UK: The Labour Party has officially become institutionally antisemitic

Via Archbishop Cranmer blog:

It has long been suspected that Jeremy Corbyn has a problem with Jews (if not known that he is antipathetic to Judaism, defends antisemitic conspiracy theorists, and accommodates Jew-hatred), but to learn that the Labour Party itself now inclines to its leader’s worldview is somewhat disturbing.

Yesterday Labour’s NEC approved its organisational sub-committee decision not to endorse the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism. So Labour does not accept:

Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.

The concern is that such a definition embraces the Jewish people’s right to self-determination, and would, for example, inhibit the expression or belief that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour. Labour doesn’t want to muddy the water between Jew-hatred (which is antisemitic and racist) and Israel-hatred (which is enlightened and progressive), so the IHRA definition has been rejected. Instead, Labour is going to consult on developing its own definition. […] 

You can’t imagine Labour adopting a definition of ‘Islamophobia‘ which Muslims could not accept, or a definition of ‘homophobia‘ which LGBT people could not accept. Jeremy Corbyn would be immensely concerned if Muslims and gays suddenly starting deserting his party of such an issue, and no doubt Labour MPs would act swiftly to stem the flow. So why single out the Jews for special treatment?

Unless…

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Greece: Turkey’s rise sparks new friendship between Israel and Greece

Via The Wall Street Journal:

It’s hard to find a better example of how geopolitical realities trump ideology than the blossoming friendship between Israel and Greece.

As the leader of Greece’s leftist Syriza party before gaining office in 2015, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called to expel Israel’s ambassador and close Greek ports to U.S. arms shipments heading to Israel.

Syriza’s leftist allies in Europe still demonize Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing government. Many of them back the boycott, sanctions and disinvestment campaign against Israel.  

Not Mr. Tsipras—who intensified cooperation with Israel instead. The leaders of Israel, Greece and Cyprus are holding regular trilateral summits—the fourth was in May—and the Israeli air force uses Greek airspace for training. The three countries, plus Egypt, are jointly developing the eastern Mediterranean’s natural-gas reserves.

The key reason for all this: Turkey. 

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Holland: Ministers say Israel’s deduction of money paid to terrorists by Palestinians is unwise

Via Bad News from the Netherlands blog:

Israel has decided to withhold from tax transfers to the Palestinian Authority payments to terrorists and their families by the PA. In answer to parliamentary questions, ministers Blok and Kaag reply that the Dutch government considers this Israeli decision unwise.  

(Suggested Dutch parliamentary question: If someone kills Dutch ministers, will the Dutch government pay him or her for that?)

read more in Dutch @ CIDI.NL

German Jewry: a bleak future

Via Jewish Policy Center (Benjamin Weinthal):

[…] A second telling example of the growing—or perhaps continued—indifference was the April attack by a Syrian refugee on Adam Armush, an Israeli Arab, because he dared wear a kippa (yarmulke) on a Berlin street.

The assault triggered headlines in the German and foreign media because there was video evidence of the attack. Der Spiegel’s influential columnist Jakob Augstein blamed the Israeli for having “come up with the idea to wear the kippa and use it as a provocation.” Augstein—who inherited significant ownership in the Spiegel news organization—has played a key role in mainstreaming media anti-Semitism. The Simon Wiesenthal Center ranked him ninth on its “2012 Top Ten Anti-Semitic/Anti-Israel Slurs” list for his bigoted statements.

Armush told the Deutsche Welle news outlet: “I am not Jewish, I am an Israeli and I grew up in Israel in an Arab family,” adding, “It was an experience for me to wear the skullcap and go out into the street yesterday.” He said he filmed the attack “for the police and for the German people and even the world to see how terrible it is these days as a Jew to go through Berlin streets.”

For observers of Jewish life in Germany, the anti-Semitic attack on Armush came as no surprise. In 2016, the spokesman for Hamburg’s nearly 2,500-member Jewish community, Daniel Killy, said a breakdown in security in the Federal Republic has created a highly dangerous situation for Jews.

“No, we are no longer safe here,” Killy told the tagesschau.de news outlet. Killy said the collapsing sense of state power, excesses of the extreme right-wing, the loss of political credibility, and “the terrible fear of naming Islamism as such” have all contributed to creating a climate of insecurity for Jews.

The response to the attack on Armush was a call for an anti-anti-Semitism protest. “Berlin wears the kippa” was the name of the feel-good rally on April 25 against Jew-hatred. It attracted some 2,000 people, according to press reports. The real number of attendees is believed to have been fewer than 1,500, in a city of 3.7 million. The demonstration took place under conditions that resembled those in a maximum-security prison.

A second protest against anti-Semitism in the largely Muslim neighborhood of Neukölln in Berlin had to be called off after a mere 20 minutes because of the anticipated violence of pro-Palestinian counter-demonstrators.

To put things in perspective, roughly 150,000 people marched in Berlin in 2015 against a planned free trade deal between the United States and Europe.

Germans frequently invoke the phrase “nip it in the bud” at Holocaust remembrance events when referring to anti-Semitism. Dead Jews trigger widespread commemoration events across the country, but the fight to stop anti-Semitism against living Jews limps—at best—on both legs. A detached observer might ask of modern Germany: Have we learned anything from the Holocaust? […] 

Germany’s woefully inadequate system for classifying anti-Semitic crimes is also cause for alarm. As anti-Semitism rises in the country, the authorities continue to classify Islamic-animated anti-Semitism as a “politically motivated right-wing extremist crime.” A telling example, cited in Die Welt, was an outbreak of Hezbollah-related anti-Semitism that was registered as right-wing extremism. 

Supporters of the Hezbollah terrorist organization participated in an anti-Israel march during Operation Protective Edge in 2014. Twenty Hezbollah supporters yelled the Nazi slogan “Sieg Heil” (Hail Victory) at a group of pro-Israel activists in Berlin. The “Sieg Heil” call violates Germany’s anti-hate law and was designated as a far-right extremist crime.

The result is German whitewashing of the leading cause of lethal anti-Semitism in Europe: jihadi-based eliminatory anti-Semitism.

The Holocaust survivor Charlotte Knobloch, who is head of Munich’s Jewish community, said in 2017: “The Muslim associations have for decades not only done nothing [to combat anti-Semitism], rather they have allowed anti-Semitic hate preachers from Muslim countries to bring their anti-Jewish ideology into German mosques and into the heads of young Muslims.”

Germany’s tiny Jewish community—100,000 among a population of over 82 million in the Federal Republic—is in dire straits today and faces an increasingly precarious future. Chancellor Merkel and mainstream German society would do well to remember the words of the British historian Sir Ian Kershaw: “The road to Auschwitz was built by hate but paved with indifference.” Acute indifference is now the norm in Germany.

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Austria: State May Require Jews to Register to Buy Kosher Meat

Via Haaretz:

A regional politician in Austria defended a plan to limit access to kosher meat, conditioning its sale on permits that would be individually issued to observant Jews.

The Wiener Zeitung daily reported Tuesday about the draft decree in the state of Lower Austria, one of nine states that make up the federal Republic of Austria. Gottfried Waldhäusl, the cabinet minister in the state government of Lower Austria who is in charge of animal welfare and several other portfolios, defended the plan as necessary “from an animal welfare point of view.”

Oskar Deutsch, the president of the Jewish Community in Vienna, warned that, in practice, the plan would require compiling a list of Jews, which he called “like a negative Aryan clause,” referencing racist laws passed by Nazi Germany and implemented in Austria after its merger with Germany in 1938. 

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French Ambassador: Israel should protect Gaza border 'without killing'

Via The Jerusalem Post:

"There are extremely violent protests in France [as well]", said French ambassador to Israel Hélène Le Gal in an interview with Maariv when asked what would France do if it had to deal with similar security concerns as Israel does, "and yet nobody is killed."

The interview was published on Friday ahead of Bastille Day (July 14'th). Le Gal discussed the French position regarding the American peace program, Iran, and the strong relations France and Israel enjoy.

Yohann Taïeb (MondeJuif.org) replied that on October 26, 2014, Rémi Fraisse, a 21-year-old botanist, was killed by French police during violent protests against the construction of a dam at Sivens.

Columnist and blogger Véronique Chemla tweeted:

"These are not "protests" in the Gaza Strip: no banners, no flyers, etc. It's the pursuit of jihad with the intent to kill the Yahoud (Jews).

EU ambassador summoned for a reprimand for "interfering with Israeli legislation"

Via EJP:

"It is not enough that the EU finances NGOs that strive to undermine the State of Israel and finance illegal construction.it is now interfering with Israeli legislation. Apparently they do not understand that Israel is a sovereign state."

This was the wording of a press statement issued late Thursday by the Israeli Prime Minister Media Advisor informing that he has instructed the Foreign Ministry Director General to summon the EU Ambassador to Israel, Emanuele Giaufret, for a second reprimand and that "he also intends to take additional steps."

The diplomatic reprimand follows a report that the ambassador had lobbied members of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, to vote against a bill being advanced by the Likud-led coalition government to enshrine Israel’s status as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

The European Union is pressuring Israel not to pass the law, claiming one of the clauses is "racist," and if passed would harm Israel’s international standing.

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France keeps blackening Israel and is the most dangerous country in Europe for Jews

Via Algemeiner (Manfred Gerstenfeld):

(…) When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Macron in Paris in April, the French president told him that the relocation of the US Embassy to Jerusalem “led to people dying and did not advance peace.” With this transparently manipulative statement Macron showed his skills in distorting the truth in a few words. What provoked the violence was the terror organization Hamas’ initiative to send civilians to the border and mix terrorists among them. Among the more than 115 Gazans killed by Israel, more than half were confirmed terrorists. That many of those killed were terrorists was confirmed by Hamas itself.

France also supported an UN Security Council resolution which called for protective measures for Palestinians, but didn’t mention Hamas. Deputy Israeli Minister Michael Oren summarized it in a tweet: “Shame on France for supporting it. French government cannot say it’s against anti-Semitism and vote for this anti-Semitic resolution.”

During the violence in April, France urged Israel to show restraint and told Israel that it was its duty to protect civilians. Their spokesmen knew full well that Hamas had sent terrorists to mingle among the civilians and that many civilian demonstrators did not have peaceful intentions. This French behavior was in particular hypocritical because of the many deadly terrorist attacks by Arabs in their country. The most deadly took place in Paris in 2015 and resulted in 130 deaths. In 2016, 86 people were killed in Nice.

When the IDF Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Ronen Manelis spoke to French parliamentarians this month, he reminded them that along with other countries, French donations had helped Hamas to build terror capabilities.

French reactions to the Gaza violence have deep roots in Middle Eastern history. In 2008, David Pryce-Jones published his book, Betrayal: France, the Arabs and the Jews. He had access to the archives of the French Foreign Ministry, better known as the Quai d’Orsay. His conclusion can be summarized as: France throughout modern history has done more damage to the Middle East than any other country. (…)

There are other aspects which should be taken into account when judging the French blackening statements of Israel. France is the most dangerous country in Europe for Jews. Of the fifteen Jews killed for ideological reasons in Europe — of which the perpetrators, all Muslims, are known — twelve were murdered in France in six different attacks. The two mass attacks by violent Muslims on synagogues in the EU were both carried out in France, in Paris and Sarcelles. [Also,  Frenchman Mehdi Nemmouche perpetrated an attack at the Jewish Museum in Brussels in 2014, which left four dead.]

Frequently exposing the ongoing French hypocritical blackening of Israel is unlikely to stop it, but it may make it less worthwhile for the country’s official perpetrators.

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UK: The weird Israel hatred world of Claudia Webbe

Via Harry's Place:

Claudia Webbe’s elevation to chair of the Labour party’s disputes panel is causing controversy. No wonder:

But she stood by her decision to write a letter to the Guardian in defence of the former London Mayor in 2006 after he was suspended from the party for four weeks over his encounter with Mr Finegold.

Ms Webbe worked as an adviser to Mr Livingstone in 2000 and 2004 and, in the Guardian letter, said his suspension “smacked in the face of true democracy”.

“His history of work in the anti-racist movement is unquestionable,” she wrote in the letter.

Oliver Finegold is the Jewish journalist Livingstone compared to a “concentration camp guard” in 2005.

What a fine anti-racist, eh. Keep in mind that Livingstone had already earned notoriety in 2004 by inviting Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the hate preacher extraordinaire, to London. Al-Qaradawi duly told BBC Newsnight that he fully supported suicide bombing attacks on Israeli civilians. Jewish community leaders protested about the visit at the time.

Webbe went on to become an Islington Labour councillor. For a revealing look at her weird Islington world, try a Gaza meeting she chaired at the Finsbury Park Mosque in August 2014.

A tape of the meeting is available on YouTube. Webbe praises and identifies with the crowd, opening the meeting with this line: “This is a true unity meeting. This is about all of us.”

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Ireland: Israel slams ‘immoral’ bill banning trade with settlements

Via The Times of Israel:

Israel on Wednesday slammed an Irish bill that would outlaw the sale and import of settlement-produced goods, saying it was “immoral” and encourages terrorism.

“The Embassy of Israel is concerned by bills that further the divisions between Israel and the Palestinians. Legislation, which promotes a boycott of any kind, should be rejected as it does nothing to achieve peace but rather empowers the Hamas terrorists as well as those Palestinians who refuse to come to the negotiating table,” Israel’s mission in Dublin said in a press release. (…)

The government in Dublin — known to be one of the most pro-Palestinian governments in Europe — is opposed to the law, arguing that it is not legally entitled to curtail trade with Israeli companies based in the settlements.

“The Irish Government has always condemned construction of illegal settlement,” Foreign Ministry Simon Coveney tweeted on Tuesday. “But this Bill asks Irish govt to do something it is not legally empowered to do — trade is an EU competence, not an Irish one. FF [Fianna Fáil — The Republican Party] knows this — so this move is both opportunist and irresponsible.”

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Portuguese UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ ill-advised tweet

Update: UN Secretary-General António Guterres takes down ‘Kite’ tweet

Via Israelly Cool:

Maybe it is just me, but this tweet from UN Secretary-General António Guterres does not represent his finest moment.

Out of all the photos he could have chosen, he goes with one with kites in the background? Yup, #DignityIsPriceless. [Gazans send fire-starting kites into Israel]

Spain: 50 Spanish cities and regions have passed motions condemning Israel

Via Gatestone Institute (Soeren Kern):

Valencia, the third-largest city in Spain, has approved a motion to boycott Israel and slander it by declaring the city an "Israeli apartheid-free zone." The move comes days after Navarra, one of Spain's 17 autonomous communities, announced a similar measure. In all, more than 50 Spanish cities and regions have passed motions condemning Israel. The proliferating anti-Israel activism, driven by the rise to power of the political far-left, is establishing Spain as the EU member state most hostile towards the Jewish state.

The Valencian measure, introduced by the far-left party València en Comú, was approved during a plenary session of the city council on May 31. The motion, which commits the city to refrain from engaging in business contacts or cultural events with Israeli authorities or companies, aims at establishing Valencia as "a global reference for solidarity with the Palestinians."

The motion, which libelously describes Israel as an "apartheid regime," accuses the Jewish state of "colonialism," "racism," "ethnic cleansing," "tyranny," and "genocide." The measure, which claims to reflect the "dignity, solidarity and justness" of the Valencian people, was introduced by Neus Fábregas Santana, a city councilor whose Twitter feed reveals an obsession with demonizing and delegitimizing Israel.

Santana works closely with a group called BDS País Valencia, the local branch of a worldwide movement trying to delegitimize Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East.

BDS País Valencia is currently promoting a Spanish documentary about the Gaza Strip called "Gas the Arabs," a title that alleges, falsely, that the Jews in Israel are doing to the Arabs today what the Nazis in Germany did to the Jews during the Second World War. 

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UK: Parliamentary candidate posted about "Holocaust-mongers"

Via Guido Fawkes:

Earlier this week Labour’s parliamentary candidate in the marginal seat of North Swindon was forced to distance herself from a Twitter account which sent a string of shocking anti-Semitic tweets. Kate Linnegar denied all responsibility for the posts from a Swindon People’s Assembly account which used her face as the profile picture.  

Well, Guido has found some more posts on her personal Facebook page, which she definitely did post herself. The first link to an interview with Norman Finkelstein accuses moderate Labour MPs who criticised Naz Shah over her anti-Semitism scandal of being “Holocaust-mongers”, and defends Shah and Ken Livingstone.

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Portugal: Left-wing party 'freedom camp' calls for boycott of Israel

A radical left-wing political party in Portugal (Left Bloc - Bloco de Esquerda) is organising a "freedom camp" in Castelo de Bode. One of the workshops will be discussing the boycott of Israel and will "celebrate" Palestine. Israel are the only country targeted in this way by the Bloc.

Via Helena de Matos @ Blasfémias blog

Sweden: Top politician reported for claiming Jews are 'not Swedes'

It is estimated that there are between 15-20,000 Jews living in Sweden.

Via The Local Sweden:

One of the most senior members of the populist Sweden Democrats has been reported to the police after writing on Facebook that Jewish and Sami people were “not Swedish”.

Björn Söder, who is the deputy speaker of the Swedish parliament, made his argument on the Facebook page of Sweden’s Centre Party, as part of defence against accusations from the party’s leader Annie Lööf.

“Annie Lööf adversely affects the position of Jews and Sami in Sweden when she indirectly claims that they are Swedes,” he wrote.

“These groups have minority positions in Sweden just because they are not Swedes. Shame on you Annie Lööf for your racist attitude.” (…)

Söder accused Lööf of using “low” tactics and taking his reply out of its context, which was to defend himself against accusations of racism for earlier comments made in 2014.

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Germany/UK: Munich mayor accuses Rogers Waters of antisemitism

Via The Jerusalem Post (Benjamin Weinthal):

Mayor Dieter Reiter

Munich Mayor Dieter Reiter slammed Roger Waters, co-founder of the British band Pink Floyd, for his stoking of antisemitism against Israel, triggering an angry reaction from the singer on Friday.

Waters’s attorney demanded that Reiter delete his press statement accusing Waters of antisemitism. Reiter said Waters is responsible for “growing, intolerable antisemitic statements.”  

Reiters office said a city attorney will review Water's request.

Waters performed a concert on Wednesday in Munich’s Olympic Hall. Reiter said it was not possible to prevent the hall from being rented to Waters. However, Reiter said the Olympic Hall will not be rented to Waters in the future, due to his advocacy of the boycott, divestment, sanctions (BDS) campaign against the Jewish state.

Reiter said it “is important for me to make it unmistakably clear ahead of the concert that antisemitic propaganda of Roger Waters is neither welcome in Munich nor will it remain unanswered.”

The Munich city council passed a resolution that the mayor supported last year barring space in public facilities and finances for pro-BDS activity. Munich was the first German city to pass anti-BDS legislation.

Waters’s lawyer said Reiter’s allegations resemble a call to boycott him.

Waters himself has previously said he was the victim of the “Jewish lobby” that was “extraordinarily powerful.”

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Spain: In first, a Spanish state adopts BDS as policy

Via JTA:

Navarre became the first state in Spain to endorse the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. 

The motion voted on last month in Navarre, in northern Spain, received the support of all the parties represented in parliament except the center-right Popular Party, the ACOM pro-Israel advocacy wrote in a statement Friday. 

The motion passed on May 21 calls on the central government to “support any initiative promoted by the international BDS campaign.” It also calls on Spain to “suspend its ties with Israel “until that country ceases its policy of criminal repression of the Palestinian population.” 

Navarre is one of 17 autonomous communities — states with their own parliaments — that together make up quasi-federal Spain.  

Catalonia’s parliament last year declared independence from Spain, though Madrid declined to recognize the declaration. Navarre has a substantial Basque population and a strong separatist movement. 

The motion went on to condemn Israel for “murdering” dozens of Palestinians in May — a reference to those killed by Israeli forces during Hamas-organized riots along the Gaza border that featured hundreds of firebombs and attempts to breach the security fence into Israel. Of 61 people killed in the riots on May 14, 50 were Hamas members, according to one senior member of that organization.

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UK: Leftie lawyer hired by Labour to oversee anti-Semitism cases is ‘friends with anti-Jewish activists’

Via The Sun:

Labour bosses have been blasted for hiring a leftie lawyer who is friends with members accused of anti-Semitism to advise them.

Gordon Nardell QC was last week announced as the party’s new in-house legal counsel to help deal with the backlog of anti-Semitism cases - and will oversee the party’s disciplinary processes.

But critics claim his links to grassroots members accused of anti-Semitic comments undermines his independence, and it could be a conflict of interest if he rules on their cases. It has been revealed that the former councillor and wannabe-MP has a long history of links to the hard left and is friends on Facebook with suspended members.

Labour figures have demanded that the new General Secretary, Jennie Fornby, think again about her decision to hire him in the role. Jewish groups have demanded more progress on dealing with pockets of anti-Semitism in the party, and were left fuming after Jeremy Corbyn refused all of their demands. Labour has set an August deadline for resolving complaints relating to anti-Semitism.

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Germany’s sordid Iran policy

Via Mosaic Magazine:

As the U.S. is re-imposing sanctions on the Islamic Republic and trying to curb the dangerous reach of its proxies, Germany has come to Tehran’s defense. Yigal Carmon comments:

If any country in the world could be expected to be extremely cautious about aligning with anyone calling for Israel’s annihilation, it would be Germany, regardless of any extenuating circumstances - economic, political or otherwise. The Bundesrepublik should have distanced itself from any substantial tie with the Islamic Republic of Iran, whose murderous regime is threatening to annihilate Israel.

Germany was the first country that should have told . . . Barack Obama that totalitarian regimes, like Germany’s own Nazi regime, are beyond the pale, and should be denied any legitimacy, particularly when it comes to a nuclear deal with them. Germany’s past should have enjoined it to take the moral lead, publicly, in promoting regime change when dealing with a totalitarian regime such as Iran. The reality is tragically the opposite. . . . Germany . . . has shut its eyes to the notorious human-rights violations in Iran, and to Iran’s terrorizing and murder of its own citizens. Iran, of course, is a major partner, along with Russia, in the greatest humanitarian catastrophe of the 21st century: the Assad regime’s slaughter and displacement of millions of Syrians.

The reversal of the Obama-foisted Iran policy by the Trump administration provided Germany with a golden opportunity to reclaim its professed values. But the reverse happened: Germany is legitimizing Iran, even championing it. . . .

Regardless of Germany’s motivations, this is the moment for Germany to demonstrate national leadership and responsibility that rises above petty considerations . . . and builds a policy on its moral values. If it rises to the moment, Germany could isolate the Iran issue from other issues, and serve as a true global beacon of moral policy. There are other ways to resolve its [other] problems with the U.S., and even to take an assertive stand against Donald Trump on economic matters. Unfortunately, Germany’s grand government coalition and the opposition parties are united in defense of Iran and against the U.S.

read more at JNS

France: University of La Sorbonne in Paris Jewish students chapter office vandalized

Via European Jewish Press:

If Sacha Ghozlan had any doubts about whether there would be more anti-Semitic attacks in France following the March murder of an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor, he quickly got an answer.

Ghozlan, the president of the French Jewish Students Union (UEJF), planned to attend a rally on March 28 with more than 10,000 others in response to the murder of Mireille Knoll, who was found stabbed 11 times in her Paris apartment a few days earlier.

Hours before the gathering, Jewish students at the University of La Sorbonne in Paris found that its UEJF chapter office had been vandalized, with materials tossed on the floor and stepped on and “Death to Israel” and “Zionist racist anti-goy office,” written in French on the walls, according to videos of the office.

“At that particular time, it was very difficult to organize a gathering of the non-Jewish students,” said Ghozlan. “They refused to release a public statement [condemning the vandalism]because they didn’t want to be involved in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.” (...)

After the vandalism, the UEJF wanted to get political leaders’ attention, so they commissioned a survey that measures attitudes among French people towards Israel and Jews. The study by the Institut français d’opinion publique, a market research firm, found that 54 percent of the respondents ages 18 to 24 believe that “Zionism is an international organization that seeks to influence the world and society in favor of Jews.” 

Fifty-two percent considered Zionism a racist ideology, and 57 percent had a bad image of Israel.(…)  

Jews in France and elsewhere in Europe now face not only traditional anti-Semitism from the far-right, but also from far-left parts of European society and from Muslim immigrant communities, according to Simone Rodan-Benzaquen, director of the American Jewish Committee-Europe. The focal point is a “biased view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

She would like to see European governments adopt a “zero-tolerance policy” towards anti-Semitism.

“There seems to be a discrepancy between the words and the actual actions,” she said. “You will have very strong words from the president, from the prime minister, on anti-Semitism, but then you will have small incivilities or anti-Israeli demonstrations in the streets of Paris that suddenly turn sour.”

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