Europe's Toothless Reply to Anti-Semitism
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe just concluded a conference in Berlin on anti-Semitism, attended by 55 countries. Although the meeting was convened with much fanfare to deal with the disturbing rise of anti-Semitism in democratic Europe, the conference ultimately ended with little more than a toothless declaration that failed to create the new institutions necessary to effectively combat the problem. That anti-Semitism has begun to flourish again during the last few years cannot be doubted.
The data are clear that the breadth and depth of anti-Semitic belief are substantial and have been increasing, after steady decline during the postwar period. In one survey of 10 European countries, between 40% and 60% of respondents in eight of those countries said the primary national loyalty of their own country's Jews was to Israel.
The degree of anti-Semitic expression -- often using code words, especially those that cloak it as harsh criticism of Israel -- dwarfs anything seen over the previous half a century.
And the eruption of anti-Semitic conduct, of violence against Jews and their institutions in many European countries, including France and Germany, has turned Jewish institutions into fortresses and created among Jews a bunker-like mentality.
The average annual number of anti-Semitic incidents in France was 10 during the 1990s; from 2000 to 2002, it was 120. Many Jews today avoid outward manifestations of their Jewishness in public, such as wearing kippas or Stars of David, lest they or their children be attacked for no other reason than that they are Jews. Without continuous police protection for their institutions and leaders, Jews would be intolerably vulnerable. It is no wonder that 33% to 45% of French Jewry, the largest Jewish community in Europe outside of Russia, say they would consider emigrating.
The causes of the resurgence of anti-Semitism are many and vary from country to country. They include the lifting of political and social taboos on anti-Semitic expression, which has unleashed simmering anti-Semitism; the existence of large Islamic populations in Europe that have defined Jews as their enemies; the resurgence of the political right and, in Germany in particular, the resentment of continued discussion of the Holocaust; the availability of the Middle East conflict as a tool for anti-Semites to incite prejudice against Jews; and the permissive atmosphere in Europe, where political and intellectual leaders fail to speak out forcefully against anti-Semitism and where governments conceal the magnitude and danger of anti-Semitism and fail to vigorously combat it.
