Europe must do everything in its power to combat anti-Semitism — but also help bring peace to the Middle East, Joschka Fischer, Germany’s foreign minister, urged on Thursday.
”We must never have a situation where an anti-Semite can threaten Jews without the majority standing up and protesting,” he told a Brussels conference called in response to fears that anti-Jewish prejudice is again rising dangerously across the continent.
”But solving the Middle East and developing a real vision of peace is the major, major challenge for a Europe that is uniting,” he said.
Evidence from France, Britain, Belgium and elsewhere shows a growing number of verbal and physical attacks on Jews, often by young Muslims, since the second Palestinian uprising erupted in 2000.
Romano Prodi, president of the European commission, warned against comparisons with Hitler’s ”final solution” and the extermination of six-million Jews. ”Today’s Europe is not the Europe of the 1930s and 1940s and it would be false to claim it,” insisted the former Italian prime minister.
The conference has been the subject of bitter controversy. Prodi convened it in response to complaints from American Jewish leaders that European ”inaction and indifference” amounted to anti-Semitism. Countries such as France, Germany and Belgium — the so-called ”axis of weasels” opposing George Bush’s war in Iraq — are seen by many in the US as hotbeds of anti-Jewish hatred.
Meanwhile, some European commentators have caused offence by identifying a ”cabal” of largely Jewish neo-conservatives driving Washington’s unilateralist and pro-Israeli agenda.
Anger mounted last November when a Eurobarometer poll showed that 59% of Europeans saw Israel as the greatest threat to world peace. And there was fury over the suppression of an EU report blaming young Muslims for attacks on Jews.
Prodi defended the right to criticise Israel’s policies, but said: ”I am aware, and I cannot deny, that some criticism of Israel is inspired by what amounts to anti-Semitic sentiments and prejudice. This must be recognised for what it is and properly addressed.”
Natan Sharansky, a minister in Ariel Sharon’s hardline government, told the conference that much criticism of Israel was linked with demonising Jews and denying the legitimacy of the Jewish state. He screened clips of anti-Semitic films shown on Syrian TV and newspaper cartoons portraying Jews as warmongers.
But there was evidence too of Israel’s vigorous internal debate about war, peace, the Palestinians — and anti-Semitism. Avraham Burg, the former Labour party speaker of Israel’s parliament, said: ”We must realise that the entire world is not against us. On the contrary, it’s the best world we have ever had.”
The World Jewish Congress, co-organiser of the conference, is calling for a UN resolution condemning anti-Semitism, though EU governments are prepared to back only a more general declaration on racism and xenophobia.
The Simon Wiesenthal Centre called on the EU to end millions of euros of financing for Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority. But Fischer said aid was justified. Hamas fundamentalists would otherwise take over, he said.
Prodi called for concrete action by EU ministers to tackle anti-Semitism. ”We are not here to beat our breasts in public and then do nothing,” he said. – Guardian Unlimited Â