Foreign Affairs - Human Rights and International Health - Anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism in Europe

For months, vicious attacks against Jews across Europe have continued almost on a daily basis. It has been an issue of such great concern to me that last month I sent a letter signed by 140 of my colleagues urging EU Secretary-General Javier Solana to take action against this dangerous trend.

In France, Jewish organizations recorded more than 300 anti -Semitic attacks in the month of April alone. Jewish cemeteries have been desecrated, Jewish children have been verbally and physically assaulted on playgrounds and soccer fields, and Jewish institutions have been firebombed and vandalized. In February, yellow stars of David were painted on Jewish shop windows in Paris. In March, there was a drive-by shooting of a kosher butcher shop near Tolouse. And, in the middle of Passover, the Or Aviv Synagogue in Marseilles was burned to the ground.

In Belgium, the seat of the European Union, Rabbis and community leaders have been assaulted, as have synagogue worshipers, on their way to and from services.

In England, dozens of threats and physical assaults on Jews have been reported in recent months, and in April, a vicious attack on a suburban London synagogue left windows smashed, religious artifacts defaced, and crude swastikas painted everywhere.

The situation has only been made worse by the failure of these countries to forcefully condemn these hate crimes and vigorously prosecute their perpetrators.

European leaders, including EU representatives, have dismissed the severity of the problem, blaming the Middle East conflict and

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Muslim demographics instead of the Arab and European media outlets that have fed their fervor by demonizing Jews and justifying suicide murders by Palestinian terrorists.
The European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms espouses the basic rights of all Europeans to liberty, security, freedom of religion, and freedom from discrimination. Yet, no EU institution has made any effort to uphold these rights for Jewish minorities.

It is time for the European nations to take a bold unified stance condemning the re-emergence of anti -Semitism in Europe .

It is time for the United Nations to take action and reverse the virulent wave of anti -Semitic attacks unleashed last year at the U.N. Conference on Racism, where delegates sought to equate Zionism and racism and insisted that the Holocaust be written with a lower case ``h'' to lessen the magnitude of the tragedy.

Hasn't the horror of World War II taught us the danger of anti -Semitism , which seeks to dehumanize Jews and make them legitimate targets for violence? Hasn't the abomination of suicide murder shown us what happens when hatred devalues human life to create targets for terrorism?

The United States and all civilized nations just not be silent in the face of these threats. We must lead the fight to condemn anti -Semitism in Europe , the former Soviet Union, and everyplace it emerges.

I urge all of my colleagues to support H. Res. 393.

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