Europes New Problem With AntiSemitism

Anti-Semitism isn't just a problem for

Europe's Jews. It's a problem for Europe.

BY ELISA Massimino -DECEMBER 16, 2014

July 11, a mob firebombed a synagogue outside Paris, one of

eight anti-Semitic attacks in France that week. Later that month,

attackersthrew Molotov cocktails at a synagogue in Wuppertal,
Germany, and in Hamburg thugs beat an elderly Jewish man at a
pro-Israel rally. Those attacks, among many others this past summer,
followed the shooting in May that killed four people at the Jewish
Museum of Belgium in Brussels. These are the worst times since the
Nazi era, Dieter Graumann, the president of Germanys Central
Council of Jews, told the Guardian in August.
Several factors, including the intensifying violence in the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, have contributed to the resurgence of anti-Semitism across Europe.
But perhaps none is as toxic or frightening as the ascendance of far-right
political parties. These groups are not just bad for Jews; they are bad for
Europe. The ascendant far right are equal-opportunity haters, demonizing
Muslims, Roma, sexual minorities, socialists, and immigrants, as well as
Jews. They openly promote hatred, division, and exclusion, threatening the
economic and political systems of countries still reeling from the financial
crisis. And as the formation of a far-right block in the European Parliament
becomes more likely, the risk that these parties will destabilize not only
their own countries but the European Union itself a crucial U.S. ally and
trading partner is serious.

Parties like Frances National Front and the Party for Freedom in the
Netherlands arent merely Euroskeptics they are Euro-enemies that

oppose the very ideals that undergird a unified Europe. Ranging from
nationalist to openly fascist, these parties receive relatively little public
support. But in countries like Hungary and Greece, they have exploited
economic distress and anti-immigrant animus to become influential, and
not only at the national level. In elections in May, 59 far-right candidates
from 14 countries won seats in the European Parliament. Ruling parties in
many of these countries have been negligent at best in opposing
extremists. At worst, they have indulged and empowered them.
Ostensibly opposed to the far right, mainstream politicians have embraced
some of their policies and played to the prejudices fueling them. Thats
precisely whats happened with Hungarys Jobbik party, which describes
itself as the EUs most successful radical nationalist party. Already the
second-strongest party in Hungary, Jobbiks popularity continues to grow.
Last spring, it won three seats in the EU Parliament and, after obscuring its
extremist ideology with an anti-corruption message, won more than 20
percent of the vote in national parliamentary elections. But there should be
no mistaking the partys true nature: In 2012, one of its leaders called for a
list of Jews in the government, claiming they pose a national security risk.
Another claimed that the Israeli occupation that controls Hungary uses
the Roma as a biological weapon.Pollster Andras Kovacs notes a clear
correlation between Jobbiks rise and the prevalence of anti-Semitism in
Hungary.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his ruling Fidesz party were evidently
taking notes. Since his election in 2010, Orban has essentially co-opted
parts of Jobbiks agenda, promoting Hungarian ethnic nationalism as part of
a broad move to the right. By the end of 2012, Fidesz had implemented 12
of Jobbiks policy priorities, including a measure requiring students to
visitHungarian territories seized from us and a Roma-targeted measure
requiring home inspections of people receiving social welfare benefits.
Orban has also come under fire from Hungarian Jewish groups for
commissioning a World War II monument that ignores Hungarys complicity
in the Holocaust. There are no longer any clear boundaries between the
thinking of Fidesz and Jobbik, says historian Gyorgy Dalos.
Meanwhile, Orban plays a double game, denouncing anti-Semitism one
moment and catering to it the next. At a 2013 meeting of the World Jewish
Congress (WJC) in Budapest, Orban condemned anti-Semitism but rejected
WJCs call to criticize Jobbik. And in the summer, he selected a notorious
anti-Semite, Peter Szentmihalyi Szabo, to serve as ambassador to Italy.
Facing criticism, Szabo ultimately withdrew from the position. But by
selecting him, Orban delivered a message of solidarity with the far right.
Its difficult to know whether these moves have sparked an increase in
violent hate crimes, since the Hungarian government, like many in Europe,
fails to keep reliable statistics. But there is no doubt that the mounting
ethnic nationalism and anti-Roma rhetoric are exacerbating hatred that has

already led to a number of violent attacks. A spree of hate crimes in 2008

and 2009killed six Roma Hungarians, including a 4-year-old boy, and
wounded 55 people. Nearly all were Roma.
Some 600 miles to the south, in austerity-ravaged Greece, Jobbik and Fidesz
may have met their match in fascism. Golden Dawn, an overtly Naziglorifying party, came in third in both Greeces 2012 national elections and
the 2014 European parliamentary elections, despite promoting views so
extreme that even Jobbik refuses to ally with the group. In Greece, where
there are fewer than 5,000 Jews, anti-Semitism is less part of a practical
program than a marker of white supremacy a sign of fascist street cred.
No European party of comparable size is as openly anti-Semitic as Golden
Dawn. Ilias Kasidiaris, a member of the Greek parliament and a leader of
the party, reportedly sports a swastika tattoo and has read from the
notoriousProtocols of the Elders of Zion a piece of early-twentiethcentury anti-Semitic propaganda that describes a fake plan for Jewish world
domination on the floor of the parliament. We are ready to open the
ovens, said one Golden Dawn parliamentary candidate in March 2013,
expressing his desire to purge Greece of migrants. We will turn them into
soap.
While taking measure of the groups brutality is difficult due to the
negligence or alleged complicity of law enforcement, reports implicate
Golden Dawn in beatings, torture, and murder of migrants and other

minorities. A 2013 investigation by a Supreme Court deputy prosecutor

reported that the partys operational wing is specifically charged with
carrying out violent attacks against those deemed the partys enemies.
Prime Minister Antonis Samaras and the ruling center-right New Democracy
Party were slow to confront Golden Dawn. New Democracy officials, in fact,
use Golden Dawn members as bodyguards, and there are reports of an
ongoing relationship between the parties, as well as evidence that Golden
Dawn has received the support of business executives, the police, and
bishops in the Orthodox Church. In August, Human Rights First released a
report that uncovered some of these connections, including a New
Democracy-affiliated businessmans funding of Golden Dawn.
Late last year, the government finally launched a criminal investigation of
Golden Dawn. In October, authorities recommended indicting 70 people,
including all of Golden Dawns MPs, in connection with violent attacks
against immigrants. But even if these prosecutions are successful, its
unclear whether they will stunt Golden Dawn. While the government should
be commended for finally recognizing the threat to public safety posed by
the party and acting accordingly, some say it is nothing more than a
politicized effort to harm a rival. To make matters worse, a video leaked in
the spring showed an aide to the prime minister telling Kasidiaris that his
boss initiated the criminal probe because he feared losing votes to Golden
Dawn.

Its no coincidence that Jobbik, Golden Dawn, and most extremist parties in
Europe support Russia. (Golden Dawn Leader Nikolaos Michaloliakos says
Greece and Russia are natural allies.) The far right shares President
Vladimir Putins espousal of traditional values and his opposition to the EU
and the United States. And despite Russias historic anti-fascism, Putin has
good reason to return the support and the anti-Semitism of his far-right
allies doesnt appear to be a deal-breaker. Political scientist Mitchell A.
Orenstein says Putin hopes to destabilize his foes and install in Brussels
politicians who will be focused on dismantling the E.U. rather than enlarging
it. Recently, Frances National Front whose leader, Marine Le Pen, has
effusively praised Putin received a major loan from a Russian bank. (Le
Pen has been trying to cleanse her party of its well-earned reputation for
anti-Semitism, an effort that suffered a blow in June when her father,
National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, joked that Jewish singer Patrick
Bruel should face the ovens.) In Russia, even private banks are overseen by
the central bank, so its unlikely that the Kremlin did not have hand in the
loan. The New York Times reports that the loan is yet another sign of
growing closeness between Europes far-right parties and Russia.
Its clear that these far-right parties threaten more than the marginalized
populations they rail against. They threaten Europe and they must be
curtailed. Strong efforts to monitor, investigate, and prosecute hate crimes
will help.Ruling politicians and parties should also actively oppose with both

rhetoric and actions the resentments on which far-right parties feed, from
Islamophobia to anti-Semitism to anti-immigrant animus. Perhaps most
daunting of all, European governments must improve the dismal economic
conditions that make far-right parties appealing to the disaffected. But few,
if any, European governments have these capabilities. And those that do
seem to be losing their resolve.
In November, European governments gathered in Berlin to commemorate a
2004 agreement to make concrete steps to stem the tide of anti-Semitic
violence, such as legal reforms and Holocaust remembrance programs. U.N.
Ambassador Samantha Power, who led the U.S. delegation, struck the right
note, calling anti-Semitisman insidious threat to the European liberal ideal
that rose up when the Berlin Wall came down. Yet her European
counterparts dont seem up to the challenge: Only a third of the countries
that sent a foreign minister or other cabinet-level official in 2004 bothered
to send one in 2014.
It is not 1939 in Europe. But the recent rise in anti-Semitism is a serious
human rights problem, and unless the governments there get serious about
opposing extremism, its going to get worse. European governments are
kidding themselves if they believe they can be complacent about antiSemitism and its purveyors without weakening their democracies and the
social fabric of their countries. The failure to tackle this problem head-on
will lead to weakened countries, a weakened EU, a weakened trans-Atlantic

partnership, and a strengthened Russia. Those are outcomes none of us can

afford.

Posted by Thavam