Foreign Affairs Minister Shimon Peres said on Tuesday in Paris that he was "certain that France is not anti-Semitic, neither historically nor currently." After a meeting with French President Jacques Chirac, Peres added, "I am convinced the French leadership is staging a serious and determined battle against anti-Semitism in France."

Peres's efforts to downplay Israeli fears of rising anti-Semitism in France came a week after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in Jerusalem that he was very concerned for the fate of French Jews in light of "the wave of dangerous anti-Semitism sweeping France."

French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine responded to

"Calling France an anti-Semitic country is repulsive and despicable" - French FM Hubert Vedrine

Sharon's comments by saying that "calling France an anti-Semitic country is repulsive and despicable." An Israeli Foreign Ministry source charged that Vedrine simply "added fuel to the fire. He attacked the Israeli government and its leaders, and made things even worse when he said 'one can understand these Muslim youths, who are inflamed by what they witness on television.' It could be inferred from this that Vedrine is excusing violence against Jews," the source said, quoted in Ha'aretz.

"I was profoundly shocked and, I would say, hurt by the remarks that were made regarding the development of anti-Semitism in France," Chirac said, following his meeting with Peres. "I would like to say clearly there is no upsurge in anti-Semitism in France, that nothing supports these statements and that France and all its authorities remain very vigilant in this domain, and are extremely severe in punishing any of its manifestations, whatever they may be," he added.

Dr. Shimon Samuels, director of the Paris office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said he was shocked and disturbed by Peres's denial of anti-Semitism in France. "Peres's appeasement encouraged the denial of Jew-hatred in France and weakened strident protests by organizations such as ours at a time when synagogues are burning and Jewish schoolchildren are under attack," he told the Jerusalem Post.

The Center documented 320 incidents of anti-Semitism in France last year, including assaults, threats and tensions with French Arab and North African immigrants stemming from mounting Israeli-Palestinian violence. "The continuing attacks on Jews in France - which have been more numerous than in any other Western country - are being carried out against the background of an alarming indifference, with public opinion and the political class preferring to appear ideologically blind. This indifference, coupled with the threat of anti-Semitism and the verifiably documented acts of violence, are prompting a feeling of utter abandonment within France's Jewish community," the Center's report said.

To be against Israel is to be against the Jews
Recent articles in the media have raised the highly charged question - what does the accusation of anti-Semitism mean these days? Writing in the British weekly Observer, Peter Beaumont is critical of attempts to conflate appalling acts of violence with the European media's increased criticism of Sharon's policies, treating both as symptoms of 'a new anti-Semitism.' Beaumont writes that the increase in anti-Semitic attacks coincides with the beginning of the Intifada, and says data proves the crimes to be committed largely by "disaffected Islamic youths, a group itself that is the victim of some of the worst race hate and discrimination in Europe."

Israel's brutal response to the often equally reprehensible anti-Israeli Palestinian violence of the Intifada has produced one of the most vigorous media critiques of Israel's policies in the European media in a generation. The reply to this criticism, say those most vocal in reporting the existence of the new anti-Semitism, particularly in the Israeli press, is devastating in its simplicity: criticize Israel, and you are an anti-Semite just as surely as if you were throwing paint at a synagogue in Paris.
The Observer

In an article published this week in Newsday, Emanuele Ottolenghi, a junior research fellow in Israel studies at St. Antony's College at Oxford, writes that the phenomenon of rising anti-Semitism in Europe is connected both to Israeli-Palestinian violence and the tragic events of September 11.

In public parlance, academic circles and even among policy makers, Israel is the cause of world troubles, and American support for Israel is at the root of terrorism against Americans. In this climate, the distance from hostile feelings toward Israel and anti-Semitism is short, given the existence of a fertile ground for it beneath the thin veneer of tolerance European societies purportedly display.
Newsday

In an opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal earlier this month, Israeli essayist and Commentary contributor Hillel Halkin says last September's Durban conference on racism, which he described as the "largest and best-publicized international anti-Semitic rally in history," tied anti-Semitism and anti-Israel expressions tightly together.

One cannot be against Israel or Zionism, as opposed to this or that Israeli policy or Zionist position, without being anti-Semitic. Israel is the state of the Jews. Zionism is the belief that the Jews should have a state. To defame Israel is to defame the Jews. To wish it never existed, or would cease to exist, is to wish to destroy the Jews.
Wall Street Journal

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