Washington Post - 4.28.2004

 

The Washington Post

Halting the New Hatred

By Gert Weisskirchen and George Voinovich

Two years ago members of Congress and the German Bundestag launched a joint project that will come to fruition this week in Berlin. More than 500 representatives from the 55-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) are meeting to formulate an action plan to tackle the growing problem of anti-Semitism.

Today anti-Semitism is no longer directed solely against Jews as individuals. "Israel, in effect, is emerging as the collective Jew among nations," writes Mortimer B. Zuckerman in U.S. News & World Report. The old conspiracy theories, prejudices and "world domination" fantasies are emerging in new guises and are exploiting the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

While the "old" anti-Semitism sought to stigmatize Jews as individual threats to local coexistence, the "new" anti-Semitism seeks to stigmatize Israel as a collective threat to global coexistence. At the core of the new anti-Semitism is the "Auschwitz Lie" -- that the Holocaust was invented as an excuse for Jews to converge on Palestine in order to oppress Arabs and conquer the world.

In both its old and new forms, anti-Semitism is merely an attempt to divert attention from the perpetrators' motives for committing acts of violence and injustice. In fighting anti-Semitism we must turn our attention toward strengthening peace and justice. The real battle against anti-Semitism lies ahead of us, and it will affect the foundations of our democracies.

Globalization is bringing ideas, cultures and lifestyles into contact -- and sometimes conflict -- with one another in new and unusual ways. Our task is to determine how our political systems can shape the outcome in a positive way. Will we be tolerant enough to create space for differences, and allow them to develop and flourish? Globalization means that we all have a shared fate.

Anti-Semitism is a problem for every OSCE state, because it seeks to break down the pillars of our societies: rule of law, equality, decency, tolerance and faith. Its violence is felt by all, regardless of faith. Its most diabolical offspring is terrorism, a force that in its embrace of death tears down everything in its path. Its aim is to destroy all that is humane.

In Berlin we will build on last year's groundbreaking OSCE conference in Vienna, where governments expressed their willingness to take action. In Berlin we must concentrate on specific steps to which governments and societies commit themselves: collecting and analyzing data on hate crimes, training police and educating children for tolerance, and measuring the effectiveness of these steps. Rather than asking if we can afford to take such steps, we should ask whether we can afford not to when the costs of inaction are so great.

We are not fighting anti-Semitism solely in order to protect Jewish people, although the safety of any one group is intrinsic to the safety of all. We are waging this battle because we want to ensure that we do not again sink into barbarity -- and we will win this struggle. Democracy is stronger than hate.

Gert Weisskirchen is a member of the German Bundestag and vice president of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) is a member of the Foreign Relations Committee.