Dutch Member of the European Parliament Bastiaan Belder has urged the parliament to hold a debate on anti-Semitism, saying ‘’it's a shame that this has not been done before.’’
Addressing the annual conference of the European Coalition for Israel (ECI) in the European Parliament on Thursday, he deplored that ‘’living in fear is almost normal life for Jews in Europe’’ and denounced what he called the ‘’Israelisation’’ of anti-Semitism.
The conference took place one day after a deadly attack on a Jerusalem synagogue – in which five people were killed by Palestinian terrorists and after last week’s stabbing of a Jewish man in Antwerp, Belgium.
Speakers stressed the fact that today it is dangerous to wear a star of David or a kippah in the streets of Europe.
Branislaw Kripek, a Polish Member of the European Parliament and member of the European Conservatives and Reformists group (ECR) said that when four rabbis in a synagogue where killed,’’I immediately prayed that Israel would not respond with anger and hate, but will show an attitude of love.’’
‘’It has to be terribly difficult, but only this can change history. By that I mean history of human deeds towards each other's. Hatred is a crisis of values in the heart of individual as well as a nation. In core, this is a crisis of reverence to God. Love is stronger than that and prayer can move with God’s power,’’ he said.
‘’We all together must fight against hatred towards the Jewish community in Europe,’’ he said.
ECI leader Tomas Sandell said: "From history we have learned that it starts with the Jews but it never stops there. Friends, it is time to stand together again evil.’’
European Jewish communities have criticized European efforts to monitor anti-Semitism and some groups have called for the creation of a European equivalent of the US Office to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism.
In Israel, the Knesset Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Committee chairman Yoel Razvozov recently wrote to Belgian Ambassador John Cornet d’Elzius on Saturday night, saying that Jewish blood cannot continue to flow in the streets of Belgium.
“I am convinced that there is increased security around Jewish institutions in Belgium, but once again there was a serious act of violence against a Jew in Belgium,” the MK wrote. “A situation in which a rabbi is attacked on Saturday afternoon as he leaves synagogue is unacceptable.”
Razvozov wrote that the ease in which a passerby could draw a knife and slit a Jewish man’s throat shows how fragile Belgian Jewry’s safety is.
“This event, whether it was planned of improvised, should light a very large warning light,’’ he said.
It cannot be that in a matter of a few months, Jews blood is flowing in the streets of Belgium again,” he added.
Continental Europe has seen 14 deaths related to anti-Semitism since 2012, spanning France to Bulgaria to Belgium.
The various organizations present at the ECI conference sent a letter to the new EU Council President Donald Tusk and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini calling for action ''before hatred continues to spread.''