World Jewish News

Ira Forman, US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, speaking to the media Thursday in Brussels.

Dramatic rise of anti-Semitism in Europe: US Special Envoy meets Jewish communities representatives in Brussels

Establishing on EU or national level a body that would deal with the dramatic rise of anti-Semitism highlighted once again earlier this month by the attack against a kosher supermarket in Paris in which four people were killed, is a measure encouraged by the US administration.
In a speech to a OSCE conference on anti-Semitism in Europe that took place in Berlin last November, US Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, urged European leaders to appoint high-level envoys to focus on anti-Semitism.
In the US, such a body exists already since 2004 in the person of a US Department of State Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism. This Special Envoy is directly appointed by the US President with the aim of advancing US foreign policy on anti-Semitism.
‘’I inform State Secretary John Kerry about the state of anti-Semitism in the world where I am regularly travelling,’’ Ira Forman, the current US Special Envoy to Combat Anti-Semitism, said Wednesday in Brussels where he met several representatives of Jewish communities in Europe who presented the situation in their respective countries, at the invitation of Rabbi Menachem Margolin, leader of the European Jewish Association.
‘’We can read all press articles on the topic but I feel that I never get better inside about what is happening than when I talk to Jewish leaders and members of the communities. I hear their particular concerns and how they see solutions,’’ he told journalists from the European Jewish Press and The Wall Street Journal Europe. ‘’I was in southern France yesterday. People were shocked by what happened in Paris and I hear more and more talk about Jews thinking of emigrating,’’ he added.
Figures released this week by CRIF, the umbrella Jewish group in France,showed that reported anti-Semitic incidents have doubled in 2014. These anti-Jewish incidents make up almost 50% of all racist attacks registered in the country while Jews form only 1% of the total population.
‘’It is important to mention that I heard praise about France’s political leadership’s forceful reaction to anti-Semitism, even before the Paris events.’’
‘’The United States is deeply committed to combating anti-Semitism but in no way it will do it alone. We need our democratic allies in Europe to help deal with this problem. But frankly our allies and the US together are not enough, we need the civil society in nations where Jews and other communities are threatened,’’ Forman said.
Anti-Semitism has different faces. ‘’While extreme-right Jobbik in Hungary is an openly anti-Semitic party with significant parliamentary representation, Hungarian Jews dot’t fear violence like in parts of Western Europe. Do you have this ‘old-style’ fascist anti-Semitism in Hungary while in France French Jews fear the violence coming from part of the Muslim community’’.
Asked about the link between anti-Semitism and anti-Israel attitudes resulting from the conflict with the Palestinians, Forman admits that criticism of Israel is legitimate ‘’even if you don’t agree with this criticism.’’
‘’But where it crosses the line and begins to impact anti-Semitism and US policy is when Israel and Zionism are deligitimized. Defaming Israel is crossing the line. And saying that what Israel does to the Palestinians is exactly what the Nazis did to the Jews that’s defamation. Israel should be treated like any other nation and not with double standards,’’ Forman stressed.

EJP