HIGHEST ANTI-SEMITISM RATES IN 2 DECADES
Etgar Lefkovits
Jerusalem
Post, January 25, 2009
The number of anti-Semitic attacks around the world during Israel’s three-week military operation against Hamas in Gaza was up more than 300 percent compared to the same period last year, reaching a two-decade high, according to figures released Sunday by the Global Forum Against Anti-Semitism. The Israeli forum’s annual report…also cited the “conspicuous” comparisons being made between ’s actions against Hamas in
Gaza
and those of Nazi Germany during the Holocaust.
More than 250 anti-Semitic incidents were reported around the world…compared to 80 during the same period last year, according to the report. The bulk of the incidents were carried out in Western Europe and were led by local Muslims, including 100 each in and , the report found. The violent assaults included attacks against both synagogues and Jewish communities, as well as vandalism of privately owned Jewish property….
“Paradoxically, as interest in the Holocaust continues to grow around the world, we are also witnessing a rise in the provocative and cynical use of the Holocaust in attacking and Jews,” Yad Vashem chairman Avner Shalev said. “Our hope is that by making comprehensive, credible information about the Holocaust available in a number of languages, that we build a cadre of people who know what the Holocaust really was, who understand the realities and can serve as a buffer against those who would deny the Holocaust or make such manipulative comparisons that are so divorced from any semblance of reality,” he added.
In a related development, Yad Vashem announced Sunday that it would launch its Web site, as well as a YouTube channel, in Spanish this week…marking the fourth annual International Holocaust Remembrance Day, with the participation of Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos.
“The Holocaust has become the brand name of man’s inhumanity against mankind,” said Efraim Zuroff, chief Nazi hunter of the Los Angeles-based
Simon
Wiesenthal
Center
. “For some people it is the best way to get back at
and hit us where it hurts.… Our major challenge now and in the future is to protect and inoculate mainstream society from the fallacious distortions and inversions of the extremists who seek to manipulate the Holocaust for their own purposes.”
Separately, the New York-based Anti-Defamation League urged the leaders of several European countries on Sunday to publicly condemn “the explosion of anti-Semitic rhetoric” and Holocaust comparisons at anti-Israel rallies against the
Gaza
operation.… The ADL leaders wrote to the heads of eight countries—Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland—where “anti-Semitic displays have been present and condemnations from the highest level of government have been absent,” the organization said in a press release…. The document declared unambiguously that international developments or political issues, including those in or elsewhere in the
Middle East
, never justify anti-Semitism. Meanwhile, a renewed blast of anti-Semitic vitriol is expected to be aired at the Durban II United Nations World Conference, to be held in
Geneva
in April.…
(Greer Fay Cashman contributed to this report.)
