Anti-semitism Rising In Europe

[Morgan]

I was wondering what people thought about the growing spectre of anti-Semitism in Europe. Please note that it appears that the anti-Semite mindset is not only associated with Muslims. A NYT article that follows gives a reasonable sketch of the problem and it quotes some Jewish leaders whose remarks seem odd, IMHO. Also, I'm providing a link to a leaked 2003 UN report about an increase in documented attacks on Jews and synagogues across Europe.

-Is this related to the 2000 fatwah?

-Is it related to a simmering long standing anti-Semite mentality in Europe that's just raising its head again due to the poor economic conditions in Germany and France with a high level of unemployed who are looking to beat up on a familiar "whipping boy?"

-Is it related to a European anti-American mentality and because Israel is an ally of America, Jews are visible targets for anti-American anger?

-Are "hate laws" counter productive, just further setting Jews apart and where perceived "specialness" can build further anti-Jewish resentment?

NYT article about attacks on Jews in France

The boys hide their skullcaps under baseball caps. The girls tuck their Star of David necklaces under their sweaters. Their school in this middle-class suburb east of Paris has been scorched by fire and fear, and those are the off-campus rules.

It also intensified an agonizing debate over the definition and extent of anti-Semitism today in France, and indeed all of Europe, and forced the French government to redouble its efforts to combat it.

Mindful of demographic realities and the strains of anti-Semitism in their country's past, French officials are struggling to denounce and punish acts of anti-Semitism without fueling racism toward France's ethnic Arab Muslim population.

By contrast, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said in a television debate recently: "All those who explain the resurgence of anti-Semitism by the conflict in the Middle East say something that is false. Anti-Semitism existed before the existence of Israel."Still, Mr. Sarkozy added that the horror of the Holocaust meant that anti-Semitism had to be treated differently than other forms of racism in Europe.

In a book called "The Lost Territories of the Republic" published last year, a group of French teachers said teaching of the Holocaust was impossible in some classes because students of Arab origin were so hostile toward the subject.

Anti-Semitism, of course, existed before Muslims started immigrating to Europe and has continued at a low level for years despite laws all over the continent. But such incidents have not been limited to France. Europe, broadly, has been struck in recent months by anti-Jewish acts, including arson at a synagogue near Manchester, England, in November, the defacing of headstones and the gate of a cemetery in Germany with Nazi slogans in October, a botched explosion of a vehicle loaded with gas canisters in front of a synagogue in Belgium in June and an attack on a Hasidic rabbi in Vienna as he walked home from prayers in May.

Indeed, an unpublished draft report prepared earlier this year for the European Union concluded that a wave of anti-Semitic acts had occurred since the Palestinian uprising started in 2000. Underscoring the extreme sensitivity of the issue, the European Union group that commissioned the report said it had been poorly done and refused to release it, prompting charges among Jewish groups and the Berlin institute contracted to prepare it that the European Union was suppressing it.

"There is a new, dangerous phenomenon of the Nazification of Israel that justifies hatred of Israel and therefore the Jews," he said.

But Theo Klein, a lawyer and former head of the umbrella group of Jewish organizations known as the Representative Council of the Jewish Institutions of France, or CRIF, urged the Jews of France not to be carried away by emotion. He criticized the government's decision to define the school firebombing as an act of anti-Semitism in the absence of conclusive proof. "The Jews are fully integrated into French society," he said. "They should reaffirm their rights as French citizens and not set themselves up as separate."

Indeed, when Israel's ambassador to France, Nissim Zvili, said after the school fire that French Jews were so "afraid of anti-Semitic attacks that many of them are thinking of emigrating," Roger Cukierman, the current head of CRIF, called the claim "really exaggerated" and an Israeli effort to attract immigrants.

Meanwhile, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the head of the far-right National Front, who has been accused by opponents of being anti-Semitic as well as racist against the influx of Muslim immigrants to France, said in a statement that the government had overreacted to the school fire. He called the new measures against anti-Semitism "laughable," adding: "There is no rise in anti-Semitism in France. There are the inevitable effects of an untamed immigration."

European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia report re: anti-Semitism in Europe

[your_mom]

What is Anti-Semitism? I cannot compute won't someon please oh please help me!!! please

[your_mom]

Also i forgot to ask, what in heavens name is a fatwah?

with many thanks....

from your mom

[KrustyKidd]

What is Anti-Semitism? I cannot compute     won't someon please oh please help me!!! please

It's racial bigotry towards persons of Jewish ancestry. Pretty much pure hatred of a group of people.

Also i forgot to ask, what in heavens name is a fatwah?

with many thanks....

A fatwah is a muslim religious edict. Harmless enough however, scince their government and ruling bodies are so intertwined with their religious leaders it is basicly a order for all to obey once given.

Hope this helps ma.