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Grasping the root of assaults on Jews
By Abraham H. Foxman
National Director of the Anti-Defamation League
This op-ed originally appeared in the Jerusalem Post on June 22, 2003.
Posted: June 23, 2003
Anti-Semitism is surging in the world to an extent unprecedented since the end of World War II.
The biggest difference between the 1930s and 1940s and today is that Jews under attack are not trapped and helpless. They have a homeland for refuge, Israel, and they have a superpower, the United States, willing to stand up against anti-Semitism.
The 55 member states of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) met in Vienna on June 19-20 to address this ancient-modern scourge, and our hope is that Europe too will act against this hatred.
We hope that a consensus will build and that this historic conference will not be a one-shot deal but lead to a structure that will allow Europe to contend with the current tide of anti-Semitism in their countries, now and in the future.
It was critical that this meeting be held at this time and in this place, for at least three reasons:
First, for centuries Europe was the home of rabid anti-Semitism, culminating in the Holocaust.
Second, it has taken far too long for Europeans to admit that the problem of anti-Semitism in Europe today is not a history lesson but a current event. When France experienced hundreds of incidents, including synagogue burnings, between January-April 2002, French President Jacques Chirac was reluctant to label it for what it was: anti-Semitism.
Since then, French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has proclaimed that France indeed does have a problem and needs to educate its students and public of its dangers. Better late than never.
Third, the meeting is an opportunity for Europeans and Americans, Jews and non-Jews, to cut through the rationalizations that what is really going on is a critique of Israel's policies and not anti-Semitism.
Yes, there are real differences of opinion between Europe and America, and the publics of the two continents, over Israeli policy. Americans have been consistently pro-Israel in their attitudes; Europeans favor the Palestinians. We in the American Jewish community are unhappy with these European views and believe they are at least partially the result of biased European media coverage of Middle East events.
There should, however, be no difference of opinion concerning the attacks on Jews and the efforts to deny the right of the Jewish people, like other peoples, to an independent, sovereign state treated by the same standards as other nations.
Europeans and Americans came together in Vienna to denounce such activities with the hope that a common understanding would emerge: that at the root of these anti-Jewish efforts is the same kind of extremist thinking that lies behind the international terrorism threatening our civilization.
Manifestations of this extremist thinking include blaming the Jews for committing the terror of September a Gallup Poll last year found that 60% of nine Arab and Islamic countries believed Jews and Israel's Mossad, not Osama bin Laden, were responsible; labeling Zionism, the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, racism, as was done in Durban in 2001; spreading Holocaust denial throughout the Middle East; supporting the deliberate murder of Israeli men, women, and children as well as targeting Jews around the world; the boycotting of Israelis by all kinds of international institutions.
THESE MURDEROUS and one-sided approaches are not directed at finding a fair and balanced solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which two states would live side by side in peace and security. They are assaults not only on Jews but on democratic values, modern society, and the West.
Much as in the '30s, when the assaults on the Jews should have been the "canary in the coal mine" for Western democracy, the current assault on Israel and Jews should be seen as a warning for Western democracy. In Vienna, European governments and civil society had a chance to recognize the need to join America at this time against this menace to us all. There are many practical steps that can be taken:
National and local authorities must call attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions by their correct name: anti-Semitism.
Political and civic leaders should utilize the opportunities they have every day to speak out against bigotry. OSCE members should use schools as staging grounds for anti-bias education.
Nations should follow the lead of Germany and the US, pass resolutions against anti-Semitism, and develop national action plans to combat it.
Programs should be instituted to train law enforcement in hate-crimes response and develop cross-cultural skills and communication among officers.
Above all, Europe must take seriously the ideology of anti-Semitism coming out of the Arab and Islamic world. It must denounce the deliberate targeting of Jews by terrorist groups, whether al-Qaida or Hamas.
It must denounce the vicious anti-Semitic material in the Arab press and educational systems and call on Arab leaders to do something about it. It must understand that the Holocaust happened not only because Germany was taken over by the Nazis, who developed massive military power to conquer most of Europe, but also by the complicity active and passive of other Europeans.
Today the great threat comes from a combination of the ideology of hatred with Islamic extremists' potential to acquire weapons of mass destruction.
Let Europe never again be complicit in developments of this kind.
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