Ha'aretz - 06.19.2003

 

Ha'aretz

Giuliani: Europe must do more to combat anti-Semitic violence

By Amiram Barkat, Haaretz Correspondent, and Agencies

VIENNA - Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani told a conference of the 55-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on Thursday that Europe must do more to curb an upturn in anti-Semitic violence, and Israel urged delegates to have their governments make "hateful acts" against Jews a criminal offense. 

The two-day conference, grouping more than 350 delegates from Europe, central Asia, the United States, Russia and Canada, comes amid an alarming spike in anti-Semitic acts, mostly in Europe. The gathering of delegates from 55 OSCE-participating states and more than 100 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) is the first such exploration of the subject by a major European security organization, according to a State Department web-site. 

Last year, the Europeans rebuffed attempts to convene such a conference. This year, apparently under U.S. pressure, they conceded to the need for a meeting. 

Giuliani, who heads the American delegation to the conference, urged Europe to learn the lesson of the Holocaust and take action rather than just talk about anti-Semitic crimes. 

"Words do not suffice to turn the tide of anti-Semitism that is once again growing in Europe and other parts of the world," Giuliani said at the start of the two-day conference. 

He said concrete steps should include keeping statistics on hate crimes separate from other acts of violence, monitoring those figures to spot problems early and holding regular OSCE meetings on the topic to compare each country's performance. 

The OSCE groups the United States, Europe, Russia and Central Asia in a security organization born of the Cold War. It cannot impose action on its members but instead acts as a forum to discuss problems and concerns. 

Israeli chief representative Avraham Toledo told the conference that tougher and more unified measures were needed to combat the growth in violence and intimidation against Jews on the continent. 

"It will not do to classify assaults on Jews, synagogues or Jewish communal institutions as mere hooliganism and vandalism," he said in prepared comments. "Neither will it do to excuse anti-Semitic rhetoric and violence under the guise of freedom of speech." 

The European Union said it was taking action to stiffen anti-prejudice laws and had already strongly condemned anti-Semitic violence in parts of the 15-nation bloc in the first half of 2002. 

"This does not mean that anti-Semitism has again gained an intellectual or respectable foothold in our societies or that the European Union has been gripped by a 'wave' of anti-Semitic violence," Greece, speaking for the EU because it holds the rotating EU presidency, said in a statement. 

The EU set up a central agency to monitor racism and xenophobia in 1997 and has issued a number of anti-discrimination charters and draft laws to be adopted as national legislation by member states, Greece said. 

Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, which tracks such incidents, said last month that attacks against Jews in Europe have reached the highest level since World War II. Since 2001, the center has documented 1,300 anti-Semitic acts in France, while in Britain, records show 1,308 attacks against Jews between 1998 and 2001. 

Increases also have been recorded in other European countries. The attacks included the torching of a synagogue in Marseilles last year, the stabbing of a rabbi in Paris early this year, and the beating of two Jewish 
youths in the French capital by toughs wielding metal bars in March. 

The New-York-based Lawyers Committee for Human Rights last year criticized European governments for alleged laxness in monitoring, publicizing and acting on reports of anti-Semitic violence. Also last year, the U.S. House of 
Representatives approved a resolution urging European governments to take action against rising anti-Semitism in Europe. 

On that theme, Toledo urged governments to be alert for acts of anti-Semitism committed under the guise of opposition to Israel's Palestinian policies. "To justify anti-Semitic phenomena by presenting them as anti-Zionism is the same ugly ideology with fresh makeup," he said. 

A statement by the European Union said the conference was a way to send a "timely and strong signal of 'no tolerance' towards anti-Semitism."