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December 5, 2003/Kislev 10 5764, Vol. 56, No.11
Anti-Semitism report released despite protests
TOBY AXELROD
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
BERLIN - In an act of defiance against the European Union, the main Jewish body in Europe has released an unpublished report that found rising anti-Semitism among Muslims in Europe.
Critics who want the study made public said the Vienna-based E.U. Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia was not prepared to deal with the sensitive subject of anti-Semitism among Muslims, who constitute Europe's largest minority. The E.U. department that commissioned the report said the data was too flawed to publish.
"We cannot accept that a study be confiscated on the grounds that it could create tensions," Serge Cwajgenbaum, secretary general of the European Jewish Congress, told JTA in a telephone interview, explaining the decision by EJC President Coby Benatoff to release the report without E.U. permission.
The furor that emerged last week around the E.U. decision to withhold the report reflects increasing concern among European Jewish groups for their safety. It also raises questions about the transparency of an organization that is meant to fight discrimination against all minorities in Europe.
The report was prepared last year for the Monitoring Center, but it was not released after its completion in February, and the Monitoring Center disclosed recently that it was preparing a new report to replace the first one.
Those who released the report into the public arena insist they are not trying to spread fear.
"Most of the Muslims in Europe, and particularly in France, are not anti-Semitic," said Francois Zimeray, a French member of the E.U. Parliament. "They are looking for integration for themselves and they are looking for peace in the Middle East."
But, he said, "this study shows how deep the link is in Europe between criticism of Israel and anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. It also shows how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict fuels anti-Semitism and how this conflict is used by some to organize the revival of old European Christian anti-Semitic myths."
Cwajgenbaum said other attempts to address the problem of growing anti-Semitism had failed.
"We have approached governments on a national level and on a European level," he said. "And in spite of good will and good intentions, the result is that Jews are still being threatened, which means that more has to be done. And this is one of the reasons why," he said, the EJC "decided to circulate this document."
The report, "Manifestations of Anti-Semitism in the European Union," prepared by Berlin's Center for Research on Anti-Semitism for the Monitoring Center, has been withheld for the past 10 months.
The Monitoring Center insists it withheld the report on the basis of quality. It is preparing a fuller report to be released in early 2004.
But critics suspect the real reason for withholding the report is political.
Finished just before the war in Iraq began last spring, the report found an increase in anti-Semitic crimes committed by Europeans of Arab or Muslim background, as well as by some left-wing extremists and anti-globalization activists.
The European Jewish Congress would not say how it obtained a copy of the report, which it released Dec. 1 in English on the official Web site of the French Jewish community, www.crif.org. It was expected to be available on the Web sites of Jewish organizations in all 15 E.U. member countries.
The World Jewish Congress joined in the effort almost immediately. "We are e-mailing it to virtually anyone we know," Elan Steinberg, the WJC's executive vice president, said in an interview. "We think the suppression of this study was an act of intellectual dishonesty and moral treachery, and if the E.U. won't release its own poll, we will do it for them."
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