France, Israel to hold anti-Semitism meeting in Paris

From the Times of Israel

A policeman stands guards, on January 21, 2015, in front the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket where jihadist gunman Amedy Coulibaly killed four Jewish men on January 9, 2015 in Paris. (AFP/Eric Feferberg)

            Israel and France will hold a bilateral “experts dialogue” focused on taking greater action in the fight against resurgent anti-Semitism in Europe. 
Legislative and social media experts will join diplomats from both states in Paris on Sunday, to discuss effective methods and tools for combating the recent wave of hatred, following up on the 5th Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism, which was held in May in Jerusalem. 

The meeting comes amid a rise in incidents of anti-Semitism across Europe, including a deadly attack the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket in Paris in January.

The gathering, planned to be the first in a series of binational summits, is supported by the Israeli and French foreign Ministries.

“Anti-Semitism, unfortunately on the rise, is an international problem and a threat to democracy and the shared values of the civilized world,” Gideon Bachar, the director of the Department for Combating Anti-Semitism and Holocaust Remembrance in the Foreign Ministry, said in a statement.

“Time has come to move from words to actions in the struggle against this phenomenon,” he added.

An April report by the Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry found a 38 percent increase in anti-Semitic incidents from 2013 to 2014, including a doubling in the number of armed attacks.

Speaking at a World War II memorial ceremony last month, French President Francois Hollande warned of resurgent anti-Semitism, and linked Nazi hatred to the the Paris attacks.

The haters have “different faces and under different circumstances, but always with the same words, and the same intentions. They target innocents, journalists, Jews and policemen,” Hollande said.

Earlier this month, 15 members of radical Islamic group Forsane Alizza (Knights of Pride) went on trial in Paris after French prosecutors alleged they had planned terror attacks similar to the January attacks, and were holding a target list of kosher supermarkets.