Based on media reports, North-Americans are being led to believe that Europe is crossing yet another bleak period with regard to its Jewish populations. Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist, regularly reminds Americans of how the “European press” keeps stirring up “anti-Semitism” whenever it criticizes the policies of the Sharon government toward Palestine and the broader Middle East.

There is no question that European nations have had a long history of willful attacks and atrocities committed against its Jewish populations. For the record, though, until Ariel Sharon came out of his post-Sabra and Shatila silence to unleash the second Al-Aqsa Intifada and then assume the Israeli presidency, most European countries had faced growing concerns of racism, as well as social and professional discrimination not so much against Jews, but their Muslim populations. “Christian” Europe’s relationship with the Jews had at long last entered the peaceful pastures of mutual respect. Statistics gathered in France, with the largest Jewish population in the European Union numbering at 600,000, had only been pointing to steadily decreasing acts of anti-Semitism.

That there has been a shift over the past year and a half is becoming increasingly clear. On the other hand, anti-Muslim violence in France especially has never stopped increasing ever since the events that led to the founding of the anti-racist group “SOS-Racisme” in 1984. Still, detailed investigation by public associations or NGOs into “intolerance towards Islam” has occurred at a far lower rate. This is why the study drafted by France’s Commission Nationale Consultative des Droits de l'Homme (CNCDH-National Consultative Commission on Human Rights) is timely, and the Le Monde article on the subject deserving of a translation.

It would require a long paper, a carefully argued one refined through respectful inferences, to distinguish today’s anti-Jewish acts in Europe from the long history of anti-Semitism. As the case so often is, however, the longer the analysis the more diluted the point. Let it suffice for the present purposes to say that prior to 2002, acts of racial violence were primarily aimed at France’s 4-5 million strong North-African Muslim population. Since 2002, France and Europe’s Jews have been increasingly targeted--though nothing suggests that racist acts have decreased against Muslims. The point here is not to determine who might or might not be the greater victim. The task is to give a just hearing to anyone against whom individual, collective and/or institutional discrimination is committed, and use of the measure of the law to act on it.

In the background to current European frustrations is the paralysis of moves to found a Palestinian state. The European Union, lest North-American pundits forget, has contributed the major share of funds to building the infrastructure the Palestinian Authority (PA) in view of what only recently was planned to be an independent Palestinian State. To this day, the EU remains the most important financial donor to the Palestinians.

Under the pretext of first fighting the Intifada, then Hamas, and finally alleged PA-supported terrorism, the Sharon government in 2001 undertook the complete dismantling of the Palestinian Authority infrastructure. In September 2002, the IDF planted the Israeli on the PA compound in Ramallah. By mid-2003 the invasion and occupation of the Occupied Territories by the Israeli military had led to the death of over 3000 persons, with 20,000 wounded. This prolonged campaign, justified by the Sharon cabinet as measures to combat suicide bombings, has single-handedly frustrated and angered even the most moderate of Europeans.

On the ground, it has made the PA inoperative, confused and subjected at times to politically ill-advised decisions.

That Europe, and particularly France, has led the G7 in criticism addressed against Sharon clearly is set against a long, though far from consistent historical background with the Arabs. It all started with Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1799, at which time the future French emperor converted to Islam. European colonialism differed in content, though hardly in form, from what the US later recognized as the singular importance of Arab civilization once, that is, oil was discovered in the Persian Gulf region.

In the wake of de-colonization and the 30-year post-WW II economic boom in Western Europe, many nations called upon their former colonial subjects to help build the European reconstruction. By the end of the 1970s, this period of sustained growth had elapsed. Western European states such as France confronted themselves with a growing unemployment problem. The former French Socialist governments went on to recognize the difficulties in fully integrating immigrant workers and their families, a group whose ranks had by then been filled overwhelmingly by Muslims. Class differences, which have always been stark in France, now doubled up with cultural and religious distinctions. Exclusion began a foreboding course as a political buzzword in the land of Sartre.

Notwithstanding the recent terror attacks in Istanbul, and the torching of a Jewish school in a northern Parisian suburb, the severest strain of racism being experienced in Europe since the 1960s has been toward its immigrant Muslim populations. In England, with Pakistanis, in Germany, with the Turkish, and in France, Italy, Spain and Portugal, with immigrants from the al-Maghreb North African region: Moroccans, Algerians, Tunisians, Berbers, Cabyls, as well as Palestinians and sub-Saharan Muslims, especially from Mali.

As said, anti-Jewish terror attacks had steadily decreased since the 1970s. Their recent upsurge can and must be understood in the context of the Sharon government’s war against the Palestinians and its expansionist policies in the Occupied Territories, as well as the American invasion of Iraq. Indeed, it may come as no surprise that the recent spate of anti-Semitic, i.e. anti-Jewish, acts has reportedly been committed by Muslims. In that respect, one can only agree with political scientist, Nonna Mayer, a major anti-Semitism watchdog working at France’s CNRS (National Scientific Research Center), when she believes that a fair peace settlement in the Middle East is what can lead us to “hope for a reduction in tensions.”

By contrast, the anti-Muslim backlash to international terror attacks and the anger expressed toward murdered Europeans as a result of America’s War on Terror have led to increasing the malaise of Muslim citizens throughout the EU. Just as the average American cannot be identified with the oil-clan inspired state terrorism led by the Bush administration, nor can average Muslims be held globally accountable for the actions of extremists. If in mourning our dead our culture cannot understand and act on this analogy, the near future will only unleash more bloodshed.

Likewise, when confronted with an October poll that revealed widespread anger in the European Union against Sharon’s policies, Europeans must be weary of making all Israelis responsible for the current violence favored by its government. Upon publishing the poll details at the end of October, a Le Monde editorial issued precisely a call to restraint from the European populations on the expanding anger, issuing a major warning of how easily the dip occurs toward making an entire people responsible for the crimes of extremists. Contrary to Friedman’s claims, this is not a mere minority sentiment in Europe today.

For the likes of Friedman, as well as William Safire, another New York Times columnist, and indeed CNN’s Larry King, notwithstanding the help of fanatical pro-American European supporters of Israel, who often seem to be bereft of ideas on how to prevent the creation of a Palestinian State, such detail is a mere annoyance. In our times of media sensationalism, their path to simplification and victimization is the wrong one to take if one is really interested in finding out who bears the brunt of racism in contemporary Europe. The following translation of a recent Le Monde article will hopefully add some details to the picture, and broaden our perspective of the problems.