“We are not here to beat our breasts in public and then do nothing,” Prodi

BRUSSELS, February 20 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – European Commissioner Romano Prodi has urged an EU-wide law considering anti-Semitism acts crimes against the bloc, as analysts highlighted that a line of difference should be drawn between hating Jews and criticizing Israeli aggressions.

As the E.U officials in a conference in Brussels said Thursday, February 19, anti-Semitism should be energetically tackled, they also said  Middle East and developing a real vision of peace is “the major, major challenge for a Europe that is uniting”.

Prodi - whose first visit when he became commission President in 1999 was to Auschwitz - vowed concrete action against what Jewish leaders say rising waves of anti-Semitism, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

“We are not here to beat our breasts in public and then do nothing,” he said, calling on EU Interior, Justice and Education Ministers to come together to debate the problem, and promising proposals by the commission.

The commission chief announced plans for Thursday's conference after Brussels published an EU opinion poll in November that labeled Israel the biggest threat to world peace.

Prodi also urged EU governments to adopt a commission proposal for an EU-wide law against racism and xenophobia, which among other things would define anti-Semitic acts and Holocaust denial as crimes across the bloc.

The poll drew waves of hostile reactions from Israel and Jewish leaders across the world, as analysts call for difference to be made between anti-Semitism one hand and criticism of Israel on the other.

A new poll released by a Jewish group unveiled Wednesday, December 17, revealed that almost half of the Americans believe that Israel is a threat to world peace, while many more expect their country to be attacked by “terrorists” because of its support to Israel.

‘Monster’

The buildup to the day-long event was troubled, not least because of accusations by Jewish groups that the European Union executive is itself guilty of fostering anti-Semitism in Europe.

But figures including Prodi, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Natan Sharansky banded together to denounce mounting attacks on Jewish targets in Europe.

“Anti-Semitism has returned. The monster is here with us once again,” European Jewish Congress (EJC) president Cobi Benatoff told the conference.

Nobel Peace Prize-winning author Elie Wiesel said many Jews in Europe now lived in such fear that they wanted to emigrate to Israel.

The EJC and U.S.-based World Jewish Congress urged the European Commission to set up committees drawn from E.U. governments and Jewish groups to monitor anti-Semitic incidents.

They also called for police crackdowns to ensure that those behind attacks on Jewish synagogues, schools and cemeteries are brought to justice, and for better education in Europe's schools on the history of European Jewry.

Sharansky welcomed action taken along these lines by France, which is home to the EU's largest numbers of Jews and Muslims along with its highest number of anti-Semitic incidents last year at 125.

A number of attacks against Jewish and Muslim targets were reported with the abruption of the Intifada against Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories on September 28.

Israeli Attacks

Sharansky said Europeans had every right to criticize Israeli government policies in the Middle East conflict.

“We can disagree on many things, about the line of the (security) fence, about settlements, about the right way to cope with the terror,” he said.

But, the Israeli official claimed, much of the criticism in Europe had in recent years become mixed with demonization of Jews, double standards in attacking Israel and denying the legitimacy of the Jewish state.

Israel member of Knesset Azmi Bishara wrote in a press article published by Lo0ndon-based alhayat newspaper on Thursday that Official Israeli "propaganda" and certain Zionist organizations are desperately trying to equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism in the West, in addition to accusing Islam of having a hostile disposition towards Judaism.

“These classifications were clearly reflected in the Israeli Knesset on the day of observance of anti-Semitism. The discussion focused on new forms of anti-Semitism of which speakers competed in accusing Islamic fundamentalism, the European Left and pro-Palestinian groups to be its perpetrators”.

Bishara said Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said in this context that hostility towards Israel and criticism of Israeli policies are merely justifications for the destructive and violent anti-Jewish attacks from universities and governments.

“The Arab or Muslim citizen in Europe, watches news that feeds his hatred towards Israel. This news does not necessarily come from Arab sources,” said famous Arab colmnist Jihad Al-Khazen.

A group of European and Israeli Jews - university professors, journalists and writers - met recently in a private Normandy château, far from the limelight.

Chechens, the Roma, or Gypsies, and Europe's Muslims were discussed, but the spotlight was on the Palestinians, the International Herald Tribune reported.

Israel's policy of occupation was condemned not only for the suffering it inflicted on the Palestinians but also for the political and psychological ravages to Israeli society as a whole, not to mention its consequences on the Jews of the Diaspora, said the paper.