Europe & anti-Semitism

CORDOBA, Spain, June 8 (Reuters) – Anti-Semitism is on the rise in Europe, particularly in Russia and Britain, while many governments are failing to keep pledges to fight the trend, delegates to an international conference said on Wednesday.
Almost half the 55 members of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) missed commitments to provide data to track hate crimes made at a major conference in Berlin last year, OSCE Chairman Dimitrij Rupel told a follow-up meeting in the southern Spanish city of Cordoba. “It is not a question of whether they are not following up properly — they haven’t even done the basic reporting,” complained George Pataki, governor of New York state and head of the U.S. delegation to the conference.”

“The OSCE’s Berlin conference in April 2004 ended with a ringing pledge to fight resurgent anti-Semitism in Europe by bolstering law enforcement, boosting Holocaust education and stepping up monitoring of attacks on Jews and their property. But the OSCE’s special representative on combatting anti-Semitism, Gert Weisskirchen, said there was still a lot to be done to implement the Berlin agreement while available data suggested anti-Semitism had worsened in 2004. “If you had a full picture, it would show there is growing tide of anti-Semitism all over the OSCE,” he told Reuters, adding the Russian federation showed a worrying intensity of anti-Jewish violence. “We have seen an increase in incidents: especially in Russia, Great Britain and some other places.” Weisskirchen said it was too early to predict a trend this year, although there may have been a decline in anti-Semitic incidents in the first quarter.. “

“North African immigration, job insecurity from globalisation and tensions caused by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were fueling a wave of anti-Semitism in Europe, experts said. Beate Winkler, director of the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia, told Reuters that anti-Jewish violence had waned over the past year in France thanks to a government crackdown after several years of rises. A March 2004 report by the centre noted an upturn in racism in France, German, Belgium and the Netherlands. “Europe is at a crossroads,” she said. “There are positive and negative developments. There is an increase in the racism, but the issue is being taken much more seriously.” “We have on the one hand violence from young male immigrants from North Africa, but also right-wing extremists. We have new and old forms of anti-Semitism at the same time, so it’s an extremely complex problem.”