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September 17, 2004/Tishri 2 5765, Vol. 57, No. 3
Anti-Semitism action pushed
MATTHEW E. BERGER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
WASHINGTON - Politicians looking at what the United States can do to help quash a rise in international anti-Semitism are arriving at different conclusions.
Republicans in the U.S. Senate are leading an effort to raise awareness of the rise of anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist attacks in Europe and elsewhere.
At the same time, a bipartisan group of policy intellectuals is criticizing the Bush administration for not backing new efforts to monitor and combat anti-Semitism abroad.
While the re-emergence of international anti-Semitism is a phenomenon virtually no one in Washington disputes, opinions differ as to how to tackle it from here.
Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) is pushing legislation that would mandate an annual State Department report on anti-Semitism and what countries are doing to combat it. It also would create an office within the State Department to handle the issue.
"Unfortunately, anti-Semitism has had an appalling upsurge in many countries across the globe," Lantos told JTA. "It is my judgement, as the only Holocaust survivor in this Congress, that anti-Semitism deserves special attention."
The State Department opposes the legislation, arguing it already monitors anti-Semitism in other annual reports.
A group of 104 "prominent Americans," coordinated by the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, sent a letter on Sept. 13 to Secretary of State Colin Powell suggesting that the fight against anti-Semitism deserves "specific, focused attention," and expressing disappointment that the State Department opposes Lantos' legislation.
"This is, unfortunately, a historic and worldwide phenomenon," former Rep. Steve Solarz (D-N.Y.), a coordinator of the effort, told JTA. "We know what the consequences of anti-Semitism are."
Solarz is joined by Jack Kemp, a former secretary of Housing and Urban Development; Jeanne Kirkpatrick, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and James Woolsey, a former CIA director.
In its official comments on the Global Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, the State Department said that other department reports already touch on anti-Semitism, and that a report devoted solely to anti-Semitism "could erode our credibility by being interpreted as favoritism in human rights reporting."
The department also said that anti-Semitism issues already are coordinated out of the Office of the Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs.
Lantos said Powell told him he agrees with the department's position. A State Department spokesman was unavailable for comment.
Solarz and Lantos said they think global anti-Semitism warrants the same treatment as international human trafficking and the situation in Tibet, which are dealt with in specific State Department reports.
"The notion that Jews are singled out for special and preferential treatment is sort of insane," Lantos said. "Jews are singled out for persecution, and we need to prevent that."
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