The European Jewish Congress (EJC) has called on European Parliament President Martin Schulz to take action against British MEP Martina Anderson, who said Israeli and Jewish lobbyists were “all over this place like a rash” during a parliament meeting last week.

A former IRA convicted terrorist, Anderson represents Sinn Fein and Northern Ireland in the European Parliament. Chairwoman of the parliament’s delegation for relations with the Palestinian Legislative Council, she is known for her anti-Israel views.

She was moderating a discussion organised by the European Left political group dedicated to health issues and sanitation in Gaza and the West Bank when she compared the lobbying efforts of Israeli and Jewish groups to the efforts by Palestinian Authority groups.

“We know that the Palestinians do not have the same capacity or personnel as the Israelis do,” said Anderson. “The Israelis are all over this place like a rash – they are lobbying to no end.”

In a reaction to her comments, EJC President Mosher Kantor declared : ‘’Once again we hear deeply offensive statements about Jews from a European public figure and we demand action.”

“The comparison of Israelis, or more precisely Jews, to a disease is incitement and has its roots in neo-Nazi and far-Right discourse.”

“Thus demonstrating once again that the far-Left and the far-Right too frequently speak the same language and use the same terminology when referring to Jews or the Jewish State,” he said.

“Anderson’s views are rooted in a bloody ideology that was shaped when the IRA and the PLO were partners in terrorism and bloodshed,” Kantor continued. “She still uses terminology which invents a malevolent Jewish presence in the portals of power which are legally lobbied by 22 Arab and 57 Islamic states, so it is obviously not a realistic or factual approach she is taking by making these comments.”