Washington Post - 11.29.2003

The Washington Post

Delay of Anti-Semitism Report Criticized

Researchers, Jewish Groups Accuse EU Agency of Ignoring Virulence of Prejudice 

By Peter Finn, Washington Post Foreign Service

BERLIN -- A bitter controversy has erupted over a European Union group's decision to delay publication of a report that blamed some members of the continent's growing Muslim communities and far-left activists for a rise in anti-Semitic violence and speech in Europe. 

Jewish groups and the Berlin institute contracted to prepare the report accused officials at the EU organization of ignoring a new strain of anti-Semitism that has emerged in Europe since the Palestinian uprising started in 2000. 

"It's a failure to come to terms with the fact that anti-Semitism is coming from new and differing directions: Islamist, Arab and leftist," said Michael Whine, a spokesman for the Paris-based European Jewish Congress.

In his view, people carrying out attacks on Jews receive intellectual succor from European critics of Israel who use racist imagery to attack the government there. The report cites far-left demonstrations in which swastikas are juxtaposed with Stars of David.

In a statement, the EU group that commissioned the study, the Vienna-based European Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia, known as EUMC, said the report was of "poor quality and lacking in empirical evidence." The statement went on to say that "the EUMC is equally not in the business of stigmatizing whole communities on the basis of the actions of racist individuals."

"The EUMC remains 100% committed to its ongoing research on anti-Semitism and all forms of racism and intolerance," the statement said. "That is why we are continuing our work on anti-Semitism and why we plan to launch the results of our research next year."

The dispute comes as anti-Semitic acts have risen in recent weeks.

On Nov. 15, a Jewish school in a suburb of Paris was firebombed, leading French President Jacques Chirac to call a special meeting of his cabinet. As a result, he has heightened security outside Jewish institutions and plans a monthly report of attacks on Jews.

A member of the German Parliament, Martin Hohmann, was expelled from the opposition Christian Democratic Union after saying that today's Jews might bear collective responsibility for atrocities committed by communist Jews during the Russian Revolution of 1917. A German army general who expressed support for Hohmann's views also lost his job.

In Greece, the composer Mikis Theodorakis generated controversy by saying of Israel, "Today we can say that this small nation is the root of evil, not of good, which means that too much self-importance and too much stubbornness is evil."

In Turkey, two synagogues were devastated by bombs on Nov. 15, killing 23 people.

According to the Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism at Tel Aviv University, "the year 2002 and the beginning of 2003 witnessed an alarmingly significant increase in the number of violent anti-Semitic acts and in other forms of anti-Semitic activity" worldwide.

In a report, the institute said that most of the anti-Semitic violence during that period -- 31 major attacks out of 56 worldwide, and 147 major violent incidents out of 255 worldwide -- took place in Western Europe.

Public opinion in Europe is generally critical of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians. A recent public opinion poll in EU member nations found that most citizens believe Israel is the greatest threat to world peace, followed by Iran, North Korea and the United States.

The 15-nation EU has often opposed Israeli policies. The union's leaders say the criticism has nothing to do with anti-Semitism, but instead reflects views that the policies harm the cause of peace in the region.

In Israel, such statements are sometimes viewed as cover. "Behind the 'political' criticism of Israel lies nothing other than pure anti-Semitism," Natan Sharansky, minister for Jerusalem and the Jewish diaspora in the Israeli government, said in a statement, responding to the opinion poll. 

The Berlin institute that prepared the EUMC's study, the Berlin Center for Research on Anti-Semitism at the city's Technical University, rejected the criticism of its work as a stain on its reputation. It said the EUMC had signed off on the parameters of the study until it saw the results. 

In an interview, one of the German members of the EUMC's board, Barbara John, called for the immediate publication of the report, saying the anti-racism's group's handling of the situation had been "appalling."

According to one of the co-authors, Juliane Wetzel, a historian at the Berlin center, the study concluded that some criticism of Israel's policies amounts to anti-Semitism. The authors noted, for instance, the frequent juxtaposition of swastikas and the Star of David at pro-Palestinian and anti-globalization demonstrations in Europe and the conflation in some speech of Nazi genocide with Israel's actions in the occupied territories.

"There is a borderline between criticism of Israeli policies and anti-Semitic stereotypes, and that border is crossed," said Wetzel.

Since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the EUMC has published three reports on anti-Islamic attitudes in Europe. The report on anti-Semitism, commissioned in 2002, would have been its first on that subject in the same time frame.

After consultations with the monitoring center in Vienna, the Berlin researchers examined a two-month period using data collected by EUMC contacts in the 15 EU member states, Wetzel said.

The 112-page report was submitted in October 2002, but staffers and some board members of the center in Vienna objected to its definition of anti-Semitism, the length of time under study, the collection and interpretation of data, and the conclusion that young Muslim men of Arab extraction were behind many of the attacks on the continent, according to officials familiar with the dispute. 

There were also objections to sections of the report that implicated leftist and anti-globalization activists in anti-Semitism. In addition, leading Muslims criticized the findings.

"There are also some lonely voices in our community that are anti-Semitic, but they don't represent the Muslim community," said Nadeem Elyas, head of the Central Council of Muslim Communities in Germany. "We have to make a [distinction] between anti-Semitism and anti-Israel. Not everyone who criticizes Israel because of its policies in Palestine is against Jews. We should not mix this."

The report was shelved in February, but the Financial Times newspaper obtained a copy this month, prompting the current controversy.

"What I think is unfair towards the [Berlin] institute is taking possession of the report and then saying, 'We will not publish it, we only condemn it,' " said John, a deputy board member of the EUMC. "There is not a lot of transparency in that. We have a situation now where everyone is talking about the report and no one can read it and judge it."

Special correspondent Souad Mehkennet in Frankfurt, Germany, contributed to this report.