Anti-semitic Attacks on the Rise in Europe by Sydney Morning Herald 4:03pm 1st Apr, 2004   April 1, 2004    The number of anti-semitic attacks in Europe has soared in recent years, with a report by the EU's racism watchdog naming five countries - Belgium, Germany, France, the Netherlands and Britain - for particular concern.    The study is likely to revive alarm at rising anti-Jewish sentiment on the continent, already fuelled by a recent opinion poll in which Europeans labelled Israel as the greatest threat to world peace.    Belgium, Germany, France, the Netherlands and Britain have seen a notable rise in anti-Jewish attacks over the last two or three years, said the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) report.    Most countries also saw worrying trends, it said, although few problems were recorded in four countries: Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal and Finland.    "Europe has a problem with anti-semitism, manifestations of which have been getting more frequent in some parts of the EU over the last two or three years," said the EUMC in a report presented to the European Parliament.    The report comes after the EU held a high-level conference in February to clamp down on anti-Semitism - a "monster" that Jewish leaders warned had returned with a vengeance to the continent six decades after the Holocaust.    That conference was hastily organised after a shock opinion poll in November which found that Europeans saw Israel as the biggest threat to world peace, ahead of countries such as North Korea and Iraq. The United States came second.    The 344 page report by the Vienna-based EUMC was the first time that data has been collected systematically across the European Union, which expands from 15 to 25 members on May 1.    Areas of concern highlighted by the study, focussed on 2002-2003, include:    In Belgium "a catalogue of incidents of varying extremity ... including the firebombing of Jewish property and some serious physical assaults".    In Germany most acts were verbal rather than physical. Jewish groups reported increasing numbers of letters, emails and phone calls from 2002.    In the Netherlands anti-semitic acts increased "significantly" in particular in Amsterdam which has a relative large Jewish community.    In Britain there were violent attacks on two synagogues, two cases of suspected arson and several attacks on Jewish cemeteries.    In France there was a sixfold increase in anti-semitic incidents in 2002. "There were many incidents of Jewish people assaulted and insulted, attacks against synagogues, cemeteries and other Jewish property," it said.    Other trends identified in the study included a tendency towards verbal abuse in everyday life in four countries: Greece, Austria, Italy and Spain.    In these countries," whilst physical assaults and (violence) were absent or relatively rare .. antisemitic discourse was nevertheless particularly virulent in many aspects of daily life," it said.    In Greece there was a kind of "popular antisemitism .. with a large section of the Greek public subscribing to conspiracy theories of Jewish world domination".    Parliament head Pat Cox expressed alarm at the report's findings. "The documented rise in anti-Semitic attacks, flies in the face of the fundamental principles on which the EU is founded," he said.    "Is there a problem with anti-Semitism in Europe? This report tells us that the answer is yes. The evidence presented today indicates that incidents of anti-Semitism in Europe are on the increase and suggests that events in the Middle East are disturbing the social fabric of European society."    AFP
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