Time for change

Editorial

Guess which nation Europeans say is the greatest threat to world peace?

Iraq? North Korea? Iran? Syria? Try Israel. The Jewish state came in first with 59 percent of votes in a recent poll. In a three-way tie for second place with 53 percent were Iran, North Korea and the United States.

EOS Gallup Europe surveyed 7,515 people in 15 countries in October; respondents could cast more than one "yes" vote.

Palestine didn't make the list of possible threats to world peace, according to pollsters, because it is not a recognized nation.

Are these findings mere poll data of the moment or are they an indication of embedded, systemic anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism?

When the results were released last week, European Commission President Romano Prodi was quick to say they reveal a bias against Israel that must be condemned. He added concern that the findings indicate continued European anti-Semitic prejudice.

Prodi's words ring all too true.

It's time for elected officials and communal leaders to get to work. Addressing anti-Semitic sentiment dating back centuries and anti-Zionist sentiment dating back decades is a formidable task. But it must be done. The European Union can make it part of their ambitious cross-cultural, cross-religious educational agenda.

One cannot avoid connecting the dots: from the Jews' expulsion by nearly every European nation, to their being herded into ghettos, to their slaughter in the Holocaust. Now, decades later, in the midst of ongoing Intifada violence, thugs attack Jews on their way home from synagogue; Jewish cemeteries are desecrated; newspapers print anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist political cartoons and editorials; and television networks broadcast biased reports condemning Israel.

Incredibly, German Parliament member Martin Hohmann, representing the Christian Democratic Union, on Oct. 3 labeled Jews a "nation of perpetrators" comparable to the Nazis and spoke in defense of Henry Ford Sr.'s anti-Semitic book, "The International Jew," published in 1921. What century is it again? When will Europeans learn to view the Jews as equals and part of their rich cultural and religious history?

It's time for Europe's leaders to condemn stilted, biased coverage in their media and to confront those who commit violence against Jews and Jewish institutions by word or deed.

When Reinhard Guenzel, head of the German army's Special Military Unit, praised Hohmann's speech, Defense Minister Peter Struck fired him. This is a good start. The Christian Democratic Union could follow Guenzel's lead by removing Hohmann from power.

It's time for European leaders to sanction those who attempt to breathe new life into the vile anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism that continue to tarnish their continent.

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