Poll: Europeans 'tired of Holocaust victim games'
JENNY HAZAN Jan. 27, 2004
jpost.com
Every third European feels Jews should stop playing "Holocaust victim" games, an Italian newspaper reported Monday. The poll came out on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, a day Israel this year dedicated to combating anti-Semitism.
The Corriere della Sera survey of nine European countries also found that 46 percent of those interviewed feel Jews are "different," and 71% of them urged Israel to withdraw from the territories. Nine percent of respondents do not "like or trust Jews," and 15% would prefer that Israel not exist.
Just over 68% said they believed Israel has a right to exist but that the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is "making the wrong choices."
Forty-eight percent of Europeans polled in Italy, France, Belgium, Austria, Spain, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany, and Britain said that Jews have "a particular relationship with money."
In all the countries, anti-Semitic sentiment was positively correlated with anti-Israel sentiment.
The number of people polled and the margin of error were not clear.
Also on Monday, the IDF General Staff held a discussion on the strategic threat posed by Islamic anti-Semitism.
On Sunday, Natan Sharansky, minister-without-portfolio for Diaspora and Jerusalem affairs, presented a report on anti-Semitism in 2003 at a Yad Vashem ceremony marking the designation of January 27 as Israel's National Day to Combat Anti-Semitism.
Unlike the 14 European countries that mark Holocaust remembrance on the 27th of this month, when Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated by the Red Army, Israel's day of remembrance takes place on the 27th of Nisan, the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto revolt.
"For the first time this year, we decided to mark January 27 as the day to combat anti-Semitism because we feel there is a very deep connection between remembering and facing the challenges of today," Sharansky said. "When cemeteries and synagogues are being burned and destroyed, not somewhere in the dark corners of the world, but in the middle of enlightened Europe, it is a problem that belongs to all of us."
The anti-Semitism report indicated a drop in anti-Semitic incidents worldwide alongside a dangerous convergence of traditional anti-Semitism with the new anti-Semitism which demonizes the state of Israel.
At the ceremony, attended by 15 ambassadors and representatives from 14 other embassies, Sharansky and Yad Vashem officials unveiled a lesson plan titled, "Remembering the Holocaust and Combating Xenophobia." The plan's authors hope it will be used in international high school classrooms on Holocaust remembrance days. Sharansky also sent letters to all European education ministries to request their participation in the program.
"Anti-Semitism still exists, bubbling beneath the surface," Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev said. "It is becoming more and more legitimate to criticize Jews and Israel in a way that demonizes and dehumanizes Jews at large. This disease is a very dangerous threat, not only to Jews, but to Europe at large. It touches the very basic issues of our societies, our nations, and our civilization."
"Anti-Semites are anti-Semites because they are anti-Semites," British Ambassador Simon McDonald told the crowd. "It is a completely unreasonable and irrational position. So it is our duty as governments to make sure that they cannot act on their anti-Semitism."
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