WJC puts shelved EU anti-Semitism study on web
( 2003-12-03 09:27) (Agencies)
The World Jewish Congress made public Tuesday a disputed anti-Semitism report kept under wraps by the European Union and accused the EU of not facing up to anti-Jewish sentiment among Muslim immigrants in Europe.
The WJC and Jewish community organizations in the 15-nation EU put the report on their Web sites even though it has not been released by the EU's European Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), which commissioned the study.
The report was also posted on at least one European news Web site, that of Danish television station TV2 (http://gfx.tv2.dk/images/Nyhederne/Pdf/report_en.pdf).
The EUMC has denied accusations in the European press that it had shelved the report because it singled out Muslims immigrants and pro-Palestinian groups as the main culprits.
"We think the failure of the EU to release it until now was an act of intellectual dishonesty and cowardice," said Elan Steinberg, executive vice president of the WJC.
"To be candid, I think they are not prepared to deal with the sensitive subject of anti-Semitism among Muslims, who constitute Europe's largest minority," he told Reuters in a phone interview from his New York office.
Steinberg did not say how the EWJC obtained the study, which has been published in excerpts in some European media.
The WJC and the affiliated European Jewish Congress said the report was available in English on Web sites including those of the French umbrella group CRIF (www.crif.org), Britain's Board of Deputies of British Jews (www.bod.org.uk) and the Central Council of Jews in Germany (www.zentralratdjuden.de).
YOUNG MUSLIMS BLAMED
A statement on the EUMC Web site said the study, drawn up by the respected Center for Research on Anti-Semitism at Berlin's Technical University, was withheld because it was substandard and would be reworked before being issued early next year.
The Berlin center has denied its work was flawed.
In the report as posted on the Internet, the Berlin center said a rise in anti-Semitic violence in the first half of 2002 was committed primarily by right-wing extremists, radical Islamists and young Muslims, mainly of Arab descent.
"Physical attacks on Jews and the desecration and destruction of synagogues were acts often committed by young Muslim perpetrators in the monitoring period," the report said.
"Many of these attacks occurred either during or after pro-Palestinian demonstrations, which were also used by radical Islamists for hurling verbal abuse," it said.
The report noted anti-Semitic remarks heard at pro- Palestinian and anti-globalization rallies and added: "Often this generated a combination of anti-Zionist and anti-American views that formed an important element in the emergence of an anti-Semitic mood in Europe."
It said Europe's Jews were "closely associated with the state of Israel and its politics. It can be said that the native Jews have been made 'hostages' of Israeli politics."
News of the EUMC report came after the EU executive published a poll in early November showing 59 percent of those Europeans polled saw Israel as the main threat to world peace -- a finding Israel took as proof of anti-Semitism in Europe.
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