the Internet concerning racist propaganda, it is essential to extend the jurisdiction of European courts to include detailed provisions on the responsibility of Internet service providers.

Registering anti-Semitic incidents

State institutions must assume responsibility for monitoring anti-Semitism in the individual EU Member States. These institutions should work in accordance with well-defined categories enabling them to recognise an anti-Semitic element within any politically motivated criminal offences they register, and to then incorporate them into their statistics.

In some Member States racist attacks are not identified separately in crime statistics while others have at their disposal state-sponsored instruments which monitor and pursue anti-Semitic incidents. We recommend joint strategies for action to be developed, whereby those countries possessing years of experience in this regard should pass this on to the other Member States.

In those countries in which racist and anti-Semitic incidents are already registered by the security authorities, a swifter processing and publication of the results must be ensured and not first presented – as in current practice – in the middle of the following year.

There is a need to distinguish clearly in reporting between acts of violence, threatening behaviour, and offensive speech, and to make transparent government norms and procedures for registering and acting upon crimes and offences motivated by anti-Semitism. Only in this way can a genuinely comparative basis for incidents be attained for European countries.

Education and sport

We recommend that the governments of the EU Member States still absent should undertake initiatives to become members of the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research, whose purpose is to mobilise the support of political and social leaders to foster Holocaust education, remembrance and research.

We recommend that NGOs engage in initiatives of intercultural and inter-religious exchange and inter-religious dialogue, and cooperate in educational information campaigns against racism and anti-Semitism.

National ministries of education should organise round tables and seminars on mutual respect and tolerance; all teachers in the EU should be required to learn about different religions and faiths, cultures and traditions; history books used in schools around Europe should be examined for prejudice, or one-sidedness.

In the area of European football a whole series of initiatives have been started in the last few years, which combat racism and anti-Semitism in the stadiums. We recommend that these activities be encouraged and extended.

Research

We recommend that research studies should be carried out on anti-Semitic incidents in specific fields – e.g. sport, entertainment, public services - and placed in an overall European context in order to establish a comparative perspective on their occurrence.

Across all Member States there should be implemented a coordinated programme of victim studies to overcome the problem of underreporting with regard to incidents of anti-Semitism.

To date there has been no well-founded media analysis on how the European press exploits and perpetuates anti-Semitic stereotypes. We recommend the implementation of research studies to fill this gap.

Internet

State authorities, academics and research institutions engaged with racism and anti-Semitism should establish joint committees at national and international levels to monitor anti-Semitism on the Internet. Through mutual exchange these committees should establish a basis for an improved recording and combating of racist and anti-Semitic developments on the Internet.

Recent developments have shown that partly impeded or completely obstructed access to some homepages at least hinders the possibility of placing racist propaganda on the Internet. Thus private and state organisations should exert continuing pressure on large Internet providers to remove racist and anti-Semitic content from the net.

The enormous potential of the Internet for educational purposes has not yet been recognised and utilised. We recommend that projects are developed to utilise the Internet far more in order to combat anti-Semitic and racist content with serious counter-information.

Contents
Executive Summary5
1. Introduction15
2. Analysis19
Forms of anti-Semitic prejudice21
Perpetrators and kinds of anti-Semitic activities24
The situation in the EU Member States25
The mass media27
Internet as an international action base28
3. Recommendations30

1. Introduction

Alerted during early 2002 by news on anti-Semitic incidents in some Member States and also by information given to the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) by the European Jewish Congress, the EUMC asked its RAXEN network of 15 National Focal Points (NFPs) to report on anti-Semitism and to monitor the anti-Semitic aggression, violence and attitudes in the Member States with a special focus on a one-month period (from 15th May – 15th June 2002). The EUMC also asked for examples of good practices implemented to prevent and reduce anti-Semitism.

The National Focal Points were asked to cover the following issues:

1. Physical acts of violence towards Jews, their communities, organisations or their property (cemeteries, synagogues, religious symbols etc) and also any measures seen as retaliation to other vulnerable groups, or ethnic, cultural, and religious minorities, or new types of victims:
Have any physical attacks (harassment, verbal abuse, violent acts, etc.) against Jews (or other people related to them) been reported (in the media, by Jewish organisations, by human rights/anti-discrimination NGOs, by the police etc.)? Please use the following categories as headlines: Arson; throwing objects and/or tear gas; physical aggression; theft and burglary; vandalism and disparagement; threatening intrusion; physical threat.

2. Verbal aggression/hate speech and other, subtler forms of discrimination towards Jews:
Have there been any verbal attacks against Jews in the media, in the public discourse, in politics? Are there any cases of incitement to hatred? Are there court cases to be reported? What about hate speech on the Internet? Please use the following categories as headlines: direct verbal threat; threats by telephone; insults; graffiti and anti-Semitic inscriptions; publicly distributed leaflets.

3. Research Studies reporting anti-Semitic violence or Opinion Polls on changed attitudes towards Jews:
Are there any new or recent reports done on anti-Semitic aggression or attitudes?

4. Good practices for reducing prejudice, violence and aggression:
Can you report of any good practice that has been successful in avoiding the increase of prejudice and violence towards Jewish people and other groups?

5. Reactions by politicians and other opinion leaders including initiatives to reduce polarization and counteract negative national trends:
How has the government reacted to increased anti-Semitic violence? What have been the reactions of the politicians and other opinion leaders? Are there any institutionalized proposals and implementations to be observed?

Political Background

The reports of the National Focal Points and our own investigations show that in early 2002 several EU Member States experienced an increased number of anti-Semitic incidents. The wave of anti-Semitism reached a climax in the period between end of March and mid-May. But further examination shows that the increase of anti-Semitism had already started with the "Al-Aqsa-Intifada" in October 2000 and was fuelled by the conflict in the Middle East and the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 11 September 2001 , which triggered off a fierce debate on the causes for radical Islamic terrorism.

Into the summer of 2000 negotiations for obtaining a peaceful settlement of the Middle East conflict seemed to be taking a promising course. The failure of Camp David II and the "second Intifada" (al-Aqsa Intifada) beginning in late September 2000 marked however a turning-point. Reports on anti-Semitism from the year 2000 show a clear increase in anti-Semitic incidents in the final months of the year.

Besides the continuing media interest in the violent conflict in the Middle East, in 2001 the World Conference on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Tolerance, which was held in Durban, South Africa between 31 August and 7 September encouraged anti-Semitism in an unexpected way. The Member States of the United Nations adopted a Declaration and Action Programme, which included demands for the recognition of a Palestinian state and the right of security for Israel, as well as the demand for the end of violence in the Middle East that would allow Israel and the Palestinians to continue the peace process. But at the same conference vehement anti-Semitic outbreaks took place, in particular at some meetings held between NGOs, which were directed against representatives of Jewish groups. "These attacks were fuelled by the heated debates at the meeting concerning the Israeli government's practices in West Bank and Gaza Strip."

A few days later the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon triggered off a fierce debate on the causes of radical Islamic terrorism, seen by many to lie primarily in the occupation policy pursued by the Israeli government and the pro-Sharon stance taken by the US. For the Stephen Roth Institute on Anti-Semitism and Racism, Tel Aviv, the events of September 11 also enhanced the wave of anti-Semitic manifestations and violence.

In our opinion one cannot deny that there exists a close link between the increase of anti-Semitism and the escalation of the Middle East conflict, whereas factors which usually determine the frequency of anti-Semitic incidents in the respective countries, such as the strength and the degree of mobilisation extremist far-right parties and groups can generate, have not played the decisive role in the reporting period.

Defining anti-Semitism

Many of the National Focal Points mention that in their countries the dividing line between anti-Semitism and criticism of Israeli government was a controversial issue. The various political groups often have different opinions on the threshold where justified criticism ends and anti-Semitic argumentation begins.. In such a delicate situation it is advisable to study the results of social research and to look for appropriate definitions of anti-Semitism accepted by the research community. This also assures a sound level of impartiality. After a detailed review of existing literature we recommend the definition of anti-Semitism given by the well-known Holocaust researcher Helen Fein:

Anti-Semitism is "a persisting latent structure of hostile beliefs towards Jews as a collective manifested in individuals as attitudes, and in culture as myth, ideology, folklore and imagery, and in actions – social or legal discrimination, political mobilisation against the Jews, and collective or state violence – which results in and/or is designed to distance, displace, or destroy Jews as Jews."

To specify the basic content of these hostile beliefs we refer to a summary given by Dietz Bering:

Jews are not only partially but totally bad by nature, that is, their bad traits are incorrigible. Because of this bad nature
-Jews have to be seen not as individuals but as a collective.
-Jews remain essentially alien in the surrounding societies.
-Jews bring disaster on their "host societies" or on the whole world, they are doing it secretly, therefore the anti-Semites feel obliged to unmask the conspiratorial, bad Jewish character.

With the help of the above definition the distinction between anti-Semitism and criticism of Israeli government policy can be made in an easier way. From there allusions to or comparisons with Israel's actions with the behaviour of the Nazi regime have to be viewed as anti-Semitic. Those who identify Israel and Nazi-Germany or see Israeli behaviour as the cause of anti-Semitism use these arguments for their own ideological interests.

Also to be evaluated as a form of anti-Semitism are anti-Semitic stereotypes when applied to Israeli policy: for example: the accusation that there is a secret, world-encompassing Zionist conspiracy, the isolation of Israel as a state that is fundamentally negatively distinct from all others, which therefore has no right to exist, and negative historical recourses to ancient Jewish history, which is to point to an immutable negative Jewish character. All cases in which the Jews are made collectively responsible for the policy of the Israeli government represent a form of anti-Semitism. That means, the moment when criticism on Israel turns into criticism of Jews in general or Jews living in other countries has at least an anti-Semitic connotation.

This report analyses the current manifestations of anti-Semitism as far as it is possible so close to the time period under observation. It does not try to chart its history or analyse its historical roots in the countries concerned.

2. Analysis

According to some observers, a new wave of anti-Semitism is sweeping across Europe; many are even speaking of the worst anti-Semitic wave since 1945. The latter claim is historically inaccurate. Above all directly after the war, in 1946, and in the course of the Stalinist "purges" in the early 1950s there were far more violent anti-Semitic excesses, persecution and discrimination.

Antony Lerman, former Executive Director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research in London, has correctly stressed, "that it is wrong to think that increases in incidents must mean an overall worsening of the anti-Semitic climate". Indeed, since 1945 there have been repeated waves of anti-Semitic incidents in Europe (such as the graffiti wave of 1959/60, waves between 1990 and 1992 as well as waves tied to the periodic flare-ups in the Arab-Israeli conflict in 1967, 1973 and, above all, 1982), whereby concrete causes could not be given for these outbreaks in every case, nor had they resulted in a long-term increase in anti-Semitism.

If, apart from incidents, further indicators are selected, such as anti-Jewish attitudes, the electoral success of far-right extremist parties espousing anti-Semitism, the membership numbers of right-wing extremist organisations, social and legal discrimination of Jews etc., the picture becomes far more differentiated – one that does not indicate a general increase in anti-Semitism and, furthermore, turns out to be different across the EU Member States. If we speak of a wave of anti-Semitism, we primarily mean incidents for which, on the basis of contagion effects, such a wave-like and cyclical course is typical.

The fact that a rise in anti-Semitic activities is clearly observable in most of the EU Member States since the beginning of the so-called al-Aqsa Intifada, which increased in frequency and the intensity of their violence parallel to the escalation in the Middle East conflict in April/May 2002, points to a connection between events in the Middle East with criticism of Israel's politics on the one hand and mobilisation of anti-Semitism on the other.

According to an Anti-Defamation League survey, almost two-thirds of Europeans (62%) believe "that the recent outbreak of violence against Jews in Europe is a result of anti-Israel sentiment and not traditional anti-Semitic or anti-Jewish feelings."

The international dimension of the problem was clearly evident as Shimon Peres, Israel's Foreign Minister, told EU colleagues in Valencia in April 2002 that he saw a link between the growing anti-Semitism in Europe and the Union's tilt towards the Palestinians. He added: "The issue is very sensitive in Israel (...). We ask for memory." The Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Piqu rejected this criticism: "Please don't confuse anti-Semitism with legitimate criticism of policies of the current Israeli government." Peres' critical remark and the reply given by the European Foreign Ministers indicates that the core issue in this public conflict was the political question as to when does anti-Israeli criticism assume anti-Semitic characteristics and whether reproaches of anti-Semitism are being used as part of an attempt to silence criticism of Israeli policies.

All NFP Reports point to this problem, one that was also discussed publicly in all countries and was an essential point of dispute in discussions; namely how to draw a clear distinction between anti-Semitism and criticism of Israeli government's policies towards the Palestinians – even if it is extremely sharp.

While it is certainly correct to view anti-Semitism as part of racism, at the same time it possesses very specific traits. As almost all of the reports emphasise, Jews in the European Union are well integrated socially, economically and culturally. Thus, the typical motives of xenophobia are hardly of consequence for the Jews (fear of competition for jobs, linguistic and cultural differences of migrants, external appearance). Instead, Jews are imagined to be a national and international influential group who allegedly exert a bad influence on or even steer politics, the economy and the media, which is a way of expressing the old anti-Semitic prejudice of hidden Jewish power.

Furthermore, from within the culture of the Christian West, traditional historical anti-Judaist and anti-Semitic prejudices are again and again liable to be reactivated. On the level of accusations levelled against Jews, traditional motives prevail (see below). Perception of the Jews as victims of National Socialism is very strong, making them a preferred target for all "revisionist/deniers/negationists" and right-wing extremists. Anti-Semitic offenders make use of National Socialist symbols; but also the German language itself is used in non-German speaking countries (expressions such as "Juden raus!") so as to refer affirmatively to the National Socialist persecution of the Jews.

A further aspect that needs to be noted is that the local Jewish population is closely associated with the state of Israel and its politics. It can be said that the native Jews have been made "hostages" of Israeli politics. Here anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist motives are mixed together. What is certainly quite new is the particular connection between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism made in the Arab and Muslim world, so that anti-Semitism, due to its connection with a concrete political conflict, varies greatly with its escalation and de-escalation.

That anti-Semitic offenders in some cases are drawn from Muslim minorities in Europe – whether they be radical Islamist groups or young males of North African descent – is certainly a new development for most Member States, one that offers reason for concern for European governments and also the great majority of its citizens. As members of the Arab-Muslim minorities in Europe are themselves target of racist and Islamophobic attitudes, there arises the precarious situation of a conflict that is primarily motivated by foreign affairs but played out on the domestic front, a conflict in which the members of one minority discriminate against another minority group.

Forms of anti-Semitic prejudice

Let us first of all look at the anti-Semitic prejudices and the groups expressing them. The range of motives stretches from racist to conspiratorial-oriented and religious prejudices; but anti-Zionist notions, often coupled with anti-American patterns, were also activated. Anti-Zionism here is to be seen as a form of anti-Semitism, because Zionism is described by the extreme right, the extreme left and also by parts of Arab-Muslim circles as the evil of the world and therefore can be used easily as a wanted scapegoat. This implies the fight against the existence of Israel.

1)The dominating motive of contemporary anti-Semitism is still that of a Jewish world conspiracy, i.e. the assumption that Jews are in control of what happens in the world, whether it be through financial or media power, whether it be the concealed political influence mainly exerted on the USA, but also on European countries. This basic assumption is applied to explain very different phenomena.

Here the Holocaust denial assumes a central role in European right-wing extremism. It is purported that the Holocaust has never taken place and that the Jewish side, exploiting their victim status, use the "Auschwitz lie" to apply moral pressure on mainly European governments (restitution, support for Israeli policies), but also to influence US policy towards Israel.

Furthermore, the thesis of the "Auschwitz lie" naturally also negates the assertion that the foundation of the state of Israel was historically necessary in order to create a secure homeland for the survivors of the Holocaust and Jews in general.

Precisely at this point, extreme right-wing propaganda becomes employable ideologically for radical Islamist groups in their struggle against Israel, for the victim status and Israel's right to exist are challenged by the "Auschwitz lie". Here a learning process has taken place in which "revisionist" thought, that was propagated very early and very prominently by French intellectuals (lastly by Roger Garaudy), was adopted by some people in the Arab world.

The influence of these ideas is supported by a number of Western Holocaust deniers like J rgen Graf, Gerd Honsik, Wolfgang Fr hlich, who fled persecution in their homelands and found asylum in Arab countries, and last but not least by Roger Garaudy who was hailed as a hero throughout the Middle East when he faced persecution by the French government for inciting racial hatred. Via Arab-language media (newspapers and satellite TV)in Europe these notions reach in turn a small section of the Muslim population in European countries.

2) Reception of another European source has also influenced their conception of the world, namely the infamous anti-Semitic fake the "Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion", which describes how a group of Jews apparently hold the thread of world politics in their hands. With help of this conspiracy theory explanations are found for why the politics of the United States and most of the European countries display a pro-Israeli bias in the Middle East conflict.

A current example of this conspiratorial thought is offered by the attacks of 11 September 2001, which in some Arab newspapers (e.g. in Jordan, Egypt and Syria, but also in the London and Saudi-Arabian editions of Al-Hayat ) is presented as an action initiated by the Israeli secret service or even the Israeli Government itself, who were seeking to prevent the establishment of closer ties between the US and the Arab world so as to gain a free hand for their aggressive plans against the Palestinians. This rumour has also spread through Europe, where it found great resonance above all in Greece.

3) Following 11 September 2001, some hold that Islamist terrorism is a natural consequence of the unresolved Middle East conflict, for which Israel alone is held responsible. They ascribe to Jews a major influence over America's allegedly biased pro-Israel policies. This is where anti-American and anti-Semitic attitudes converge and conspiracy theories over "Jewish world domination" flare up again.

4) The supposed close ties between the US and Israel give rise to a further motive for an anti-Semitic attitude, one that is also to be found amongst the far left. Due to its occupation policy, sections of the peace movement, opponents of globalisation as well as some Third World countries – as the World Conference on Racism in Durban 2001 had shown – view Israel as aggressive, imperialistic and colonialist. Taken on its own terms this is naturally not to be viewed as anti-Semitic; and yet there are exaggerated formulations which witness a turn from criticism into anti-Semitism, for example when Israel and the Jews are reproached for replicating the most horrific crimes of the National Socialists – apartheid, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity, genocide.

In the form of anti-Zionism it could be said that the historical demonising of the Jews is transferred to the state of Israel (striving for world power, the vindictiveness and cruelty of "an eye for an eye", the greed of capitalism and colonialism). In this way traditional anti-Semitism is translated into a new form, less deprived of legitimacy, whose employment today in Europe could extend more and more into the political mainstream. Thus, the issue at stake in judging statements critical of Israel is whether a double standard is being set, i.e. Israel is evaluated differently from other states, whether false historical parallels are drawn (comparison with the National Socialists), and whether anti-Semitic myths and stereotypes are used to characterise Israeli politics.

5) The United States of America is also faced with sharp attacks from sections of the peace movement, opponents of globalisation and some Third World countries as well as from sections of the extreme right as a world power categorised as imperialistic and as the protector of Israel. For example, especially in German speaking countries various political extremists use the word "East coast" ("Ostk ste") as synonymous to a supposed total Jewish influence on the United States and their policy. Sympathisers to these extremists immediately understand the meaning of this word without having to get any background information. Therefore they may use it without being afraid of any state persecution according to anti-discrimination laws. This makes clear how anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism are sometimes very closely tied together.

6) While the historical victim status of Jews continues to be acknowledged, for many Europeans it no longer transfers to support of Israel. Israeli policies toward the Palestinians provide a reason to denounce Jews as perpetrators, thereby qualifying their moral status as victims that they had assumed as a consequence of the Holocaust. The connection between anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli sentiment lies in this opportunity for a perpetrator-victim role reversal.

7) The fact that the Middle East conflict is taking place in the Holy Land of the Christians has lead in various countries to a revitalisation of anti-Judaist motives by church leaders and confessional as well as some liberal newspapers. This takes the form of current events (the conflict over the Church of Nativity, children and youths as the victims of military action) being brought into connection with events in the New Testament, which historically have clear anti-Jewish connotations (Massacre of the Innocents, crucifixion of Christ). Such phenomena are particularly virulent in Italy, but are also present in Protestant countries such as Denmark or the United Kingdom.

Perpetrators and kinds of anti-Semitic activities
For many anti-Semitic incidents, above all naturally for the violent and other punishable offences, it is typical that the perpetrators attempt to remain anonymous. Thus, in many cases the perpetrators could not be identified, so an assignment to a political or ideological camp must remain open. Nevertheless, looking at the perpetrators identified or at least identifiable with some certainty, it can be said that the anti-Semitic incidents in the monitoring period were committed above all by right-wing extremists and radical Islamists or young Muslims; but also that anti-Semitic statements came from the pro-Palestinian left as well as politicians and citizens from the political mainstream.

Specific forms of action can be assigned to each of these sections.

–Desecration of synagogues, cemeteries, swastika graffiti, threatening and insulting mail as well as the denial of the Holocaust as a theme networking various groupings, particularly in the Internet – these are the forms of action to be primarily assigned to the far-right spectrum.

–Physical attacks on Jews and the desecration and destruction of synagogues were acts mainly committed by young Muslim perpetrators mostly of an Arab descent in the monitoring period. Many of these attacks occurred during or after pro-Palestinian demonstrations, which were also used by radical Islamists for hurling verbal abuse. In addition, Islamic circles were responsible for placing anti-Semitic propaganda in the Internet and in Arab-language media.

–Anti-Semitism on the streets also appears to be expressed by young culprits without any specific anti-Semitic prejudices, so that "many incidents are committed just for the fun of it". In the view of the sociologist Paul Iganski, in many cases – at least in the UK – represent a type of "thrill hate crimes", "likely to be committed by a group of young offenders, outside their neighbourhood", a type of action we are familiar with in racist attacks in other European countries and which Iganski views as "part of the repertoire of routine incivilities and antisocial behaviour prevalent in the street, shopping malls, cinemas, (...) and other public space".

–In the left-wing scene anti-Semitic remarks were to be found mainly in the context of pro-Palestinian and anti-globalisation rallies and commentaries critical of Israel in the respective media during the monitoring period.

–More difficult to record and to evaluate than the "street-level violence" against Jews is the elite or salon anti-Semitism as it is manifested "in the media, university common rooms, and at dinner parties of the chattering classes". The development in some EU countries suggests that today it appears legitimate, sometimes even en vogue to take an anti-Israeli stance.

While such a standpoint is legitimate politically, in many cases a boundary is transgressed in the direction of anti-Semitic prejudices, for example when a politician in Germany used the concept "war of extermination" to characterise the actions of the Israeli army, thus equating it with the war of extermination undertaken by the German army against the Soviet Union and European Jewry. In this way anti-Semitic modes of thought can increasingly creep into public and private discourses and are seldom picked out and criticised by society, politicians and the press.

–During a wave of anti-Semitism like the one we could observe in April and May 2002, in which a heated public debate took place on Israeli politics and the boundary between criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism, persons become motivated to voice their latent anti-Semitic attitudes (mostly in the form of telephone calls and insulting letters) who are not politically active and do not belong to one of the ideological camps sketched above. Opinion polls prove that in some European countries a large percentage of the population harbours anti-Semitic attitudes and views, but that these usually remain latent.

The situation in the EU Member States
The difficulty in classifying anti-Semitic incidents makes it impossible to provide a quantitative comparison of the anti-Semitic manifestations in the EU Member States. The difficulty is further compounded by the fact that in some countries incidents are systematically recorded by state organs, while others reveal a high level of monitoring by NGOs, or indeed in a third group the collation of information proved to be extremely difficult. We thus have to assume that some EU Member States, due to their history and the significance anti-Semitism had and still has in their country, pay far greater attention to monitoring anti-Semitic incidents as others.

The extent and kind of anti-Semitic incidents vary from country to country. While a constant pattern valid for all countries is not recognisable, some constellations are evident. Due to the plurality of the actors and motives, the distribution of anti-Semitic manifestations only partially corresponds to the distribution employed in the annual "Anti-Semitism Reports" from the 1990s. They thus show hardly any connection with the spread of anti-Semitic attitudes and views in the population as a whole.

A rise in the number of anti-Semitic incidents has been noticeable for almost all of the fifteen Member States since the start of the "Al-Aqsa-Intifada". In the monitoring period this rise reached a climax in the period between the end of March and mid-May, running parallel to the escalation in the Middle East conflict. This leads to the conclusion that the occasion for anti-Semitic attacks was in this case triggered by a foreign event, one that however exerted a varying impact in the individual Member States.

There are a number of EU Member States, namely Ireland and Luxembourg, where anti-Semitic incidents in general seldom occur and were hardly evident in the monitoring period. At most threatening letters were sent to the Israeli consulate or to local Jews. The same applies to Portugal and Finland, where such threatening letters and telephone calls were evident and where there was one attack each on a synagogue, respectively.

On the other hand, a group of countries was identified with rather severe anti-Semitic incidents. Here, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK have to be mentioned. They witnessed numerous physical attacks and insults directed against Jews and vandalism of Jewish institutions (synagogues, shops, cemeteries). In these countries the violent attacks on Jews and/or synagogues were reported to be committed often by members of the Muslim-Arab minority, frequently youths (see reports on these countries). The observers agree that these are disaffected young men who themselves are frequently targets of racist attacks, i.e. here the social problems of these migrant minorities are obviously an essential factor for their propensity to violence and susceptibility to anti-Semitism.

Far fewer anti-Semitic attacks committed by members of this group were evident in countries like Sweden and Denmark, where attacks – similarly to the Netherlands – were only seldom evident in the 1990s given general populations in which, according to polls, anti-Semitic attitudes are not widespread.

Other countries show a very specific expression of anti-Semitism. In Greece we find a series of cemetery and memorial desecrations, which point to a far-right background. Anti-Semitic/anti-Zionist statements and sentiments were found in the mass media and were also expressed by some politicians and opinion leaders. Here the Greek foreign policy position perhaps plays a role; since the Second World War Greece has opposed Israel because of its alliance with Turkey. Spain offered a mixed picture where the traditional strong presence of neo-Nazi groups was evident alongside a series of attacks, with an Islamist background.

In Germany, where a large number of anti-Semitic offences have been registered annually since the 1990s, persons of Arab descent committed some of the few attacks on Jews in the monitoring period. Anti-Semitism manifested itself less in a higher number of attacks (between May-June there were no physical attacks) but more in the form of a flood of anti-Semitic letters to the Jewish Communities and prominent Jews sent by German citizens who by no means all belong politically to the far right. This was in part a reaction to a hefty political controversy (see the country report on Germany). The explosiveness in this controversy lay in how a well-known German politician and the Central Council of Jews stood opposed face to face, so that in the end all the political partners took a clear position against the FDP politician J rgen M llemann.

Italy showed a certain similarity with Germany; although no physical attacks were evident, there were threatening telephone calls, insulting letters, slogans and graffiti, whereby the perpetrators did not come from the Muslim population. However, particularly pronounced in Italy is a pro-Palestinian mobilisation within left-wing parties, organisations and newspapers, which in connection with public rallies partially took an anti-Semitic turn. From Austria no physical attacks were reported; verbal threats and insults were seldom. Anti-Semitic stereotypes in relation to Israel were found essentially in right-wing newspapers and amongst far-right groupings.

The countries can also be grouped together in another constellation when focus is switched to those actors who are present in the public discourse. In Italy, France, Spain and Sweden sections of the far left and Muslim groups unified to stage pro-Palestinian demonstrations. At some of these demonstrations anti-Semitic slogans and placards were to be seen and heard and some even resulted in attacks upon Jews or Jewish institutions. A similar trend was observed in the Netherlands, though without any great participation from the political left.

In Finland, pro-Palestinian demonstrations passed without any anti-Semitic incidents. In Germany, and also less so in Austria, public political discourse was dominated by a debate on the link between Israeli policy in the Middle East conflict and anti-Semitism, a debate in which the cultural and political elite were involved, whereas the mobilisation of the extreme left remained low-key. In Germany the critical reporting of the media was also a topic for controversy, as it was also in the United Kingdom, where left-liberal papers (The Guardian and The Independent) were heavily criticised by Jewish representatives. In other countries such as Luxembourg, Ireland, Portugal, Denmark and Finland there was obvious no prominent public discussion on this subject.

The mass media

Some commentators discuss the possible influence of the mass media on an escalation of the number of anti-Semitic incidents. There is a connection seen between the sharp increase in anti-Semitic attacks in April 2002 and the events in Jenin at the end of March and in Bethlehem in April. Here the question at issue is whether this escalation was merely the result of the daily news reports on the violence in the Middle East, in the sense of an agenda-setting effect, or whether the reporting itself reveals an anti-Semitic bias.

Judgement upon this is dependent on partisanship in the Middle East conflict. The Jewish communities regarded the one-sidedness, the aggressive tone of the reporting on Israeli policy in the Middle East conflict and references to old Christian anti-Jewish sentiments as problematic. The country reports (Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, and Sweden) list some cases of anti-Semitic argument or stereotypes (cartoons) in the quality press, but as of yet no systematic media analyses are available. One study of the German quality press (see Germany) comes to the conclusion that the reporting concentrated greatly on the violent events and the conflicts and was not free of anti-Semitic clich s; at the same time though this negative view also applies to the description of the Palestinian actors.

The report on Austria identified anti-Semitic allusions in the right-wing press. Here there is a need for further empirical studies. One study on the impact of the very critical reporting on the wave of right-wing extremist violence in Germany in the early 1990s concluded that the daily news coverage through television and the press had a "contagion effect" and contributed to a further escalation in violence; this though could not be said to be the case of the commentary-oriented background reports in the daily press.

This means that the impact is not generated by the content of the reporting, which naturally evaluates the violence negatively, but rather from the massiveness and consonance of the overall media coverage. The intensive and consonant focus on events thus has a clear effect on the climate of opinion. In fact, those Europeans who followed media coverage of the events in the Middle East the closest were more likely to be sympathetic to the Palestinian case.

Openly anti-Semitic reporting is rather seldom in the European press, with the exception of the far-right spectrum. However, observers point to an "increasingly blatantly anti-Semitic Arab and Muslim media", including audio tapes and sermons, in which the call is not only made to join the struggle against Israel but also against Jews across the world. Although leading Muslim organisations express their opposition to this propaganda, observers assume that its calling for the use of violence may exert a certain influence on readers and listeners.

Internet as an international action base
The Internet is named in almost all of the country reports as an important medium for anti-Semitic propaganda, precisely because it is suited to the international dissemination of anti-Semitism due to the difficulty in identifying the perpetrators. As the Internet represents an international medium, only those homepages have been included in the individual country reports, which have a direct relationship to the nationalist – mostly then far-right – spectrum.

The international character of the medium itself allows only a trans-national assessment and so, correspondingly, a joint strategy in formulating and implementing counter measures.

In addition, the dissemination of anti-Semitic thought via the Internet cannot be circumscribed to fit a specific period, for this worldwide transference of data is fast-moving, meaning that much of the information is accessible only for a short time or the relevant homepages are switched on and then off. Inherent to the

[Pascal L.]

[deel 2]


Internet

On 31 March the radical Muslim organisation "Hizb-ut-tahrir" (Liberation Party) published a leaflet on its German homepage containing the following statements: "The Jews are a people of slander. They are a treacherous people who violate oaths and covenants ( ). Allah has forbidden us from allying ourselves with them. ( ) Indeed, that you should destroy the monstrous Jewish entity. ( ) Kill all Jews ( ) wherever you find them."

The organisation has been observed for a longer time by the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Verfassungsschutz) but did not receive public attention before they organised a public lecture on "The Iraq – a new war and its consequences" at the Berlin Technical University in October 2002 where also representatives of the German extreme right-wing party NPD (National Democratic Party) participated.

3. Research studies

On 31 May, the American Jewish Committee (AJC) released a study in Berlin about how the German print media reported four major incidents in the Middle East during the second Intifada between September 2000 and August 2001. The study, conducted by the Linguistic and Social Research Institute in Duisburg (Institut fur Sprach- und Sozialforschung), came to the conclusion that the reporting of the Middle East conflict in the newspapers and magazines examined was biased and showed anti-Semitic elements which would often be liable to (re)produce existing anti-Semitic and racial prejudice.

The reporting also used terms to describe the behaviour of the Israeli troops, which make the reader associate their actions with genocide and suggest similarities to fascism (e.g. "massacre").

Generally speaking, the media was criticised for its anti-Semitic allusions and stereotypes. According to the study, there are deeply latent anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist prejudices in the German public, usually hidden behind "concealed" and "vague allusions".

The study was criticised by the weekly newspaper Die Zeit because it refused to provide proof as to whether and how the way of reporting affects reception in Germany. Another study on reporting of the Middle East conflict showed that, in comparison to some other countries (USA, South Africa, the UK), TV reporting in Germany encompassed a broader spectrum of neutral presentations of events.

In the monitoring period three surveys were conducted which posed questions concerning anti-Semitism. According to the study "Political Attitudes in Germany", conducted by the Sigmund-Freud-Institut in Frankfurt in April 2002, anti-Semitic tendencies have increased since 1999.

The statement "I can understand well that some people feel unpleasant about Jews" was confirmed by 36% (1999: 20%). The second statement offered by the study, that the Jews are responsible for the problems in the world, showed in contrast a reduction in anti-Semitic attitudes.

A further study from April 2002, "Extreme Right Attitudes in Germany", included three statements on anti-Semitism: "Even today Jews have too much influence"; "The Jews simply have something particular and peculiar about them and are not so suited to us"; "More than others, the Jews use dirty tricks to achieve what they want".

The study showed that in comparison to 1994 and 2000 there was a strong increase in the number of negative answers; surprisingly, however, these came from those questioned from West Germany. This indicates an effect determined by current events: many West Germans reacted to Israeli policy and the heated debate about the bounds of legitimate criticism of this policy, whereas these issues found obviously less resonance amongst East Germans.

A poll conducted by NfO Infratest in June had different results: generally speaking, the given answers lead to the conclusion that anti-Semitic resentments have been slightly decreasing in Germany over the past 11 years.

In June 2002, 68% of those polled rejected the statement "The Jews are partly responsible for being hated and persecuted", while 29% confirmed the statement (in 1991 confirmation was 32%).

The question "How many Germans have an anti-Jewish attitude?" was answered as follows: 2% believed "most of the Germans", 13% "a high number of Germans", 57% "a small number of Germans", and 26% said "hardly anyone".

Nevertheless, 29% confirmed the statement that "Jews have too much influence on the world". This number is lower than in the 1991 poll, when it was agreed by 36%. Between 16 May and 4 June respectively between 9 and 29 September surveys commissioned by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in New York, "European Attitudes towards Jews, Israel and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict", were conducted in ten European countries, including Germany (see Table: Report on Belgium) Here the agreement with anti-Semitic stereotypes was on similar levels as in France and Belgium%). From the four stereotypical statements presented, 19% of respondents agreed to at least three. With 55% the Germans agreed on an average with the statement "Jews are more loyal to Israel than to this country" (average 51%).

4. Good practices for reducing prejudice, violence, and aggression

In the period from 15 May to 15 June, 2002 there were many appeals for solidarity with the Jewish communities and calls for promoting an inter-religious dialogue.

Appeals were made by the chairman of the Central Council of the Jews, Paul Spiegel, but also from representatives of the Christian churches, for example by the chairman of the German Conference of Bishops (Deutsche Bischofskonferenz), Karl Lehmann, the Bavarian bishop Dr. Johannes Friedrich or the chairman of the Council of the Protestant Church, Manfred Kock.

Beside calls for solidarity with the Jews, there have also been efforts to improve the inter-religious dialogue. The German Coordinating Council of Societies for Christian-Jewish Cooperation (Deutscher Koordinierungsrat der Gesellschaften f r Christlich-J dische Zusammenarbeit; member of the International Council of Christians and Jews) organised a meeting in June in which the importance of an inter-religious dialogue was discussed.

An inter-religious discussion group was recently also established in the city of Bremen. A few weeks prior, the Muslims had invited the Jewish community in order to foster a dialogue and to promote a peaceful way of living together.

This started a process of setting up a discussion group which is presently not only made up of Muslims and Jews, but also of non-Muslim Palestinians, Protestants, Catholics, peace campaigners, politicians and trade unionists. They are attempting to maintain positive inter-cultural relations in Bremen as an example for other towns.

In Germany there are some non-governmental programmes and initiatives, which aim to combat anti-Semitism, although no further initiatives were started in the relevant period. The Turkish Association Berlin-Brandenburg, the Turkish Community Association of Germany as well as the Central Council of Muslims all sharply criticised the FDP's vice-chairman M llemann at the beginning of June. "To employ an anti-Semitic climate for political purposes must be taboo", declared the chairmen.

The Turkish Association Berlin-Brandenburg called upon its members to protest together with the Jewish community in front of the FDP headquarters in Berlin against "playing with anti-Semitism".

5. Reactions by politicians and other opinion leaders

Almost all public leaders distanced themselves from Jurgen Millemann's statements in relation to the current debate about anti-Semitism and pronounced (Chancellor Gerhard Schr der) their fear of negative consequences for Germany's reputation abroad which might arise from the ongoing debate. Millemann's statements received positive reactions from some right-wing parties such as "Die Republikaner", the NPD (National Democratic Party Germany) and the DVU. But the vice-chairman also had to face criticism from within his own party as well.

With regard to the parties, the Liberal Democrats as well as the Social Democrats/the Greens have submitted separate but identical applications to the German Bundestag (lower house of the German parliament) demanding that anti-Semitic tendencies be eradicated and that anti-Semitism may not be exploited for election campaigns.

The Bundespresident (Head of State of the Federal Republic of Germany), Johannes Rau, had already entered into the discussion in May by meeting representatives of the Central Council of Jews in order to express his solidarity with the Jewish communities.

In an interview with the Jewish newspaper Allgemeine Judische Wochenzeitung he remarked on his fear of a decreasing level of inhibition for making anti-Semitic statements, although he pointed out that criticism of Israel is not tantamount to anti-Semitism. Even a trade union reacted directly in relation to the anti-Semitism debate. The "IG Bauern-Agrar-Umwelt" split from their member Jurgen Millemann by "mutual agreement" as a result of the politician's statements.

On 19 April the German Interior Minister Otto Schily, together with his colleagues from France, Belgium, Spain and Great Britain, presented a joint declaration on "Racism, Xenophobia and Anti-Semitism" which appealed for preventive measures and a European-wide coordination of all responsible agencies and offices.

From 29 September 2002 the Jewish Museum in Berlin opened a short three-week exhibition that showed letters written during the M llemann campaign to the Jewish journalist Henryk M. Broder and to the "Allgemeine J dische Wochenzeitung" under the title "Ich bin kein Antisemit" (I am not an anti-Semite).

In early July a panel Forum on Anti-Semitism as concerted action to stem escalating violence in conjunction with the 11th annual Parliamentary Assembly of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) was held in Berlin. This session was followed up on the initiative of German Bundestag Member Gert Weisskirchen and United States Helsinki Commission Co-Chairman Christopher H. Smith by a meeting of members of the Commission and a German Bundestag delegation in Washington DC in December.

The Forum heard experts on Anti-Semitism in Europe and the United States and a "letter of intent" was signed by Gert Weisskirchen and Christopher H. Smith.

Ireland

The Jewish community in the Republic of Ireland (total population: 3.8 million mostly Roman Catholics - 91.6 per cent and Protestants, the only significant religious minority - 3 per cent) is a small, but long established community, which comprises approximately 1000-1600 people who mostly live in Dublin (0.04%).

There has been no reporting of anti-Semitic incidents in recent years. The Garda reported the existence of several far-right individuals or small groups, none of whom however have come to the fore publicly. Most of the incidents referred to in this report come from information supplied by Jewish organisations in Ireland.

Many incidents reported are considered to be one-off and unusual occurrences, with no evidence of a systematic targeting of the Jewish community in Ireland. The police provide discreet presence at the synagogue in Dublin on certain occasions.

According to the Intercultural Office, there appear to be good relations between the local police and representatives of the Jewish community and meetings have been held between Garda Racial & Intercultural Office and Jewish communal leaders in the period in question.

However, one representative of the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland contends that there is increased apprehension in the Irish Jewish community. This anxiety relates primarily to recent events in Europe, such as the increased electoral support of the far right, as opposed to any marked change in attitudes amongst the Irish population.

1.Physical acts of violence

There have been no reports of physical violence against Jews or their properties during the period of 15 May-15 June.

2.Verbal aggression/hate speech

Direct threats

The Israeli embassy has received a number of hate telephone calls in the last month but has not logged the exact number. The embassy received a piece of hate mail on 10 June, written on a brown paper bag. The Garda Racial and Intercultural Office reports that there have been a few threatening and abusive phone calls to Jewish residents in the Terenure district of Dublin, where the synagogue is located. These were dealt with by local Garda.

Graffiti

On 19 April 2002, Dublin graffiti equating Jews with Nazis and the Star of David with a swastika was found near the main synagogue in Dublin.

Leaflets

Amnesty International ran an advertising campaign on Israel and the Occupied Territories. A copy of the advertisement was returned to the office with the words "Hitler Was Right" written over it.

Media and public discourse

A survey of national newspapers for the month 15 May – 15 June shows no verbal attacks on Jews in public discourse or by Irish politicians. A representative of the Jewish Representative Council maintained that there had been some concern about the tone of some correspondence in the Irish Times and in debate on Israel's policies on the Joe Duffy programme of RTE radio, but that ultimately it was not deemed to be anti-Semitic but essentially hostile to Israeli policy.

Internet

The website National Socialist Are Us contains a section called "The New Folk" where White supremacist and "Aryan" ideology is expressed. The website also contains links to other white supremacist sites including Stormfront. In its report on racial incidents May-October 2001, the NCCRI referred to this website and concerns about it and two others run by the Irish Fascist Party and Irish National Front.

3. Research studies

There were no reports or studies focusing solely on anti-Semitism in the period monitored.

4. Good practices for reducing prejudice, violence and aggression

There are no examples of good practices to report.

5. Reactions by politicians and other opinion leaders

Nothing to report

Greece

In Greece, population 10 million, the 5000 Jews represent a small minority (3000, mainly in Athens, and 1000 in Thessaloniki). Despite denials on the part of most Greek opinion leaders and leaders of the Greek Jewish community, anti-Semitism does seem to exist in Greece, perhaps not so much in social behaviour, but rather as a latent structure.

The Orthodox Church continues to include in the liturgy ritual of Good Friday anti-Jewish references and also the religious prejudices against "the Christ killers" remain virulent. Anti-Semitic rhetoric in Greece usually takes the form of opposition to a conspiratorial conception of "Zionism", interpreted as a "Jewish plot for world domination".

Latent prejudices and bigotry became evident during the last two years over the issue of having religion included on Greek identity cards. When the Greek government according to EU standards removed this reference it was vilified for "bowing to Jewish pressure".

Although all mainstream political parties denounce anti-Semitism, they sometimes also exhibit a curiously strong anti-Semitism seemingly confused with an anti-Israeli and anti-American stance. This form of anti-Semitism was reinforced by Israel's alliance with Turkey, an alliance that led Greece to reinforce its links with the Arab world.

Despite their close affiliation to the United States, successive post-war governments and even the Junta followed a foreign policy unfavourable to Israel, which as an ally of Turkey was seen as a potential enemy.

The state of Israel was only recognised de-jure by the conservative New Democracy government of Prime Minister K. Mitsotakis in 1990, partly as a result of the Greek involvement in the Gulf War and partly as a result of the ongoing peace process in the Middle East.

Populist elements within all political parties still continue to engage in the anti-Semitic rhetoric that stresses the conspiratorial element. Nearly all these prejudices and popular demonising fortified the barriers in the social relationships between Jewish and non-Jewish Greeks.

1. Physical acts of violence

Several Jewish sites were vandalised and defaced with Nazi slogans and graffiti in the last few years, for example the Jewish cemetery in Athens (on 25-26 May 2000) and the Holocaust Memorial and the synagogue in Thessaloniki. In part the only active neo-Nazi group Chrissi Agvi is responsible for these attacks.

The al-Aqsa Intifada set off a series of small pro-Palestinian demonstrations, which, however, all went ahead without any outbreaks of violence. During the period covered by the report no physical attacks on Jews or Jewish organisations or incidents concerning them have been reported.

However, we would like to note that only a month before the following incidents were recorded by ANTIGONE, the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece and by other NGOs. On 15 and 16 April 2002 the Holocaust Memorial in Thessaloniki was vandalised by person(s) unknown who sprayed red paint on the wreaths, which had been laid two days previously in memory of the victims of the Holocaust, and on the surrounding area.

The word "Palestinians" was written in paint nearby. The incident occurred a day after a large pro-Palestinian demonstration had been held in Thessaloniki. The Central Jewish Board of Greece wrote to the Minister of Public Order asking for measures to be taken to guard these sites more effectively in the future and to publicly condemn the incidents.

The Government (on 17 April), political parties and the Orthodox Church strongly condemned the incident. On 15 April 2002, the Jewish cemetery of Ioannina in Northern Greece was vandalised by person(s) unknown with Nazi and anti-Semitic graffiti slogans. The cemetery had already been desecrated on 16 January 2002.

The Greek Government, political parties and the Orthodox Church condemned the incident in strong terms.

On 18 April the Holocaust Memorial of Drama in northern Greece and the Jewish cemetery of Zavlani in Patras (southern Greece) were vandalised with Nazi and anti-Semitic graffiti slogans. The Greek Government, political parties and the Orthodox Church condemned the incident.

2. Verbal aggression/hate speech
Politics

The rumour, first published by some newspapers of the Arab press, that 4000 Jews had been warned by the Israeli Secret Service Mossad and did not go to their offices on 11 September, the day of the terrorist attack in New York, was tabled as a question in Parliament by MP and leader of the ultra nationalist party "LAOS" G. Karatzaferis soon after the attack.

Print and broadcast media – even the Bulletin of the Technical Chamber of Greece (8 October, 2001) – reported this rumour as well.

According to a poll conducted five weeks after the event, 42% of Greeks subscribed to this rumour, as opposed to 30% who rejected it. The Central Jewish Board and the Israeli Embassy protested to politicians and the press.

In a statement the Union of Athens Press Journalists mentioned the small television station "Tele Asty" (which is owned by Karatzaferis and spread the anti-Semitic rumours) as a special case of racist behaviour towards the Jews. It should also be noted that most newspapers reported this rumour ironically and not in an anti-Semitic way.

Insults

The Chairman of the Central Board of Jewish Communities in his written reply to the National Focal Point's request for information has included a number of cartoons published in national dailies that may be considered as insulting to Jews.

Graffiti

This has been reported in the previous section under "Vandalism and Disparagement". There have been no other reported graffiti or other anti-Semitic inscriptions by human rights NGOs.

Media

On 2 April the two largest dailies Ta Nea and Elefterotypia (center-left) as well as the right-wing daily Apogevmatini printed as unquestionable reality a heinous libel that Israelis were trafficking the organs of dead Palestinian fighters and performing medical experiments on Arab prisoners.

The Chairman of the Central Board of Jewish Communities in his written reply to the National Focal Point's request for information has stressed that "there is a conscious attempt to create an anti-Semitic climate by various articles that are critical of the policies pursued by Israel and personally its Prime Minister"; he specifically pointed out two articles that put forward the view that Jews have excessively used the pain resulting from the cruelty of the Holocaust published during the period in question:

- "Auschwitz and Palestine", published in the daily national newspaper Kathimerini on 2 June 2002.

- "The excessive use of the Holocaust", published in the daily national newspaper Kathimerini on 4 June 2002. He also pointed out that cartoons with anti-Semitic content have appeared in newspapers during the period in question and in previous months.

A small number of commentators, who frequently appear on small TV stations like the ultra right wing Tele-Asty and Extra Channel expressing anti-Semitic views, are not considered "opinion leaders" and their influence is very small.

The popular composer Mikis Theodorakis wrote an editorial for the Greek daily TO VIMA in which he claimed that the Jews are "imitating the Nazi savagery" and that they are "enchanted by the Nazi methods".

Internet

1997 the Hellenic Nationalist Page published an anti-Semitic diatribe on its Internet site, entitled "New Zionist Attack against Hellenism" which is still on their homepage. Taking issue with phrases in the ad referring to the Maccabean victory over the Greeks, the article accused the Jews of racism and claimed, falsely, that Rupert Murdoch, owner of the New York Post, was a Jew.

The article also reiterated other charges the group had made in the past, such as Jewish collaboration with "the Ottomans in the subjugation of Byzantium," and the Jews' promotion of the notion that "they are the only (or at least the most victimised) victim in history."

Further, it questioned the "imaginary 6 million figure" of people who perished in the Holocaust, in contrast to the documented figure of 800,000 Greeks lost in World War II.

Similar articles have appeared on this website in recent years. The latest addition (news 2001) presents an article on "The exclusive victims of genocide" which contains similar anti-Semitic stereotypes and refers to another article from 1996 (with a link to be opened) on "Zionists and Mongols – Butchers of Hellenism."

3. Research Studies

Opinion polls carried out after 11 September terrorist attacks showed that a significant proportion of the Greek public readily accepted conspiratorial rumours implicating the Israeli secret services in the attack.

There is no reliable scientific data available, but it may be that media reports may have in their critical approach towards Israel's military operations inadvertently led to a rise in anti-Semitic sentiments among the Greek population.

4. Good practices for reducing prejudice, violence and aggression

Only small examples had been visible: On 6 June the topic in Modern Greek presented in the formal examinations for entry into Greek Universities (Panhellenic Examinations) was an excerpt from the "Diary of Anne Frank".

Students were asked to comment and compare WWII and modern incidents of racism and anti-Semitism. On 28 January 2002 the President of the Republic was visited by the teachers and pupils of the primary school of the Jewish Community of Athens.

On 29 January Leon Benmayor, honorary Chairman of the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki and Holocaust survivor, was honoured with the Golden Cross of the Greek Legion of Honour by the President of the Republic for his contribution to science.

There was also an excellent treatment of Zionism as the quest for national identity and a state by the IosPress group of journalists who write for the national daily Eleftherotypia (published on 28 April 2002).

5. Reactions by politicians and other opinion leaders

The Government, political parties and the Orthodox Church have always condemned any anti-Semitic incidents through their official spokespersons and the Government has taken special security measures for safeguarding Jewish establishments. The government on 17 April condemned acts of vandalism at the Holocaust memorial in Thessaloniki and the Jewish cemetery of Ioannina.

There have been no particular reactions by politicians or other opinion leaders during the period in question. This brought the Greek Helsinki Monitor/Minority Rights Group to the conviction "that the government has yet to take a strong and consistent stand against anti-Semitism.

Even extreme anti-Semitic views openly expressed by Orthodox clergy members, politicians, factions, cultural icons, and journalists pass without comment. Attacks on Jewish monuments and property receive little if any attention in the media and faint condemnation by the political and spiritual leadership."

The large majority of politicians and opinion leaders from both the right and the left have been strongly critical of the military offensive against the Palestinian Authority and the following events, but have equally condemned terrorist acts stressing the need for a peaceful settlement and the futility of military solutions.

On 31 March the speaker of the Greek Parliament and leading PASOK member Apostolos Kaklamanis condemned Israel for committing genocide against the Palestinian people.

The Central Jewish Council expressed its deep regrets "for the unacceptable and unfair comparison" of the Holocaust with Israeli action in the West Bank. During an OSCE parliamentary discussion on current European anti-Semitism on 8 July 2002, the Simon Wiesenthal Center urged the Greek Prime Minister and other Greek leaders to publicly condemn the use of anti-Semitic stereotypes and Nazi imagery that has characterised much of the public and media criticism of Israel.

Spain

In Spain (total population 40 million) Jews were recognised as full citizens in 1978. Today the Jewish population numbers about 40,000, 20,000 of whom are registered in the Jewish communities. The majority live in the larger cities of Spain on the Iberian Peninsula, North Africa or the islands.

Many of the prejudices cultivated during the Franco years persist; during that time Israel was never recognised. Israel and Spain did not establish diplomatic ties until 1986, when Spain recognised the State of Israel. Many young Spaniards consider support of the PLO a crucial qualification for being identified as "progressive" or leftist.

Since the beginning of the second Intifada more and more anti-Semitic attacks are taking place, mainly after pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

In October 2000 the Holocaust Memorial in Barcelona was desecrated and the glass door of Spanish-Moroccan synagogue in the North African enclave of Ceuta destroyed and anti-Semitic pamphlets distributed across the market place.

On 8 October, the most important Jewish holiday Yom Kippur, graffiti was smeared across a house belonging to the local Jewish association in Oviedo that read "Jew murderers".

An incident had taken place the day before during the football match between Spain and Israel outside the stadium in Madrid. Neo-Nazis shouted anti-Semitic slogans and distributed anti-Semitic literature. Also, windows of the main synagogue in Madrid were shattered on 13 October.

The Imam of Valencia asserted on 21 September 2001 in a mosque filled with worshipers: "All the evidence shows that the Jews are guilty", referring to the claim by radical Islamists, right-wing extremists and Holocaust deniers that Jews were behind the attacks in New York and Washington on 11 September.

In September 2001 the synagogue of Melilla was attacked and a Jewish cemetery desecrated; in Ceuta several Jewish buildings were daubed with paint.

1.Physical acts of violence

On 5 January 2002, anti-Semitic graffiti was found on the door of a synagogue in Madrid; around midnight of 8 March 2002, the door of the Ceuta synagogue was set on fire. The synagogue of Madrid is now under permanent police surveillance and Jewish schools are also provided with police surveillance at the beginning and end of activities.

2.Verbal Aggression/hate speech

Direct Threats

In July outside the synagogue in Madrid, a group of twenty skinheads demonstrated, shouting anti-Israel and anti-Semitic slogans.

Public Discourse

The Movimiento Social Republicano (MSR), which on other occasions joins xenophobic protests against Muslims (for example against the opening of a Moroccan consulate in Almeria), participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations organised by radical Islamists and NGOs, where the participants also displayed anti-American attitudes. The mass media often confuses Israel and the Jewish community.

On 7 April 2002, a pro-Palestinian demonstration attracted official representatives from all Catalan political parties, except the conservative PP, and a total of 7000 people in Barcelona. One demonstrator, who appeared clearly in a photograph taken, was carrying a caricature of Ariel Sharon's head on a pig's body (traditional anti-Semitic stereotype), which is surrounded by swastikas.

Internet

A series of international right-wing extremist and revisionist/denial homepages offer links in Spanish. Particular attention is to be given to the website of the "Nuevo Order" group that is networked per links with the entire far-right scene and whose label shows a similarity with the American militant far-right group "Stormfront". "Nuevo Order" combines anti-Semitism with anti-Americanism and mixes old with modern anti-Semitic stereotypes.

The "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" can be downloaded here as well as at the linked site belonging to the "Fuerza Aria". The "Fuerza Aria", a group that spreads extreme rightist and National Socialist thought, conducts campaigns via the Internet "Against the Jewish Power" and propagates a pro-Palestinian and pro-Iraqi stance.

3. Research Studies

The survey commissioned by the ADL conducted between 9 and 29 September 2002 concerning "European Attitudes towards Jews, Israel and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict" (see Table: Report on Belgium) established that Spanish respondents harbour the most anti-Semitic view. 72% agreed to the statement "Jews are more loyal to Israel than to this country" (EU average: 51%) and 63 % to the statement "Jews have too much power in the business world".

4. Good practices for reducing prejudice, violence and aggression

On 9 June 2002 the Evangelical Church and the Institute for Judeo-Christian Studies in Madrid together with the Jewish communities of Madrid and Barcelona organised a demonstration of support for Israel also as a sign against anti-Semitic attitudes.

5. Reactions by politicians and other opinion leaders

Newspapers have become more deliberate in their use of graphics, avoiding any assimilation between Nazi and Jew symbols. The Spanish Interior Minister Mariano Rajoy Brey, together with his colleagues from Germany, France, Belgium and the United Kingdom, presented a joint declaration against "Racism, Xenophobia and anti-Semitism" in April 2002.

France

Jews in France (total population: 60 million) – the biggest such community in Western Europe (600,000-700,000, half of them living in the Paris area) – are generally well respected, socially assimilated and well represented in politics.

Anti-Semitic prejudices in France were already virulent during the Six Day War and the anti-Zionist campaign of the 1970s and 1980s.

With the successes achieved by the extreme right-wing Front National and an increasing denial of the Holocaust in the 1990s such stereotypes once again received strong acceptance.

At the same time, in the mid-1990s began the critical engagement with National Socialism, collaboration and the responsibility of the Vichy Regime.

As the second Intifada began, the number of anti-Semitic criminal offences rose drastically; out of 216 racist acts recorded in 2000 146 were motivated by anti-Semitism. The peak was reached during the Jewish High Holidays in October 2000; one third of the anti-Semitic attacks committed worldwide took place in France (between 1 September 2000 and 31 January 2002 405 anti-Semitic incidents were documented).

The perpetrators were only seldom from the extreme right milieu, coming instead mainly from non-organised Maghrebian and North African youths.

After interrogating 42 suspects, the police concluded that these are "predominantly delinquents without ideology, motivated by a diffuse hostility to Israel, exacerbated by the media representation of the Middle East conflict ( ) a conflict which, they see, reproduces the picture of exclusion and failure of which they feel victims in France".

Beginning in January 2002, but mainly from the end of March till the middle of April 2002 , there was a wave of anti-Semitic attacks. In the first half of April attacks against Jews and Jewish institutions in Paris and surrounding areas were daily occurrences.

This was a repeat of the situation of October 2000.

In reaction to the anti-Semitic mood the number of the French Jews who immigrated to Israel in 2002 doubled to 2,566, the highest number since 1972.

In addition, there was an almost polemical debate on the nature as well as the denunciation of anti-Semitism linked to the situation in the Middle East and to Islam, a debate, which led to divisions between prominent participants and anti-racist groups.

Anti-Semitism and security questions specific to the Jewish community were almost absent from public debate during this period.

In fact, the main ideological themes in the public debate at a time of both Presidential (12 April and 5 May 2002) and national (9 and 16 June 2002) elections were law and order and the unexpectedly strong support for the Front National and its leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, who played on anti-Semitic resentments.

Viewed from a later perspective, there is an obvious connection with anti-Semitism. During that same period there was a renewed outbreak of anti-Muslim acts and speech attributed to the far right.

1. Physical acts of violence

Indications are that there was a significant decrease in May and June 2002 in observed acts in relation to the period from 29 March to 17 April 2002, a period in which police sources recorded 395 events, ranging from graffiti to assaults. Sixty-three percent of these events involved anti-Semitic graffiti, while 16 cases of assault and 14 of arson or attempted arson against synagogues were reported to the police.

These acts principally took place in large urban areas (Ile-de-France, Provence-Alpes-C te d'Azur and Alsace).

Many of the violent incidents occurred around the pro-Palestinian demonstrations at the end of March in Lyon, Strasbourg, Marseille and Toulouse.

While the hypothesis of a detente needs to be confirmed by time, it is true that hostility displayed towards Jews was still observed, in particular by new Jewish victim support groups.

The people in charge of the help lines estimated an average of 8 to 12 reports of this kind every day.

On 10 May eight Arabs who studied with him in the same school attacked a 16-year-old Jewish youth in Bordeaux.

The attack was accompanied by curses and threats.

On 12 May 2002 in Saint-Maur des Foss s (a Paris suburb), three young Jews who were playing football stated that they were insulted and attacked by about fifteen young people "of North African origin".

They lodged a complaint against them for assault and racist remarks.

2. Verbal aggression/hate speech

Indirect threats

On 18 May 2002 at a demonstration organised in the XIXth district of Paris by the Parti des Musulmans de France against the "Naqba", hostile slogans towards Jews were shouted without any attempt from the organisers to intervene.

On 26 May 2002 during a demonstration organised in Paris against George W. Bush's trip to France by groups such as the French Communist Party, the Green party "Les Verts", the Revolutionary Communist League ("Ligue Communiste R volutionnaire", LCR) and others such as the MRAP ("Mouvement contre le racisme et pour l'amiti entre les peuples" - Movement against racism and for friendship between peoples) and the Human Rights League, about thirty teenagers chanted anti-Jewish and pro-Bin Laden slogans.

The organisers expelled them.

Ethnic minority activists were then forced to intervene to prevent some youths from attacking a young couple on a scooter in the belief that they were Jewish.

The anti-Semitic atmosphere also found expression in verbal attacks at schools and universities.

Graffiti

On 21 May 2002 the police questioned an 18-year-old female student who was suspected of drawing anti-Semitic slogans and symbols on a kosher butcher's shop front in Pr Saint-Gervais (Seine-Saint-Denis, Paris suburb).

In June 2002 advertising posters in various metro stations as well as election posters were defaced by graffiti showing the Star of David and the swastika connected by an "=" sign.

It should be noted that many Front National and RPF (Rassemblement pour la France) election posters were also defaced by graffiti with such terms as "racist" or "Fascist".

Media

In the edition of the daily Le Figaro from 7 June 2002, Oriana Fallaci, who is the Italian author of a polemical book entitled "La rage et l'orgueil" (Rage and Pride), wrote a similarly polemical article entitled "Sur l'antis mitisme" ("On anti-Semitism").

On 10 June 2002 the MRAP (Mouvement contre le racisme et pour l'amiti entre les peuples) lodged a complaint against Oriana Fallaci's book, calling it "a despicable work where slander, vulgarity and confusion intermingle with contempt.

This book is an 'asserted call' to racist hatred and violence against all Muslims."

The request for it to be banned proved unsuccessful.

Internet

On 7 June 2002, the publication on the website Indymedia-France of a text in which the "Israeli concentration camps" were compared to the Nazi camps in Germany during the Second World War provoked the resignation of two editorial team members.

One of the founding members of this anti-globalisation site, which was created after the Seattle summit, demanded the expulsion of the author of the article, "to prevent Indymedia-France from falling under revisionist influence".

The incriminated article also pondered whether Israel might be equated with Nazi Germany.

On the other hand, another website contributor stated that, "in parallel, there is a debate on the website to determine whether the [Israeli] government is a Nazi government or not."

3. Research studies

Between 28 January and 1 February 2002, the Sofres Institute surveyed 400 people aged between 15 and 24 living in France.

A massive majority rejected anti-Semitic acts:

87% of the respondents considered that "anti-Semitic acts against synagogues in France" are "scandalous; the state must punish the culprits very severely";

11% of them considered that "if the Jews did not support Israel as much, these attacks would not take place";

88% of the respondents considered that "the Jews should be allowed to follow their usual customs without risking to get into a fight";

in contrast, 11% considered that "if the Jews did not seek to make themselves conspicuous in wearing the kipah, this kind of fight would not take place";

99% of respondents judged that defacing synagogues is "very serious" or "rather serious" (against 1% of them who consider this is "not very serious or not serious at all");

97% of respondents judged that writing anti-Semitic graffiti is "very serious" or "rather serious" (against 3%);

91% of respondents judged that joking about gas chambers is "very serious" or "rather serious" (against 9%);

but 11% allocate "a share of responsibility for these acts to the Jewish community, because of its support to Israel".

To the question "do the Jews have too much influence ?" in France, 77% answered that they "rather disagree" or "do not agree at all"; specifically in the media, 79% responded that they "rather disagree" or "do not agree at all"; and in politics, 80% answered that they "rather disagree" or "do not agree at all".

These figures are much weaker than those collected by Sofres during a previous survey, which covered the whole population, conducted in May 2000 for the Nouveau Mensuel magazine.

Then 45% of the respondents had agreed with the statement that Jews have "too much influence".

To the question "regarding people who say that the Holocaust and the gas chambers did not exist, what is your position?", 51% estimated that "these people should not be condemned because everyone is free to think whatever they want"; against which 48% said "these people must be condemned because they deny a serious historical fact".

The figures suggest that the Holocaust is to some extent trivialised, in so far as "freedom of thought" (and expression) is often placed above the other issues at stake.

Several observers believe that far-right anti-Semitic violence has shifted towards anti-Semitism of the suburbs. In this respect, the survey provided new information on the state of mind of the youth of North African origin "towards the Jews and anti-Semitism".

As a matter of fact, they were asked the same questions as above.

Thus, 86% of them judged that "defacing synagogues" is "very serious" or "rather serious";

95% of them thought that the Jews have the "right to follow their usual habits without risking to get into a fight";

and only 5% of them thought that "if the Jews did not seek to make themselves conspicuous in wearing the kipah, this kind of fight would not take place".

In the end, 54% of them underlined the seriousness of "insulting the Jews, even if it is a joke". Compared with the overall group of people between 15 and 24, such answers tend to show that the youth of North African origin is more tolerant than the average, an attitude that can undoubtedly be explained by the fact that anti-Semitic acts or attitudes remind them more or less directly of how they themselves have suffered from racial or cultural discrimination as Muslims or children of North African parents.

On the other hand, according to this survey the tendency is reversed concerning traditional anti-Semitic prejudices.

The question relating to the Jews' alleged influence shows that "respectively 35%, 38% and 24% of the youth of North African origin (against only 22%, 21% and 18% of the whole group of young people) completely or rather think that the Jews have too much influence in the economic and political fields and in the media".

Strangely enough, the poll did not say anything about their answers to the questions concerning the Holocaust.

According to an exclusive survey carried out on 3 and 4 April 2002 by the CSA poll institute and the weekly Marianne of a 1000 people aged over 18, 10% of the French dislike the Jews (while 23% of them dislike North Africans and 24% of them dislike young French people of North African origin), which is the case with 52% of far-right voters (whether for Le Pen or M gret).

The surveys commissioned by the ADL conducted between 16 May and 4 June 2002 and between 9 and 29 September concerning "European Attitudes towards Jews, Israel and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict" (see Table: Report on Belgium) established that 17% of respondents agreed to at least three of the four anti-Semitic statements presented.

Forty-two percent agreed to the statements that "Jews are more loyal to Israel than to this country" and "Jews have too much power in the business world", whereby amongst youths the agreement was far higher with 61% and 64%, respectively. With regard to the current conflict in the Middle East, 29% expressed that they sympathised with the Palestinians and only 10% sympathised with Israel. 37% had no preference for one side or the other.

4. Good practices for reducing prejudice, violence and aggression

The publishing of documents such as the Sofres public opinion poll entitled "Youth and the Jewish Image", as well as the public meetings organised to accompany them, maintain a feeling of hope with regard to both the growing tolerance towards the Jews and to their "normalisation" in French society.

The situation also seems to be encouraging concerning the attitude of children of North African parents towards the Jews, in a time when the global geopolitical situation remains very shaky.

The educational information campaigns within Muslim groups, such as on the theme "to burn a synagogue is like burning a mosque", have encouraged people to talk again and have improved solidarity between the different communities in this field.

Thus, the gesture of a local Muslim group in Aubervilliers (northern suburb of Paris) is particularly symbolic: it lent its school bus to a Jewish school of the same area as its buses were destroyed during an attack.

Beyond inter-religious dialogue, the spontaneous or organised mobilisation of civil society against the far right has reaffirmed the Republic's common values. Such reactions have at least reminded us that the fight against racism, xenophobia and discrimination remains a common struggle.

The fact that anti-Semitic or anti-Jewish acts in France are presently being committed mainly by youngsters from North African immigration, apparently acting in an isolated manner, brought many observers to the conclusion that a far right anti-Semitism has been superseded by a form of anti-Semitism rooted in urban decay and social deprivation.

The French term for this combination of urban decay and social deprivation is "banlieue", literally "suburb", which functions in roughly the same way as "inner city" in English.

Beyond the local character of this observation, some, like the philosopher Pierre-Andr Taguieff – during his highly publicised book launch in spring 2002 –, spoke of a "new planetary judeophobia" ("nouvelle jud ophobie plan taire") that explains "all world problems by the existence of Israel".

This "new judeophobia", which he sees as initially brought about by radical Islamic activists, by the heirs of "third-worldism" and by far-left anti-globalisation activists, accuse the Jews of being themselves racist.

Thus, according to Taguieff, there seems to be an "anti-Jewish anti-racism". In this way, it can appear that "the fight against racism and the fight against anti-Semitism have been dissociated from one another", as Shmuel Trigano wrote in the weekly newspaper Actualit Juive (25 April 2002), adding that "suburb anti-Semitism has indeed broken the "united front" strategy, revealing that the victims of racism (Arab Muslims) could be anti-Semites".

This point of view, which is shared by some Jewish personalities and groups, can extend to an exclusively Jewish conception of the fight against anti-Semitism and a tendency to link it to support for Israel and its current government.

5. Reactions by politicians and other opinion leaders

The current political climate, which has been dominated by the growth of the far right and the renewed Republican mobilisation since 21 April 2002, eclipsed anti-Semitism and tensions between Jews and Muslims in France and removed them from the political agenda.

It resulted in the abandonment of the large demonstration against racism and anti-Semitism, for peace in the Middle East and for the union of all communities, planned for Sunday, 12 May 2002, to run parallel to the "Peace Now" demonstration in Israel.

Many trade unions, politicians of both left and right organisations and numerous personalities had organised this demonstration.

Representatives from Jewish organisations criticised the French Government for being inactive. President Chirac, who was re-elected on 5 May 2002, reacted officially to the accusations that he had denied the gravity of the threats against Jews coming mainly from abroad, in particular from Israel and the United States, on several occasions.

He stated that he "has protested against the 'anti-French campaign', which took place in Israel and which aimed at presenting France as an anti-Semitic country".

"France is not an anti-Semitic country", he repeated the day before the 55th Cannes Film Festival, in response to the American Jewish Congress, which had sought to dissuade Jewish celebrities from participating in the film festival.

During his discussions with President George W. Bush, who was in France on 26 and 27 May 2002, President Chirac "protested strongly" against the idea conveyed in the United States that France is seized by a kind of anti-Semitic fever.

On 19 April the French Interior Minister Daniel Viallant, together with his colleagues from Belgium, Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom, issued a joint declaration on "Racism, Xenophobia and Anti-Semitism" that appealed for an undertaking of preventive measures and a European-wide coordination of the responsible agencies and offices.

On 29 May 2002, Nicolas Sarkozy, the new Interior Minister, went to the synagogue of Clichy-sous-Bois, which was attacked with a petrol bomb on 10 August 2000, and launched the slogan "zero tolerance for anti-Semitism".

On 2 June 2002, he welcomed representatives from the Jewish community at the Ministry of the Interior.

The Minister promised to improve the coordination of the suitable preventive or educational safety measures and to follow up regularly the files indexing complaints, particularly those submitted by "SOS V rit et S curit".
The participants agreed that similar meetings would take place periodically in Ile de France and in the provinces.

Moreover, the Minister is said to have committed himself to work in partnership with the Ministries of Justice and of Education.

On 21 July 2002 French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin declared at a meeting held on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the roundup of French Jews for deportation: "to harm the Jewish community is to harm France, harm the values of our republic."

A new government's hard line on crime and North African juvenile gangs in the second half of 2002 led to a remarkable decrease of anti-Semitic incidents.

Besides the conspicuous presence of police protecting Jewish institutions the initiatives of the new Minister of Interior Nicolas Sarkozy promoting an active dialogue with different sections of the Muslim community changed the situation in a positive way.

Italy

The 35,000 Jews, of whom 25,000 are members of the various Jewish communities, are completely integrated into the Italian population (total population: 56.3 million).

Since the Second World War, anti-Semitic prejudice in Italy has seldom taken on aggressive forms; violent attacks have been rare. However, with the increase in the number of far-right groups since the beginning of the 1990s, the picture has altered.

Although anti-Semitic traditions are hardly virulent in Italian society, the networking of the international far-right scene, which uses anti-Semitism to create such networks, has also led to a strong anti-Semitic orientation in the Italian far-right spectrum.

In 1995 anti-Semitic incidents rose from 30 to 50 a year; since the middle of 2000 (30-40% rise) to March-April 2002 a sharp increase of 100% has been recorded. In the first instance this is due to the conflict in the Middle East.

However, besides this factor, a high level of xenophobic attitudes and views is noticeable in the population, which are supported in turn by racist remarks in public discourse (politics and print media).

Above all the socially marginalized working migrants, numbering ca. 700,000 (510,000 migrants mainly from Morocco, Tunisia and Albania), are affected. During the 1990s, not only Jewish culture itself but also the history of Israel, its literature and cinema enjoyed a period of success in Italy, a surprising development for those who had experienced the troubled years of the 1970s and 1980s in which anti-Israeli resentment was virulent, particularly on the left.

The crisis that started at the turn into 2001 has accelerated an unforeseen and unpredictable process that in other countries, especially in France, is already evident; in Italy, this process has left a number of options open for the future and these are not immediately clear. In Italy, the second Intifada has set in motion unexpected mechanisms, whereby traditional anti-Jewish prejudices are mixed with politically based stereotypes.

It is important to bear in mind that the so-called "spiritual (or psychological) anti-Semitism" has had a greater impact on the overall phenomenon in Italian cultural history during the course of the 20th century (see Julius Evola).

In contrast to France and Belgium, anti-Semitic attacks in Italy have up to now been limited to verbal abuse, graffiti and the like.

But since the start of the second Intifada incidents now include death threats against Jews and carry both anti-Semitic as well as anti-Israeli stereotypes, often in a synonymous context.

The perpetrators are local Italians and till now, in contrast to Belgium, France and the Netherlands, hardly any person from the milieu of Muslim migrants.

In contrast to other countries, in Italy there is rather a revival of anti-Judaist topoi coupled with traditional anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist stereotypes rooted in the left. It became particularly visible during the events, which took place at the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem.

The worsening of the Israeli-Arab conflict and, in particular, the question of Bethlehem and the Church of the Nativity once again led to ambiguous positions being taken in some contexts and witnessed the use of potentially dangerous language.

1. Physical acts of violence

There were a few attacks at the beginning of the year, for example in January, a Jewish lawyer was attacked came in his office by two thugs who hit him with a club on his head and shoulders. It appears that right-wing extremists were responsible for this attack.

A number of the incidents occurred in April, but in the following months there was a reduction. The incidents recorded coincided with the heightening in international tension, thus creating entirely predictable peaks.

Italian commentators assess that the rise in the scope of anti-Semitism is the result of Israel's governmental policy towards the Arabs since the outbreak of the Intifada.

There are however some exceptions. These can be linked to the specific Italian situation and there is often the feeling that the lack of public attention or dwindling of public interest in such incidents is the result of the national political situation, its internal crisis and the strong political divisions between government and opposition parties, a factor exerting a severe impact on different spheres of public life.

Demonstrations, marches and other political actions were recorded at the end of March, but without doubt the climax was reached in the period beginning with the Israeli occupation of Bethlehem, the stalemate at the Church of Nativity (2 April) and the attack against Jenin refugee camp (10 April). By the end of April tension as well as media attention had again decreased, leaving behind a few consequences and some rather feeble polemics.

4 April: destruction of the research work and the archives on the Holocaust and the resistance created by the students of Liceo Galileo Ferraris High School in Varese, where billboards were destroyed and the school walls were painted in red with graffiti such as "burn the Jews".

Varese belongs to one of the strongholds of far-right groups in Italy, especially right-wing skinheads.

2 June: some newspapers reported that two right-wing extremists were arrested for planning an attack in the Venice ghetto. In addition, powerful weapons and a map with the borders of the Venice ghetto clearly marked were seized.

2.Verbal aggression/hate speech

Politics

On 2 April some Jews from Rome staged a protest in front of the headquarters of the political party Rifondazione Comunista.

Although peaceful, the protest still caused some trouble with passers-by: some passing cars reacted to the traffic jam in Corso Italia by shouting anti-Semitic slogans at the protesters. During an event organised by the Social Forum of Bologna in support of the Palestinians, the recurrent words against Israel were "genocide"; "deportation"; "fanatic and racist Zionists" and these were accompanied by the proposal for a vast boycott of Israeli products, which "could be associated to genocide".

The period in question has been marked by a long and bitter dispute between the trade unions and the government over a proposed revision of a decree stipulating the cancellation of Article 18 of the Workers' Statute. This crisis resulted in a general strike (16 April), overlapping exactly with the week in which the Middle East crisis reached its climax.

During the strike and the accompanying street demonstrations and on the Liberation Day celebrations (25 April), the empathy generated by pro-Palestinian sentiments overtook the trade union issues or historical affiliations which had rallied thousands to protest in the squares, transforming, in some cases but not all, the above events into forms of explicit anti-Israeli propaganda.

4 April: Rifondazione Comunista opened its national congress. Some observers were struck by the opening of the conference: a video showing images of a Palestinian child being protected in vain by his father from shooting (stills from the video have also been placed on a whole series of international far-right websites inferring that the child has been shot by Israeli soldiers) was screened together with a scene from the film Roma citt aperta (Rome, an Open City).

The scene from the film shows a Nazi soldier shooting the actress Anna Magnani with a machine gun.

The secretary-general of the party, preoccupied by the reactions to the party's marked pro-Palestinian policy, closed the congress three days later, saying that the party supported all minorities and proclaimed: "We are Jews".

During the congress, a number of objects explicitly referred to Palestine: the Palestinian flag, a book by the representative of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) in Italy, Diario segreto (Secret Diary; with a foreword by a former President of Italy), as well as other texts by Palestinian leaders and the kefiah, the traditional Arab head gear. During the general strike on 16 April, in Turin many demonstrators were wearing the kefiah.

The kefiah is also present in the Italian and European far-right political movements. Some participants in pro-Palestinian demonstrations openly displayed their radical attitude: they dressed as suicide bombers with all the trappings.
6 April: an imposing crowd of anti-globalisation protesters marched through Rome and young people dressed as kamikaze shouted slogans against Israel.

The leadership of the political parties Democratici di Sinistra (Democrats of the Left) and Margherita dissociated themselves from the protest, which had been promoted by all the trade unions and opposition political parties; for the first time political parties on the left split over issues relating to the Middle East.

A number of banners directed against Israel and the Israeli Prime Minister Sharon included the following slogans: "State of Israel, State of murderers"; "Sharon executioner" (with the Nazi "S"), "Bush, Sharon, Peres" (with the "S" styled as a swastika); "Zionists and fascists are the terrorists"; "Against the racist terrorism of USA, Europe and Israel, on the side of the Palestinian masses"; "Holocaust, no thank you. Free Palestine"; "Palestinian Holocaust, Europe, where are you?"

Public discourse

25 April: the Centro di Documentazione Ebraica Contemporanea (CDEC) was informed that during a demonstration in Milan marking the anniversary of the liberation of Italy from the Nazis, many pro-Palestinian banners were displayed, reading for example "Murderers, Nazist Sharon, Intifada until victory"; others assimilated the Star of David to the swastika or surrounded the star with barbed wire and broken by a closed fist.

Graffiti

31 March: anti-Semitic graffiti and a swastika were found on a synagogue in Modena.

7 April: anti-Semitic graffiti was found in several places in the old Venice ghetto.

6 May: large graffiti in bold characters saying "Jews murderers" was seen in an underground pass in the city of Prato (central Italy). On the same day, the CDEC of Milan received an anonymous phone call from someone who said, "We will burn you all".

22 May: anti-Semitic slogans were written on the walls of the town of Marrucini in Abruzzo.
In addition, in Milan messages such as "Jews out of the neighbourhood" re-appeared on public walls (Via Venini).

Media

There seems to be a return of abusive language towards Jews ; an example of which is the use of the attribute "perfidious" when referring to the Israeli government - a term that used to be in the Catholic Good Friday prayers and was condemned by Pope John XXIII. There is an outpouring of anti-Israel statements on state radio and television and also in some Catholic circles, lamenting the deaths of Palestinians while glossing over Israel deaths.

It is absolutely essential to make a clear distinction between the language used by the Pope and that, which appears in the media and in the declarations of some Catholics. Even in some of the politically moderate press there are scattered references to the murder of Christ, showing that, after decades of absence, such stereotypes are also being revived in secular circles.

3 April: the front page of the national daily newspaper La Stampa carried a cartoon by Giorgio Forattini as a comment on the occupation of Bethlehem. At the sight of an Israeli tank a baby Jesus in a cr che asks: "Are they going to kill me for a second time?"

A heated debate followed in the papers. Many resentful letters were sent to the editor and numerous Catholic readers filed protests. The president of the Union of Jewish Communities, Amos Luzzatto, strongly criticised the return of the accusation of deicide, cancelled by the Second Vatican Council.

The director of La Stampa distanced himself from the author of the cartoon. The same day someone wrote "Israelis Murderers" on the walls of a synagogue in Siena.

5 April: one of the main authorities of the state - the President of the Senate - denounced what he described as "the imbalance of Italian public opinion in favour of only the cause of the Palestinians, thus risking feeding an anti-Semitic campaign, of which we have had dangerous and serious examples". The same day someone wrote "Free Palestine" on the fa ade of the synagogue in Cuneo.

2 May: the daily La Nazione of Florence reported that some anti-Semitic messages were written on a Catholic Church in the town of Gavinana outside Florence, praising the Holocaust and the twenty years of fascist domination in Italy.
The head of the Rome Jewish Community, Leone Paserman, stated, "The Italian mass media have started a disinformation campaign that nourishes anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hatred".

On 12 April the famous Italian journalist and writer, Oriana Fallaci published her condemnation of the media, the church, and the left and their anti-Semitism in the weekly Panorama: "I find it shameful (...) that the government-controlled television stations contribute to the revival of anti-Semitism by crying over Palestinian deaths only, minimising the importance of Israeli deaths, speaking in a brisk and dismissive tone about them".

Fallacis condemnation and fiery indictment was followed by a mostly controversial debate specially because she is known as a controversial left-leaning journalist.

Direct threats

Renowned Jewish journalists have received threatening letters full of insults as well. Some of them received up to fifty such e-mails during the period monitored. Attacks against Jewish students by fellow pupils in schools, at playgrounds and during sports competitions, such as calling them names, including the use of the words "Jew", "dirty Jew" or "Rabbi" as insults, still persist, as does the hanging of anti-Semitic slogans and banners in stadiums.

Indirect threats

Although they did not increase in the last few months, these remain on a very high level, especially in connection with the football club Lazio Rome.

Public discourse

Particularly interesting is the emergence, in the month of April, of s

[Pascal L.]

duplicaat

[Pascal L.]

duplicaat

[John Wervenbos]

Hier het versmade rapport als PDF document:

[size=5]Manifestations of anti-Semitism in the European Union[/size]

[Antoon]

Er is een rapport geproduceerd door de E.U. welke aantoont dat het antisemitisme sterk is toegenomen, en ze hebben het zelf vertikaal geklasseerd?

[circe]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door Antoon

Er is een rapport geproduceerd door de E.U. welke aantoont dat het antisemitisme sterk is toegenomen, en ze hebben het zelf vertikaal geklasseerd?

tuurlijk! Stel je voor dat de moslims boos zouden worden?
Net zoals het rapport Van San mogen zulke dingen niet gezegd worden in Europa!

[Antoon]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door circe

tuurlijk! Stel je voor dat de moslims boos zouden worden?
Net zoals het rapport Van San mogen zulke dingen niet gezegd worden in Europa!

Het lijkt inderdaad de reden te zijn. Ik heb op het internet kunnen lezen dat het rapport 'gelekt' is door insiders die het niet konden aanvaarden, maar het verzwijgen had inderdaad te maken met de vrees dat er een anti-moslim gevoel zou worden gewekt.

Ik heb maar één vraag : waarom worden die moslims hier zo afgeschermd en getroeteld? Hebben ze het verdiend? Ik dacht van niet !

[circe]

waarom worden die moslims hier zo afgeschermd en getroeteld?

Kan je je voorstellen dat ze in heel Europa een opstand gaan veroorzaken? Weet je wat daar de gevolgen van zouden zijn?
Wat denk je dat Abou Jahjah voor ogen heeft?

Eenheid: aanmoedigen van economische en politieke integratie in de Arabische wereld. Dit zou moeten leiden tot vestiging van een federale Arabische staat op alle Arabische bodem. Deze staat is het uiteindelijke doel van de nationale strijd van het Arabische volk. Arabische eenheid is ook de politieke oplossing voor het legitieme streven van etnische en taalkundige minderheden, die recht hebben op hun eigen zelfbestuurde regio's binnen de Arabische federatie.
De Arabische natie behoort tot de islamitische gemeenschap, de Ummah. De Arabische staat zal ongetwijfeld in de toekomst de spil vormen van de islamitische wereld, en haar vestiging zal en moet bijdragen aan het bereiken van islamitische eenheid op langer termijn.
Dit gaat NIET over de huidige Arabische wereld!

Arabische bodem is namelijk ELK grondgebied waar 'Arabieren' wonen!

[Antoon]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door circe

Dit gaat NIET over de huidige Arabische wereld!

Arabische bodem is namelijk ELK grondgebied waar 'Arabieren' wonen!

Waaruit concludeer je dat?

[circe]

Door zorgvuldige interpretatie van hun volledige visie!

Bovendien is het zo dat islam per definitie streeft naar het dar-al-islaam, het wereldwijde verspreiden van islam tot islam de bovenhand heeft.

http://www.arabeuropean.org/nederlands/aboutus.html

Dit zou moeten leiden tot vestiging van een federale Arabische staat op alle Arabische bodem. Deze staat is het uiteindelijke doel van de nationale strijd van het Arabische volk.

Wat denk je dat er voor een EUROPESE Liga te VESTIGEN valt als STAAT? Waar? Op de zuidpool?

[Antoon]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door circe

Door zorgvuldige interpretatie van hun volledige visie!

Bovendien is het zo dat islam per definitie streeft naar het dar-al-islaam, het wereldwijde verspreiden van islam tot islam de bovenhand heeft.

http://www.arabeuropean.org/nederlands/aboutus.html

Dit zou moeten leiden tot vestiging van een federale Arabische staat op alle Arabische bodem. Deze staat is het uiteindelijke doel van de nationale strijd van het Arabische volk.

Wat denk je dat er voor een EUROPESE Liga te VESTIGEN valt als STAAT? Waar? Op de zuidpool?

Bwaa; die AEL staat zoals Geert Hoste het mooi verwoord eeder voor Antwerpen-Ekeren-Lierse. Want het stuk 'Europese' is wat megalomaan gezien van de in borgerhout wonende jahjah. En arabische is ook al heel hoog gemikt, gezien geen 1% van de bevolking zich met die jahjah zijn brol identificeert.

[k9]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door Antoon

Er is een rapport geproduceerd door de E.U. welke aantoont dat het antisemitisme sterk is toegenomen, en ze hebben het zelf vertikaal geklasseerd?

Ze beweren dat het niet goed gedaan was .

[k9]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door circe

tuurlijk! Stel je voor dat de moslims boos zouden worden?
Net zoals het rapport Van San mogen zulke dingen niet gezegd worden in Europa!

Ach doe niet belachelijk ga gewoon in nederland kijken daar bestaan zo een studies wel.

[k9]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door circe

Kan je je voorstellen dat ze in heel Europa een opstand gaan veroorzaken?

Niks dat kunnen ze doen. Jij schijnt te denken dat alle moslims 1 grote groep vormen dat doen ze belange niet ze zijn even zo niet meer verdeeld dan de christenen bijvoorbeeld. Pure paranoia is dit.

Weet je wat daar de gevolgen van zouden zijn?
Wat denk je dat Abou Jahjah voor ogen heeft?!

!

Arabische bodem is namelijk ELK grondgebied waar 'Arabieren' wonen!

onzin

[k9]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door Antoon

Bwaa; die AEL staat zoals Geert Hoste het mooi verwoord eeder voor Antwerpen-Ekeren-Lierse. Want het stuk 'Europese' is wat megalomaan gezien van de in borgerhout wonende jahjah. En arabische is ook al heel hoog gemikt, gezien geen 1% van de bevolking zich met die jahjah zijn brol identificeert.

inderdaad het is geen 1%`trouwens het is 0.1 % van de bevolking die kiest dat is dus zo een 0,07% van de bevolking .

[filosoof]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door circe

Door zorgvuldige interpretatie van hun volledige visie!

Bovendien is het zo dat islam per definitie streeft naar het dar-al-islaam, het wereldwijde verspreiden van islam tot islam de bovenhand heeft.

http://www.arabeuropean.org/nederlands/aboutus.html

Dit zou moeten leiden tot vestiging van een federale Arabische staat op alle Arabische bodem. Deze staat is het uiteindelijke doel van de nationale strijd van het Arabische volk.

Wat denk je dat er voor een EUROPESE Liga te VESTIGEN valt als STAAT? Waar? Op de zuidpool?

circe,
Je zal een "betere" url dan deze moeten bovenhalen, want hierin staat niet wat je beweert....

[circe]

Filosoof, je zal echt moeten lezen wat er staat, inclusief even naar beneden scrollen en het tweede gedeelte van de visie lezen.

Wat ik "beweer" staat gewoon LETTERLIJK in de tekst!

[filosoof]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door circe

Filosoof, je zal echt moeten lezen wat er staat, inclusief even naar beneden scrollen en het tweede gedeelte van de visie lezen.

Wat ik "beweer" staat gewoon LETTERLIJK in de tekst!

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door circe

Door zorgvuldige interpretatie van hun volledige visie!

Bovendien is het zo dat islam per definitie streeft naar het dar-al-islaam, het wereldwijde verspreiden van islam tot islam de bovenhand heeft.

http://www.arabeuropean.org/nederlands/aboutus.html

Dit zou moeten leiden tot vestiging van een federale Arabische staat op alle Arabische bodem. Deze staat is het uiteindelijke doel van de nationale strijd van het Arabische volk.

http://www.arabeuropean.org/nederlands/aboutus.html met copy/paste:

Waar staat hieronder dat ze streven naar het wereldwijde verspreiden van de islam tot deze de bovenhand heeft??(zoals jij het stelt)
Waar bedreigt deze tekst jou of mij?

waar?




VISIE en FILOSOFIE


De Arabisch Europese Liga (AEL) heeft als voornaamste reden van bestaan de bevordering en verdediging van:
- De belangen van de Arabische en Islamitische immigranten gemeenschappen in Europa.
- De belangen van de Arabische en Islamitische wereld.

Ons hoofddoel is het versterken van de maatschappelijke positie van onze gemeenschap en onze mensen en het onderhouden van positieve relaties met anderen op basis van wederzijdse respect en verdraagzaamheid.

Voor de Arabische en Islamitische immigranten gemeenschappen staan wij voor:

· Empowerment: alleen sterke gemeenschappen worden als gelijkwaardig behandeld. Daarom moeten wij binnen de grenzen van de wet werken aan het opheffen van sociaal-economische problemen en het realiseren van de noodzakelijke infrastructuur en instrumentarium om als gemeenschap een waardiger en sterkere maatschappelijke positie te bereiken.

· Eigen verantwoordelijkheid: je krijgt geen gelijke rechten, je eist ze op. Je zult niet vooruitkomen als anderen het werk voor je doen. Het is onze eigen verantwoordelijkheid en onze plicht om ons te organiseren teneinde in alle behoeften van onze gemeenschap te voorzien. Niemand begrijpt onze problemen beter en kent de oplossingen daarvan beter dan wijzelf.

· Identiteit: we geloven in een multiculturele samenleving als een sociaal-politiek model waarbinnen verschillende culturen naast elkaar bestaan, met gelijke wettelijke rechten. We willen niet assimileren en we willen ook niet tussen twee culturen bekneld raken. We willen onze identiteit en onze cultuur behouden terwijl we ons opstellen als achtenswaardige burgers van de landen waarin we wonen, met respect voor de wetten daarvan. Om dat te bereiken is het noodzakelijk om onze kinderen te onderrichten in de Arabische taal en geschiedenis en het Islamitische geloof. We zullen ons verzetten tegen elke poging om ons recht op eigen cultuur en identiteit te ontnemen, aangezien we ervan overtuigd zijn dat dit één van de meest fundamentele mensenrechten is.

· Positief zelfbeeld: we willen dat onze kinderen weten wie ze zijn en trots zijn op wie ze zijn. Het verloren zijn tussen identiteiten leidt enkel tot een disfunctioneel zelfbeeld en emotionele onzekerheid. In combinatie met sociaal-economische achterstanden kan dit bijdragen aan disfunctioneel en antisociaal gedrag. Het hebben van een positief zelfbeeld en innerlijke zekerheid zijn wezenlijk voor sociale vooruitgang en vormen stimulansen om adequaat met anderen te communiceren en samen te werken.


Voor de Arabische wereld staan we voor:

· Eenheid: aanmoedigen van economische en politieke integratie in de Arabische wereld. Dit zou moeten leiden tot vestiging van een federale Arabische staat op alle Arabische bodem. Deze staat is het uiteindelijke doel van de nationale strijd van het Arabische volk. Arabische eenheid is ook de politieke oplossing voor het legitieme streven van etnische en taalkundige minderheden, die recht hebben op hun eigen zelfbestuurde regio's binnen de Arabische federatie.

De Arabische natie behoort tot de islamitische gemeenschap, de Ummah. De Arabische staat zal ongetwijfeld in de toekomst de spil vormen van de islamitische wereld, en haar vestiging zal en moet bijdragen aan het bereiken van islamitische eenheid op langer termijn.

· Democratie: het bevorderen van de rechtstaat en een pluralistische en open civil society, zowel als respect voor de mensenrechten (met name de rechten van etnische, taalkundige en religieuze minderheden) en de Islamitische beginselen waarover een consensus bestaat. Arabische democratie is gebaseerd op het islamitische principe van Sjoera (overleg). Het put zijn inspiratie uit een moderne, dynamische en op consensus gerichte begrip van de islam. Een sociale en democratische benadering van de economie en een rechtvaardige verdeling van de welvaart zijn onontbeerlijke elementen van het bestel dat wij tot stand willen brengen.

· Identiteit: het verdedigen en bevorderen van onze Arabisch-Islamitische identiteit, taal en cultuur is een plicht die wij aan God, aan onszelf en aan onze kinderen verschuldigd zijn. Onze Arabische natie is tot stand gekomen door de islam. In wisselwerking daarmee door de eeuwen heen bouwde zij de Arabisch-Islamitische beschaving op. Alle Arabieren behoren op enigerlei wijze tot die beschaving of ze moslims zijn of niet. Het omvat de Arabische Christenen en Joden, die de gemeenschappelijke cultuur daarvan delen en die door moslims worden geaccepteerd als volken van het boek. De Imazighen, die andere talen spreken naast het Arabisch, behoren ook tot de Arabisch-Islamitische beschaving en hebben een belangrijke rol gespeeld in de opbouw daarvan. Daarom is het de plicht van alle mensen die deelachtig zijn in deze beschaving, om haar te verdedigen.

Arabisme en Islam vullen elkaar aan. De gedachte om ze voor te stellen als tegenstrijdig is een truc die onze natie verzwakt en onze vijanden dient. Daarom zullen wij strijden om onze Arabisch-Islamitische identiteit te herstellen als een bindende factor in het leven van de natie, teneinde het moreel van onze volk te stimuleren en haar te helpen om haar rol te spelen in de bevordering van de Arabische en Islamitische zaak. Tegelijkertijd is het noodzakelijk om etnische, taalkundige en religieuze minderheden te doen emanciperen en dient hun recht op hun eigen cultuur, talen en godsdiensten gerespecteerd te worden. Deze beide processen - het nieuw leven geven aan de Arabische identiteit en de emancipatie van minderheden - dienen plaats te vinden binnen de kaders van tolerantie en ruime opvattingen.

[Seba]

De Arabische natie behoort tot de islamitische gemeenschap, de Ummah. De Arabische staat zal ongetwijfeld in de toekomst de spil vormen van de islamitische wereld, en haar vestiging zal en moet bijdragen aan het bereiken van islamitische eenheid op langer termijn.

Ik denk dat Darwin dit bedoelt, vooral die laatste zin