By Nicola Smith - 19th December 2003
The European Jewish Congress is to hold a February seminar with the European Commission in a bid to tackle the causes of anti-Semitism.
Europe's Jewish leaders met with commission chief Romano Prodi on Thursday to express their concerns that a rise in European anti-Semitism is getting out of hand.
The fears of the Jewish community hit the headines recently when a survey by the EU’s anti-racism centre in Vienna pointed to Muslim immigrants and pro-Palestinian groups for being behind a rise in anti-Semitic violence in Europe.
“The facts depicted by this research were quite well known to us because we live them every day,” said Cobi Benatoff, President of the EJC.
“The fact that in the last few years violent attacks against Jews have increased on the streets of Europe.”
“We need to face this issue before it is something we cannot stop,” he said following his meeting with Romano Prodi.
“It must be taken into consideration as a serious issue in Europe, a new Europe cannot be born if there is an old sickness.”
“President Prodi has spoken of a Europe of peace and progress, a Europe of minorities. I think that the responsible people cannot think of this kind of Europe if we are carrying a germ of anti-Semitism,” he said.
According to Benatoff, one of the reasons for the increase in anti-semitism is the transfer of the Middle East conflict onto the streets of Europe.
“There is a problem of Arab and Maghreb countries suffering their own discrimination in Europe and finding a way to react to this through a new type of anti-semitism and xenophobia,” he said.
European citizens are also guilty of a lack of understanding of the Middle East conflict and the history of Israel, he argued.
“The demonisation of the policies of the state of Israel is reflecting somehow in the people who are not so sophisticated in differentiating between a government, a state and a Jewish European population,” Benatoff said.
Responding to the move this week by French President Jacques Chirac to ban the wearing of Muslim headscarves in schools, he said that “this is one of the ways that Europe is trying to tackle the integration of cultures.”
“This very new type of proposal is being discussed in the Jewish world,” Benatoff said.
But he added that “European states must be very creative to face the immigration of new cultures into European, for which they are not yet prepared.”
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