Bush signed in October into law a controversial bill on combating the so-called global “anti-Semitism.” (Reuters)

By Adam Wild Aba, IOL Correspondent

WASHINGTON, January 11 (IslamOnline.net) – A US Jewish organization has criticized the State Department’s first annual report on anti-Semitism, saying it has taken a soft line with “anti-Semitic” Arab governments.

The Philadelphia-based Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies said in a press release that the US report only concentrated on anti-Semitic practices in South America and Europe while it turned a blind eye to the “anti-Semitism sponsored by some Arab governments.”

“It is encouraging that the report includes Israel-Nazi analogies in its definition of anti-Semitism, but it is disappointing that the report says so little about some Arab governments which promote such analogies and other types of anti- Semitism,” the institute said in a press release on its website.

The US State Department issued on January 5 its first annual report on anti-Semitism around the globe.

The 37-page report claimed that anti-Jewish practices were mounting in Europe and other parts of the world since the outbreak of the second Palestinian Intifada four years ago.

On October 17, US President George W. Bush signed into law a controversial bill on combating the so-called global anti-Semitism.

The law commits the US State Department to documenting acts of physical violence against Jews, their property, cemeteries and places of worship abroad, as well as local governments' responses to them and take note of instances of anti-Jewish propaganda and governments' readiness to promote unbiased school curricula.

“Soft”

The institute claimed that the US report was “soft” on addressing “anti-Semitic” practices in the Arab world.

“The section about Iceland, for instance, is 387 words long, even though the report notes only one instance of anti-Semitic harassment and one hostile cartoon there.

“By contrast, Saudi Arabia is given just 182 words, including the apparently contradictory statements that ‘Anti-Semitic sentiments...were present in the print and electronic media. The local press rarely printed articles or commentaries disparaging other religions,’” the institute said.

It said the report only mentioned 86 words about the Palestinian Authority, more than half of which cited a sermon broadcast by the Palestinian television pressing for tolerance “but without mentioning Jews.”

“That sermon unfortunately was not typical of sermons that are broadcast on PA TV and radio, which often contain anti-Semitic themes, including denial of the Holocaust. Additionally, the State Department report does not mention instances of anti-Semitism in the PA-controlled press,” the institute added.

The press release further alleged that the government-sponsored anti-Semitic practices in countries such as Armenia (194 words), Brazil (149) and Azerbaijan (142) were given more space in the report rather than anti-Semitic practices of some Arab countries.

“Anti-Semitism”

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, anti-Semitism is hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious or racial group.

It was coined in 1879 by German agitator Wilhelm Marr to designate the anti-Jewish campaigns underway in central Europe at that time.

However, Richard Levy, a professor of History in Chicago, had told IslamOnline.net the term was often misused  when Jews and others “refuse to see any difference between criticism of Israeli policies and anti-Semitism”.

Pundits and linguists also believe that Israeli officials and US neo-conservatives are using now “anti-Semitism” to stifle any criticism of the aggressive Israeli practices against the Palestinian people.

Former Israeli immigration minister Natan Sharansky had said that the “specious line between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism has now become completely blurred.”

Norman Podhoretz, a prominent US neo-conservative writer, agreed that anti-Zionism was not the other side of the coin.

“Anti-Zionism has become the main and most relevant form of anti-Semitism,” he had said.

A leading American civil rights organization kept pressure on the publishers of an edition of a Merriam Webster’s dictionary for linking anti-Semitism to Zionism and Israel.