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Jewish groups stop row over anti-Semitism in EU

Two influential Jewish groups on Thursday buried a row over anti-Semitism with the European Commission by paying fulsome tribute to the EU executive, allowing a seminar on the emotive issue to go ahead.

The groups sent an envoy, Israel Singer, to Brussels to meet Commission chief Romano Prodi, who had reacted furiously this week to the allegation that Brussels was guilty of fostering anti-Semitism.

The EU's racism watchdog also said it would soon be publishing a new report on anti-Semitism after the suppression of an earlier study on the issue prompted a furious response from Jewish leaders.

Singer told a joint press briefing with Prodi that the World Jewish Congress (WJC) and European Jewish Congress (EJC) had "full trust" in the Commission chief, "which we had in president Prodi from the very outset."

"If there is a man in whom we trust to be able to take this concept of mutual cooperation with regard to trust for security of minorities and particularly Jews in Europe, it's president Prodi," he said, before ending the briefing by hugging the Italian Commission head.

tackling problem

Prodi announced that the seminar to explore ways of tackling anti-Semitism, which was put on hold this week after the heads of the two Jewish groups levelled their accusation against the EU executive, was now back on.

"I'm happy to tell you that Mr. Singer and I had a very friendly and fruitful meeting. The cooperation between our institutions is fully restored on the basis of a complete mutual trust," he said.

"And thus I'm in a position to tell you that we are resuming our preparations for the seminar. We are closing an episode and opening a deeply felt cooperation that is of utmost importance for European society," he added.

The seminar, tentatively scheduled for next month, was announced by Prodi after Brussels published an opinion poll in November that labelled Israel the biggest threat to world peace.

Anger in some Jewish quarters was fuelled by a decision to shelve a report by the EU's racism watchdog that showed a rise in anti-Semitic incidents committed by Muslims and pro-Palestinian groups in Europe.

In an article in Monday's Financial Times newspaper, WJC president Edgar Bronfman and EJC head Cobi Benatoff said the Commission was guilty of fuelling anti-Semitism in Europe "by action and inaction."

New report

But the Vienna-based EU racism watchdog said on Thursday a new report on anti-Semitic incidents in Europe in 2002 and last year would be published in the first quarter this year, most likely in March.

Beate Winkler, director of the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), said that the new report would note that "in certain EU member states some of the perpetrators [of anti-Semitic acts] have an Arab-Muslim background."

Jewish groups had alleged that the previous study was shelved because it came to the potentially inflammatory conclusion that anti-Semitic incidents committed by Muslims and pro-Palestinian groups in Europe had increased.

Meeting

Prodi said he would meet the two Jewish leaders in the next two weeks to clear the air, after the hastily arranged visit by Singer, the New York-based chairman of the WJC's governing board.

Singer declined to answer questions on why Bronfman and Benatoff had published their article, which Prodi had labelled "defamatory."
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