Conference on Anti-Semitism - June 8-9,2005
Spain Hosts 2005 OSCE Conference on Anti-Semitism and Intolerance
NEWS COVERAGE
June 7
J'lem Post: Anti-Semitism conference too broad
June 8
AP: Anti-Semitism conference opens in Spain
Reuters: Europeans fail to track anti-Semitism
June 9
RFE/RL: Anti-Semitism Conference Termed 'Disappointing'
RIA Novosti: Russia calls for stepping up resistance to anti-Semitism
June 10
AP: Summit ends with new pledge to fight anti-Semitism
FT: Europe told to do more to combat anti-Semitism
Forward: Antisemitism Conference Loses Its Sharp Focus
JTA: Praise for steps taken, hope for more progress
NY Jewish Week: Fighting European Anti-Semitism
June 12
J'lem Post: Pataki - Europe not doing enough against Jew-hatred
June 13
Ha'aretz: Anti-Semitism resolution falters on xenophobia
June 23
NY Jewish Week: Pataki Embraces Anti-Semitism Fight
Jerusalem Post - 06.07.2005
THE JERUSALEM POST
Anti-Semitism conference too broad
By Hilary Leila Krieger
This picturesque Spanish town where Jews, Christians and Muslims once coexisted, and where the great scholar Maimonides was born, will host the third Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe conference on anti-Semitism on Wednesday and Thursday.
Some Jewish organizations, however, are concerned that the content of this conference – expanded from last year's focus on anti-Semitism to include Islamaphobia, discrimination against Christians and other forms of intolerance – could erode the strong message against anti-Semitism made by prominent world leaders in Berlin last April. They've also noted the lack of high-level leaders this time around.
"There is a danger that the gains of Berlin might be diluted in the Cordoba conference," said Bobby Brown, head of the World Jewish Congress' Israel office. "If no new steps are taken and the attempt is to combine many different problems under the roof of the conference, then we will have only taken a step backward."
"Anti-Semitism has been historically overlooked and shouldn't be overshadowed by the desire to find consensus," said Sybil Kessler of the American Jewish Committee. "We're at risk of aborting the process."
"They probably feel very uncomfortable just focusing on anti-Semitism, and deep in their hearts they probably feel there's just as much, if not more, anti-Islamic sentiment in Europe as anti-Semitism," said another Jewish official.
Still, Jewish leaders said that other forms of racism, particularly Islamaphobia, did need to be addressed.
"It's important and good that those Muslims who are ready to cooperate and speak up see that Jews don't only care about their own problems," said Dr. Roni Stauber, of the Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Anti-Semitism and Racism.
"In fact there is a tremendous amount of anti-Islamic sentiment that is really coming to the surface," said Laura Kam Issacharoff, of the Anti-Defamation League's Israel office. "You can see why the OSCE feels it's important to acknowledge the issues of Islamaphobia and bigotry all together."
"And I think they do look at anti-Semitism separately," she added, pointing to the conference structure which devotes the first day to anti-Semitism and the second day to other forms of intolerance.
Ahead of the conference, the ADL released poll findings showing "millions of Europeans continue to believe the classical anti-Semitic canards that have dogged Jews through the centuries," and found "either minimal decline, no change or, in some cases, an increase in negative attitudes toward Jews" from a similar poll conducted in 2004.
"You can t really see any change" in rates of anti-Semitism since the last conference, Stauber said, but he pointed to greater European awareness of the problem, as indicated by the clear declaration against anti-Semitism by top political leaders in Berlin, as a source of hope.
"This shift in attitude only occurred last year. Maybe we are in the beginning of the change. Meanwhile, it [anti-Semitism] became only worse."
Yet, he said, "we understood already in Berlin that this conference is not going to repeat itself. There was no reason to do this show again."
WJC chairman Israel Singer was less positive. "I don't know what they were doing for the whole year before Cordoba," he said. "Not much is the answer. This conference isn't bringing the big names because there's anti-Semitism fatigue."
It's not just the non-Jews who are worn out, said another Jewish official.
"Our Foreign Ministry guys would be happy if this didn't exist. Berlin ended on a high. Cordoba could end with something watered-down," he said, pointing to Deputy Education Minister Michael Melchior, who is leading the Israeli delegation, as opposed to then minister of Diaspora affairs Natan Sharansky or President Moshe Katsav, who were at Berlin, and to the American delegation headed by New York Gov. George Pataki rather than the secretary of state as last year.
He charged that Spanish political interests were key to the conference, pointing to Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos's interest in boosting tourism and improving his image in the Jewish community, which was often critical of him when he was the European Union's Middle East envoy.
Moratinos, Spanish President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and OSCE Chairman-in-Office Dimitrij Rupel, Slovenia's foreign minister, will be among those to address the 900 expected participants. France and Germany also intend to send their foreign ministers.
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Associated Press - 06.08.2005
Anti-Semitism conference opens in Spain
BY DANIEL WOOLLS, Associated Press
CORDOBA, Spain (AP) -- Governments must take concrete measures to fight anti-Semitism and other hate crimes, delegates to an international conference said Wednesday, meeting in a city where Jews, Muslims and Christians once lived in harmony.
Kicking off the two-day meeting of the 55-country Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Nazi death camps gives the world an opportunity to renew its fight against all forms of anti-Semitism.
"Unfortunately, far from having definitively vaccinated our societies, the experience and memory of the Holocaust have not been enough to eliminate attitudes and manifestations that clearly attack the dignity of Jews," Moratinos said.
Moratinos noted that in medieval times, the southern Spanish city of Cordoba was a flourishing, cultured place where practitioners of Islam, Judaism and Christianity lived side by side in peace. The conference is being held in the city's picturesque old quarter, across the street from a splendid mosque built by Moorish rulers that was later transformed into a Roman Catholic cathedral.
"If in the past it was possible to live together in harmony, as Cordoba's experience shows, we must not resign ourselves into thinking that it is impossible today," he said.
Moratinos called for concrete measures to encourage tolerance and respect. "We don't need statements but concrete decisions in the field of education, the use of the media and the study of history."
"It does no good to condemn and lament if there are no measures that make impossible the repetition of acts of vandalism and extremism," he added.
But the chairman of the OSCE, Slovene Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel, said that of the 55 members of the Vienna-based organization only 29 had provided statistical data on hate crimes in their countries as agreed last year at a similar conference in Berlin.
Last year's conference, and a previous one in Vienna, focused exclusively on anti-Semitism, whereas this year it does include other hate crimes.
New York Governor George Pataki, the head of the U.S. delegation, said in an interview this is not inherently a problem but could become one.
"We have to recognize the unique horrors of anti-Semitism and cannot treat it as just another form of intolerance, given its history, given its ability to spread," he said.
The U.S. ambassador to the OSCE, Stephan Minikes, said there is "still too much opposition" within the OSCE to pursuing anti-Semitism and treating it as a separate problem rather than lumping it together with other forms of intolerance.
In a report released to coincide with the conference, New York-based Human Rights First said racist and anti-Semitic violence is up dramatically in much of Europe.
In Britain, for instance, anti-Semitic personal assaults doubled in 2004 over the previous year and violent hate crimes against gay men in France more than doubled from 2002 to 2003, said the organization, formerly known as the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights.
But the most pervasive racist violence in Europe and North America is low-level incidents such as property damage, insults and threats. The organization said this is the form of racism that is "arguably the most threatening to the largest number of people, whether in the United Kingdom, Moscow, the Paris suburbs or in mini-marts or motels in Arkansas or southern California."
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Reuters - 06.08.2005
Europeans fail to track anti-Semitism
By Daniel Flynn
CORDOBA, Spain (Reuters) -- Anti-Semitism is on the rise in Europe, particularly in Russia and Britain, while many governments are failing to keep pledges to fight the trend, delegates to an international conference said on Wednesday.
Almost half the 55 members of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) missed commitments to provide data to track hate crimes made at a major conference in Berlin last year, OSCE Chairman Dimitrij Rupel told a follow-up meeting in the southern Spanish city of Cordoba.
Just three countries -- the United States, Britain and Canada -- gave reliable and thorough data, the Vienna-based OSCE added in a report.
"It is not a question of whether they are not following up properly -- they haven't even done the basic reporting," complained George Pataki, governor of New York state and head of the U.S. delegation to the conference.
The OSCE's Berlin conference in April 2004 ended with a ringing pledge to fight resurgent anti-Semitism in Europe by bolstering law enforcement, boosting Holocaust education and stepping up monitoring of attacks on Jews and their property.
But the OSCE's special representative on combatting anti-Semitism, Gert Weisskirchen, said there was still a lot to be done to implement the Berlin agreement while available data suggested anti-Semitism had worsened in 2004.
"If you had a full picture, it would show there is growing tide of anti-Semitism all over the OSCE," he told Reuters, adding the Russian federation showed a worrying intensity of anti-Jewish violence. "We have seen an increase in incidents: especially in Russia, Great Britain and some other places."
Weisskirchen said it was too early to predict a trend this year, although there may have been a decline in anti-Semitic incidents in the first quarter.
EUROPE AT CROSSROADS
North African immigration, job insecurity from globalisation and tensions caused by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were fueling a wave of anti-Semitism in Europe, experts said.
Beate Winkler, director of the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia, told Reuters that anti-Jewish violence had waned over the past year in France thanks to a government crackdown after several years of rises.
A March 2004 report by the centre noted an upturn in racism in France, German, Belgium and the Netherlands.
"Europe is at a crossroads," she said. "There are positive and negative developments. There is an increase in the racism, but the issue is being taken much more seriously."
"We have on the one hand violence from young male immigrants from North Africa, but also right-wing extremists. We have new and old forms of anti-Semitism at the same time, so it's an extremely complex problem."
Edgar Bronfman, president of the World Jewish Congress, singled out Russia and Ukraine as places where anti-Semitism was rising. "The Middle East struggle has reenergised a millennium old anti-Semitism: it has to stop and it has to be stopped."
For the first time, the issues of anti-Muslim and anti-Christian discrimination will be discussed in Cordoba, a city symbolising religious tolerance because of the religious freedom for Christians and Jews that prevailed under Muslim rule in the city from 711 to 1236.
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Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty - 06.09.2005
OSCE: Anti-Semitism Conference Termed 'Disappointing'
By Don Hill
A two-day meeting of leaders from 55 nations ended today in Cordoba, Spain, in an atmosphere of disappointment. It was to have been a grand step forward in international efforts to stamp out anti-Semitism and other forms of intolerance. At a similar meeting last year in Berlin, delegates pledged to compile detailed data on hate crimes targeting Jews. This time, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) widened the focus to include intolerance aimed at Muslims, Roma, and other minorities. But in a speech in Cordoba, Edgar W. Bronfman, president of the World Jewish Congress, scolded the participants. He said that delegates promised a year ago to take action in the battle against intolerance. Most, as he put it, "failed miserably to do so."
Prague (RFE/RL) -- New York State Governor George Pataki, head of the U.S. delegation, told RFE/RL he agreed with Bronfman's assessment.
"It's one thing to agree with words. It's another thing to take action. And to stamp out intolerance, our goal is to have action taken so that people can live together in harmony," Pataki said.
Pataki said all that can be done "to have action taken" is to continue to press the countries involved to spend the time and the money to fulfill their obligations. The results, he said, will be worth it.
"When you deprive people of their right to freedom -- whether it's freedom of speech, or freedom to practice their religion --- then you're losing a bit of your own as well. And we're just going to continue to make the case here at the OSCE that all people should be able to live in freedom and tolerance. And that's what human rights are essentially about," Pataki said."We have to be vigilant in the fight against any form of intolerance, any form of discrimination. But we have to be particularly vigilant that the horrible evil of anti-Semitism not be allowed to rear its ugly head again."
Delegates acknowledged Pataki as a dominating figure at the conference. The Vienna-based OSCE said in a report that the United States was one of only three countries that came through with reliable and thorough data. Britain and Canada were the other two.
The participating countries are from Europe, North America, and Central Asia.
OSCE ministers chose the southern Spanish city of Cordoba as the venue for the expanded gathering on tolerance deliberately and with symbolism in mind.
Cordoba has an established history of developing under three cultures -- Islamic, Jewish, and Christian. The city was celebrated for its religious tolerance during the Middle Ages when Spain was under Muslim rule.
The first day of the conference concentrated on anti-Semitism. Today, the conference turned to what was called the growing phenomenon of Islamophobia, and to problems that Christians and other religious communities deal with in those places where they are minorities.
The OSCE decided in 2000 to organize a series of conferences on combating anti-Semitism. It was responding to growing reports that anti-Semitism was again on the rise in Europe. The organizers held the first of the current series in Vienna, the second last year in Berlin.
Keith Jinks is a senior OSCE spokesman. He says that the decision to expand the conferences' scope came gradually. They took form in three gatherings of OSCE leaders last year:
"Following the three meetings there was a major meeting in December -- our annual meeting if you will -- of the Ministerial Council. And the prime ministers who met in Sofia decided then that what should follow logically was a larger meeting that brings together all the sorts of discrimination and intolerance against religious and other minorities," Jinks said.
The change displeased some delegates, who expressed concern that the widening of focus could result in a dilution of concern.
New York Governor Pataki, whose constituency at home is greatly influenced by New York's large Jewish community, was cautious in his support for the broadened perspective.
"We have to be vigilant in the fight against any form of intolerance, any form of discrimination. But we have to be particularly vigilant that the horrible evil of anti-Semitism not be allowed to rear its ugly head again," Pataki said.
In his keynote address, Bronfman specifically mentioned Russia and Ukraine as centers of anti-Semitism. Interfax news agency reported today that the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Aleksii II, attended the Cordoba gathering and denounced anti-Semitism and all manifestations of xenophobia wherever in the world they are found.
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RIA Novosti - 06.09.2005
Russia calls for stepping up resistance to anti-Semitism
MOSCOW (RIA Novosti) -- Russia has called on the international community to step up resistance to anti-Semitism and xenophobia and to cut short any attempt at presenting Nazi crimes as heroic deeds.
The appeal was made by Alexei Borodavkin, Russia's representative at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, at the OSCE conference on anti-Semitism and on other forms of intolerance held in Cordoba, Spain.
"The issue of struggle against anti-Semitism and other forms of intolerance sounds especially acute in this year of the 60th anniversary of VE-Day," the diplomat said.
"This and future generations should combat all forms of anti-Semitism, intolerance, extremism and xenophobia. We must not permit a heroic presentation of those who are guilty of Nazi crimes, above all SS troops - the ideologists and executors of the policy of Holocaust," Borodavkin said.
"The global civilization has come across one more terrible threat: international terrorists have taken over the baton from SS hangmen," he said, adding that "the inhuman ideology of terrorism is akin to Nazism and this evil of the 21st century can be combated only by the concerted efforts of the international community."
The discrimination of national minorities and the impermissible practice of arbitrary revocation of citizenship are the consequences of xenophobia, nationalism and racial and religious intolerance, said the Russian representative.
"Disregard for this problem can have grave consequences for European security and can lead to conflicts," the diplomat said, drawing the attention of delegates to the importance for Russia of ensuring the rights of Russian-speaking, including Jewish, minorities living outside Russia.
"The OSCE can show an example of struggle against all forms of anti-Semitism and other forms of intolerance, and of dialogue and cooperation," Borodavkin said, adding that the organization itself should become a positive example of tolerance.
"In our opinion, this task should become a priority of the OSCE reform," the Russian representative said.
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Associated Press - 06.10.2005
Ha'aretz
OSCE summit ends with new pledge to fight anti-Semitism
By The Associated Press
CORDOBA, Spain (JTA) -- Western governments pledged Thursday to fight anti-Semitism and other forms of intolerance but acknowledged some of them have failed to deliver on past commitments and that upbeat speeches must now be matched with hands-on measures against hate crimes.
The two-day conference of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe ended on an unexpected and somewhat angry note as the body's top official for an anti-Semitism task force expressed shock upon learning that a landmark building in host city Cordoba houses a government-subsidized foundation created by Roger Garaudy, a French author convicted of questioning the Holocaust death toll.
"I am angry that this can happen here and nobody is really working against that," Gert Weisskirchen told The Associated Press. "I am ready to write a letter to the minister of the interior asking him what he personally is now doing against it. That is the first step. Then we will see."
In a final statement issued after two days of speeches and workshops, delegates from all 55 member states of the OSCE stressed the importance of interfaith dialogue and insisted that strife in the Middle East cannot be used as justification for violence against Jews.
The statement said educating people about the Holocaust and anti-Semitism is needed to prevent intolerance, but it did not suggest any specific measures on how to do this.
And it alluded to the fact that the OSCE has not come up with an official definition of what anti-Semitism is. "This is a work in progress," said the US ambassador to the Vienna-based body, Stephan Minikes.
Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said the conference had agreed on a policy of "zero tolerance of intolerance" and the meeting went a step beyond one held last year in Berlin because there was a greater commitment by countries to actually do something about religious and racial intolerance and not just talk about it.
Delegates heard that only 29 had abided by a pledge last year to provide the OSCE with detailed statistics on hate crimes.
The head of the U.S. delegation, New York Governor George Pataki, said: "We have all given our speeches in the best prose we can muster, but there is more to combating anti-Semitism and intolerance than mere speeches. We now need to implement our commitments."
As the conference ended, town hall quickly called a press conference to explain the existence of the Garaudy foundation, about 200 meters from the palace where the conference was held.
The edifice is an exquisite 12th-century Moorish tower in the old quarter of Cordoba, which in medieval times was known as a flourishing and peaceful home to Muslims, Jews and Christians.
The tower, which features a museum dedicated to that period, is owned by the town council, Deputy Mayor Andres Ocana said. Town hall first ceded the spot to the foundation in 1987 and renewed the arrangement 10 years later.
The foundation was created by Garaudy, who in 1998 was convicted in France over a book he wrote that questioned whether 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust.
Ocana said the Roger Garaudy Foundation receives a small subsidy from town hall and he defended the foundation's goals - encouraging harmony among religions - as legitimate and longstanding.
He said Garaudy is very ill and now has essentially nothing to do with the foundation. Ocana said the fact that his name remains on it is "a bit anachronistic," but officials had never considered forcing it to change its name after Garaudy was convicted in 1998 in France.
The vice president of the board that now runs the foundation, Balbino Povedano, said the foundation is about an idea - encouraging religious harmony - not its founder and that he himself would raise the issue of the 5-member board changing the organization's name.
Garaudy, a philosopher and convert to Islam who used to travel often to Cordoba, received a six-month suspended prison sentence and fines amounting to $21,400 for disputing facts about the Holocaust in his book, "The Founding Myths of Israeli Politics." Garaudy also received a three-month suspended sentence and an additional US$8,000 worth of fines for inciting racial hatred.
In his book, Garaudy questioned the number of Jews killed by the Nazis in World War II, saying it was much lower than the 6 million agreed upon by historians, and denounced what he called "Shoah business" - exploiting the Holocaust for money and political gains.
A stand in the lobby of the museum features a number of books by Garaudy but not the one he was convicted for or any that seemed to be about revisionism.
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Financial Times - 06.10.2005
The Financial Times
Europe told to do more to combat anti-Semitism
By Daniel Dombey in Brussels and Leslie Crawford in Madrid
European nations are not doing enough to combat anti-Semitism and other hate crimes.
The warning came at the end of a two-day meeting of the 55-country Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe which heard that in spite of ministerial commitments to intensify the fight against such crimes many member countries were failing even to keep track of the level of incidents.
"Amazingly, instances of anti-Semitism are once again on the rise and we need to act now to halt this disturbing and alarming trend," said George Pataki, governor of New York state. "We must define, discover, quantify and eradicate anti-Semitism and all forms of ethnic and religious intolerance and violence."
The meeting was attended by Miguel Angel Moratinos, the Spanish foreign minister, and figures such as Edgar Bronfman Sr, head of the World Jewish Congress.
A report submitted to the conference said that of all the OSCE members - the organisation includes almost all European, north American and central Asian nations - only the US, the UK and Canada provided "comprehensive and reliable statistics".
The report added: "A lack of information of the outcome of reported incidents means that it is impossible to ascertain state responses to hate crimes, such as the gravity with which these crimes are viewed [and] the seriousness of penalties."
It also said only five countries - Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and the US - compiled data about hate crimes concerning issues such as sexual orientation.
In draft conclusions to the conference, Dimitrij Rupel, the OSCE's chairman, called on states to step up their efforts to compile data and implement legislation on hate crimes.
Abdelkarim Carrasco, president of the Spanish federation of Islamic religious entities, made a special plea for the eradication of the term "Islamic terrorism", which, he said, tarnished all Muslims with the atrocities committed by al-Qaeda, the Islamist terrorist group.
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Forward - 06.10.2005
Antisemitism Conference Loses Its Sharp Focus
The Forward
By MARC PERELMAN
Diplomatic efforts to fight antisemitism in Europe appeared to suffer a setback this week, as a region-wide conference drafted a declaration lumping the age-old prejudice with Islamophobia and racism.
Insiders said the draft declaration to be issued at the end of the meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, in Cordoba, Spain represented a retreat from some of the progress made in recent years in getting European governments to focus on antisemitism as a discrete problem, apart from larger prejudice. A stand-alone conference on antisemitism in Berlin last year stressed the need for such a separate focus.
The organizers of the Cordoba conference agreed to have one day dealing with antisemitism and another focusing on other forms of discrimination. But because the conference will adopt only one declaration, the necessary issues will be conflated in the final document.
Still, some officials at nongovernmental organizations, including Jewish communal groups, expressed optimism that a compromise would be negotiated in the closing days, pointing out that language equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism agreed on at the 2004 Berlin conference would be repeated in the declaration.
Since the Berlin conference, the OSCE, which comprises 55 member countries, mostly in Europe but also the United States and Canada, has put in place a monitoring mechanism and appointed a special envoy to tackle antisemitism in Europe. It also has named a special rapporteur on Islamophobia and another one for other forms of discrimination.
Most OSCE countries had agreed that the Berlin meeting would be unique and aimed at sending a strong political message, and that further meetings would deal only with implementation.
However, Spain's foreign minister, Miguel Moratinos, formerly the European Union's special envoy to the Middle East, announced last year that Spain would host a high-profile follow-up OSCE conference in Cordoba — a town with an august history of religious tolerance — in an effort to keep the issue of antisemitism in the public eye.
As a result, many foreign ministers decided to attend the Cordoba parley. New York Governor George Pataki heads the American delegation.
Besides their concerns over the wording of the declaration, Jewish communal groups are calling on the OSCE to reappoint the special envoys, and they would like to see the special envoy on antisemitism work independently from his two colleagues.
They note that while European countries have shown a new willingness to deal with antisemitism, progress is slow.
According to a recent poll by the Anti-Defamation League, 43% of Europeans believe that Jews are not loyal to their country and some 30% believe Jews possess too much power in business and finance. The survey, conducted in 12 European countries, found that 53% of the 6,000 respondents say that their opinion of Jews is worse as a result of the actions taken by Israel.
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JTA - 06.10.2005
At OSCE meet, praise for steps taken but a hope for more serious progress
By Jerome Socolovsky
CORDOBA, Spain (JTA) -- At first the challenge was to get people talking about the problem. Then it was to turn words into actions.
This year, the effort at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe conference was on maintaining the focus on anti-Semitism.
Ever since the OSCE began dealing with the challenge of anti-Semitism in the world today, Jewish organizations have faced an uphill battle.
This year's meeting in Cordoba -- which drew delegations from 55 governments -- was the third sponsored by the OSCE.
The first gathering, in Vienna, set the precedent of a conference devoted to anti-Semitism. Last year, in the German capital, delegates issued a "Berlin Declaration" calling for concrete action.
But this year's meeting was different: As its title makes clear, the Conference on Antisemitism and Other Forms of Intolerance included other types of discrimination, though the precedence given to anti-Semitism was more than implicit.
Gov. George Pataki (R-N.Y.), who headed the U.S. delegation, considered it "a positive step" to include categories such as discrimination against Muslims, Christians, Gypsies and other groups.
"But we cannot lose the fact that the whole concept of this conference began as an effort to elevate public awareness, governmental awareness in response and to eradicate anti-Semitism. That still has to be the primary focus," Pataki told JTA.
"To me it's quite obvious that anti-Semitism, not just currently, is frightening and damaging and horrific," the governor said. "When you look at its history, we've never seen the inhumanity to man that we saw during the course of the Holocaust."
Representatives of Jewish groups said one of the greatest challenges at the Cordoba meeting was to acknowledge the suffering of others, while reminding Europeans that their continent has a particular duty to focus on anti-Semitism because of the Holocaust.
"It is not our intention to prove that anti-Semitism comes first in some hierarchy of oppression," said Rabbi Andrew Baker of the American Jewish Committee. "But one has to be blind not to recognize that anti-Muslim sentiments are prevalent in Europe today."
Still, striking the right balance was no easy task.
"Islamophobia has replaced anti-Semitism as the new, sharp end of racism in the world, wherever you go," Abduljalil Sajid, an imam and adviser to the Commission on British Muslims, declared from the podium.
Another difficult issue was keeping the Israeli-Palestinian conflict separate from the anti-Semitism discussions.
Gert Weisskirchen, the OSCE's special representative for combating anti-Semitism, said hatred toward Jews in Europe is "nourished by pictures that are not fair" about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Reasonable criticism of Israel is fine as long as it doesn't cross a red line, as it has a number of times in European press and political debate, Weisskirchen said.
"If you, for instance, compare the actions of what the Israeli army is doing, or if you compare Sharon with Hitler, than this red line is crossed," he said.
Ed Morgan, president of the Canadian Jewish Congress, objected to an assertion by an Arab speaker that anti-Semitism will disappear only when the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is resolved.
"If I were to say that hatred of Arabs won't end until Arab countries come to terms with the State of Israel, that would be a racist statement," he said.
Some other non-Jewish organizations groups presented moderate stances.
"We can't make this a competition of who's more a victim. That's childish," said Yusuf Fernandez of the Spanish Federation of Religious Islamic Entities. "If Muslims had lived in Europe at the time of the Holocaust, then both Jews and Muslims would have ended up in the gas chambers."
Many participants felt that having members of different groups at the conference was an opportunity.
"I have tremendous hope from the fact that we are sitting in the same building, and some of us in the same room, as Muslim organizations," said Israel Singer, chairman of the World Jewish Congress.
He recalled Jewish-Catholic relations just a few decades ago, "when we were like that famous Michelangelo painting on the Sistine Chapel ceiling -- almost touching, almost touching with the hands reaching out to each other, and the synapse not being made.
"The Catholics today are our closest allies from having been our greatest enemies over 2,000 years," he added.
Delegates discussed new national programs to raise Holocaust awareness and collect data on racist organizations.
The OSCE cited the FBI's cooperation with German police in investigating German-language Web sites registered with American Internet addresses. France also was mentioned because its judges can sentence perpetrators of hate crimes to racism-awareness education.
But the chairman of the conference, Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel, criticized many countries for not implementing the Berlin recommendations.
"Unfortunately the findings fall short of expectations, as only 29 out of the 55 OSCE states provided statistical information relevant to hate-motivated crimes," Rupel said.
"We hope states leave here with resolve to implement and institutionalize the mechanisms they agree are essential to counter anti-Semitism and hate crime," Stacy Burdett, the Anti-Defamation League's associate director of government affairs and an adviser to the U.S. delegation, said in a statement.
"We welcome the focus and support demonstrated at this meeting," she said. "But in the end, no meeting or statement can be a substitute for national governments, one by one, taking action that can improve the safety and security of Jews and other minorities seeking to live in security and dignity."
The OSCE noted that only a few countries have appropriate mechanisms in place to respond to anti-Semitism.
And in those countries where statistical information has been gathered, the trends remain disturbing. The ADL presented findings of a 12-nation survey, which found that "Europeans continue to question the loyalty of their Jewish citizens."
It also found "alarmingly high levels" of the belief that Jews are too influential. Fifty-five percent of Hungarians and 45 percent of Spaniards polled more or less agreed with the statement that "Jews have too much power in the business world."
Weisskirchen said he was most concerned about "the growing tide of anti-Semitism and incidents" in Russia, which remind him of his native Germany during the Nazi era.
He added that "after the Second World War we would be confronted with that kind of anti-Semitism growing again," he said.
Behind the scenes, some countries expressed reservations about continuing the annual OSCE meetings.
Pataki said there was "a greater reluctance among some countries than I expected."
"It's shocking to even have to raise the possibility that there are those who would even look the other way," he said.
Delegates also were at odds over complaints that Weisskirchen has not been given a strong mandate. Some countries wanted to combine his position with that of two other officials dealing with other forms of racism.
Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center warned that merging the jobs "would send the wrong message at the wrong time."
"It will only diminish the focus on anti-Semitism, and effectively remove it from the world's policymakers," Hier said.
Still, many Jewish leaders were satisfied that what had been achieved at the previous meetings at least was not rolled back this year.
"Last year we hit such a high point that it was hard to repeat it," Singer said. "What we were hoping to do was maintain the level."
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NY Jewish Week - 06.10.2005
New York Jewish Week
Fighting European Anti-Semitism
Editorial
This week’s meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on “anti-Semitism and other formers of intolerance” marks another fitful step forward in Europe’s grappling with resurgent Jew hating. The conference in Cordoba, Spain, attended by several major American and European Jewish groups, is a follow-up to earlier sessions in Berlin and Vienna. Jewish groups hope delegates will press for better reporting procedures for anti-Semitic incidents, more effective coordination in law enforcement and more intensive tolerance education. And they hope OSCE delegates will come away with a better understanding of the newest mutation of this deadly germ — virulent anti-Israel bias that goes far beyond legitimate criticism of Israeli policy by demonizing Israel and the Jews who support it.
The OSCE process is moving forward, but the pace is slow and the challenge huge. In conjunction with the conference, the Anti-Defamation League this week released a survey showing that anti-Semitic attitudes continue to flourish in 12 European countries.
A plurality of Europeans believes Jews are not loyal to their home countries and that they have too much power in business and finance. The belief that Jews are disloyal was particularly strong in Italy, Germany, Poland and Spain. Some 42 percent overall believe it is “probably true” that Jews talk too much about the Holocaust; 20 percent continue to blame Jews for the death of Christ. European anti-Jewish attitudes did not decline in the past year, despite the best efforts of international Jewish groups and the tentative efforts of European governments.
The OSCE process is important because, for the first time, nations of the continent are acknowledging the problem and looking for ways to work together to solve it. But it will lack meaning if all that nice talk is not backed up by serious and sustained government efforts in each OSCE member country. The Bush administration has made the fight against resurgent anti-Semitism a national priority. In Europe, where Jew hatred has led to so much tragedy, leaders need to follow his example. The OSCE meetings are a good start. Now it’s time for European leaders to learn from these conferences and start the hard work of changing attitudes in their own countries.
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Jerusalem Post - 06.12.2005
Pataki: Europe not doing enough against Jew-hatred
By Hilary Leila Krieger
New York Governor George Pataki has accused half the countries in the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in Europe of failing to live up to their obligations to fight hate crimes and anti-Semitism.
He spoke to The Jerusalem Post at the end of the third Conference on Anti-Semitism and Other Forms of Intolerance held by the OSCE on Wednesday and Thursday in Cordoba, Spain.
Some "26 of 55 countries that agreed to file reports of hate crimes last year haven't done it," Pataki said.
"It's not a question of whether or not they're doing it adequately or following up and enforcing against hate crimes – they haven't even done the basic reporting," he said.
"In some cases that's due to lack of resources," he said, "but in others, it's unquestionably a lack of will."
He wasn't alone in his criticism. The OSCE's personal representative on anti-Semitism, whose position was an outcome of the Berlin conference held in April 2004, also condemned the lack of required monitoring.
"It is a terrible sign that they are delivering that kind of lip service, and then on the other hand, when comes to concretization, there is a lack of it," said Gert Weisskirchen, a member of the German parliament as well as the OSCE's anti-Semitism representative.
There have also been positive developments, though, he told the Post. There has been approximately a 20 percent decrease in anti-Semitic incidents in France and Germany between 2003 and 2004, as well as a decline at the beginning of 2005.
It proves that its effective when the political elite, as is the case in France, take the lead and tell the public that fighting anti-Semitism is an important part of defending democracy and the state, he said.
Weisskirchen warned, however, that success in combatting anti-Semitism is risky if one assumes that it means the danger has passed.
"If you see the numbers are declining, some politicians will say it's over. No, [it's not]. This would be a terrible consequence," said Weisskirchen.
The extension of Weisskirchen's position for an additional year was a key concern of Jewish groups at the conference. They viewed suggestions that the role might be downgraded or subtly merged with the OSCE's personal representatives on Islamaphobia and other forms of intolerance as a diminishment of the focus on anti-Semitism.
In general, several Jewish groups worried that attention to anti-Semitism might be lost in the conference's global focus on Islamaphobia, Christianaphobia, and other forms of racism.
There was some behind-the-scenes skirmishing, as some Jewish officials pressed to place anti-Semitism first in declaration's condemning "racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and other forms of intolerance and discrimination." In the end, the reference to "this conference" in the introduction proceeding the declaration was expanded to include the conference's full title, in which anti-Semitism receives the initial reference.
Many Jewish groups indicated they were pleased with the modification, and some criticized those that had pushed for a change they felt had little significance.
Pierre Chevalier, personal representative of the Belgian Foreign Minister and delegations head for Belgium, who will assume the next chairmanship of the OSCE and has been attacked by some for playing a key role in broadening the scope of the conference, criticized people who had pushed for alterations at the conference when the document had already been worked out ahead of time.
"You do not come at a very late moment with a demand for change," he said of the document he called "very balanced."
The declaration states that OSCE members "reject the identification of terrorism and extremism with any religion, culture, ethnic group, nationality or race." The document also repeated the ground-breaking language of the Berlin declaration, which stressed that "international developments or political issues, including in Israel or elsewhere in the Middle East, never justify anti-Semitism.
"It shouldn't be underestimated how important it is that the Berlin language is reiterated in this declaration," said Sybil Kessler of the American Jewish Committee's Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights. "There was concern that it would be diluted in the sense that it would be generalized – because the governments want to group all forms of racism together because they want to avoid creating a hierarchy, and it's a challenge to name different forms of racism."
She added, "It's an indication of advancement that it [the Israel phrasing] was so easily accepted this year when it was such a challenge last year."
But Pataki spoke of his concern that anti-Israel bashing in the United States continues to cross the line into anti-Semitism, in particular he was upset by the "bigotry" of the American divest-from-Israel efforts.
"To argue that an Israeli company, simply because of the fact that it is located within the state of Israel in some way, should be targeted is utterly wrong, and crosses the line between legitimate foreign policy debate and bigotry," he told the Post.
"Anti-Israel actions and statements can cross the line and become anti-Semitic in their implications," he said between conference sessions. "It's perfectly legitimate to criticize a particular action of the government based on whether you believe that policy is appropriate. But it is inappropriate to try to demonize a people or demonize a nation because of the religious nature of the people living there."
Pataki said he has "concerns about anti-Semitism in the United States," and indicated he was particularly distressed at the thought of children being "indoctrinated" in private schools run by radical Islamists to hate Jews.
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Ha'aretz - 06.13.2005
Ha'aretz
Anti-Semitism resolution falters on xenophobia
By Amiram Barkat
A conference on racism sponsored by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Cordoba, Spain failed to approve a joint declaration condemning "racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia" yesterday after some delegates demanded that xenophobia appear before anti-Semitism in the resolution's text.
Delegates from Great Britain, the Netherlands and Belgium demanded the change at the two-day conference, which opened yesterday. No agreement was reached yesterday, but a source close to the negotiations said the declaration would probably read in accordance with the demand of the delegates from the three countries.
Before the conference opened, the delegates from the three countries had demanded that the agenda not be limited to anti-Semitism, as the Spanish hosts had originally intended. The three argued that Islamophobia and xenophobia were more serious problems in present-day Europe than anti-Semitism. Subsequently, it was agreed that the first day of the conference would deal with anti-Semitism and the second day with other aspects of racism.
Last year's conference, and a prior one in Vienna, focused exclusively on anti-Semitism.
New York Governor George Pataki, the head of the U.S. delegation, said in an interview that this is not inherently a problem, but could become one. " We have to recognize the unique horrors of anti-Semitism and cannot treat it as just another form of intolerance, given its history, given its ability to spread," he said.
The U.S. ambassador to the OSCE, Stephan Minikes, said there is "still too much opposition" within the OSCE to dealing with anti-Semitism and treating it as a separate problem.
Most of the heads of Jewish organizations present left Cordoba shortly after addressing the conference. Israel was represented by Deputy Minister of Education, Culture and Sport Michael Melchior and the head of the Foreign Ministry's Diaspora and religions department, Nimrod Barkan.
Kicking off the meeting, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camps gives the world an opportunity to renew its fight against all forms of anti-Semitism. "Unfortunately, far from having definitively vaccinated our societies, the experience and memory of the Holocaust have not been enough to eliminate attitudes and manifestations that clearly attack the dignity of Jews," Moratinos said.
Moratinos said that in Medieval times, the southern Spanish city of Cordoba was a flourishing place where adherents of Islam, Judaism and Christianity lived side-by-side in peace. "If in the past, it was possible to live together in harmony, we must not resign ourselves into thinking that it is impossible today, he said.
In a report released to coincide with the conference, New York-based Human Rights First said racist and anti-Semitic violence is up dramatically in much of Europe.
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NY Jewish Week - 06.23.2005
New York Jewish Week
Pataki Embraces Anti-Semitism Fight
Calls for ‘raised voices’ here and abroad on heels of Cordoba conference some saw as too broad.
By Adam Dickter - Staff Writer
On his return from a European conference on intolerance, Gov. George Pataki last week called on Jewish leaders to keep him involved in their efforts to combat anti-Semitism.
“It’s too important to the future of our country and the world to just say we had a successful conference and it’s over and now we can go back to our lives,” said Pataki, a Republican who was asked by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to lead the U.S. delegation to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s conference on anti-Semitism and other forms of intolerance in Cordoba, Spain.
“We’ve got to raise our voices not just to fight anti-Semitism here in New York or in America, but to continue to urge countries that would like to look the other way and pretend [it] doesn’t exist that it is their job as well to be aggressive in understanding and preventing anti-Semitism.”
At his Manhattan office last week, Pataki briefed representatives from Jewish organizations on details of the conference. The briefing was closed to the press, but afterward the governor told reporters he was concerned that participants did not share the same commitment as the United States to combating anti-Semitism.
“The conference was a success in that we put out a declaration of the 55 [participating] nations that our countries will stand together to fight ant-Semitism and intolerance of any form,” said Pataki. “But what was clear was an undercurrent, particularly in the west European countries and Russia, that they didn’t perceive anti-Semitism as as serious a problem as we believe it is.”
While previous conferences had focused only on anti-Semitism, this year the OSCE divided the two-day forum into one day dealing with hate against Jews and another tackling other forms of intolerance, particularly anti-Muslim prejudice, a growing phenomenon since 9-11.
“The interest was there to no longer treat anti-Semitism as a unique form of intolerance with a unique history and unique capability to turn from intolerance to violence to Holocaust,” said Pataki.
The governor noted that nearly half the 55 participating nations did not record and catalog incidents against Jews within their borders, as agreed at last year’s conference in Berlin.
“That is a very small step that we should be able to expect,” he said.
Accompanying the governor on the delegation was Rabbi Chaim David Zwiebel of Agudath Israel of America; Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles; Sander Ross Gerber of AIPAC; Kamal Nawash of the Free Muslims Coalition; Stephan Minikes, U.S. ambassador to the OSCE; Ambassador Edward O’Donnell, the State Department envoy for Holocaust issues; the Rev. Charles Chaput, archbishop of Denver; and Jennette Bradley, treasurer of the state of Ohio.
In his address on responding to anti-Semitic and hate-motivated crimes, Rabbi Zwiebel recalled for conference participants the 1988 arson that destroyed his Brooklyn synagogue just before the High Holy Days.
“I will never forget participating in the funeral procession for the six Torah scrolls that were burned in the fire … and seeing the anguished horror on the faces of members of the previous generation, Holocaust survivors who thought that the days of synagogue destruction were over,” the rabbi said in his remarks. Had an appropriate hate crimes law been in effect at the time (one was passed 12 years later), the attack might not have happened, he said, calling on the European nations to each “create a legal environment in which Jewish families and institutions can thrive.”
In New York, Pataki said “the goal of our mission was not just to urge countries to take a more proactive stance individually in their countries to recognize and combat anti-Semitism, but to make sure the OSCE’s commitment to understanding the separate and unique horror that is anti-Semitism be an ongoing part of their agenda against intolerance as they go forward.”
Asked if he saw signs of concrete steps being taken against anti-Semitism that emerged from the annual conferences, Pataki told The Jewish Week, “Germany is doing a very real job promoting awareness of the Holocaust, and teaching tolerance and how dangerous and deadly anti-Semitism is.”
Pressed by an Israeli reporter on which nations seemed most lackadaisical about anti-Semitism, the governor said, “Certainly Russia was not as supportive as we would have liked. Belgium is becoming the next head of the OSCE, and their delegation is unsure whether or not [the organization] needs a special representative to fight anti-Semitism. We have urged them to continue what we have now and we are hopeful they will, although they were initially reluctant.”
Pataki is the third New York political figure to be asked by the Bush administration to represent the United States at the OSCE conference. Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani attended the conference in Vienna in 2003, and former Mayor Ed Koch went last year, alongside then-Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Pataki’s participation comes amid speculation on his political future. He is mulling whether to seek a fourth term in Albany or run for national office, as widely expected.
“Whether he asked for this or not, he certainly welcomes it,” said political consultant and Albany lobbyist Norman Adler. “He’s done very well with the Jewish community.”
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