overview

 

The overall number of violent antisemitic events monitored worldwide in 2005 was significantly lower than in 2004 (406 compared to 501). Nevertheless, this was the second highest level recorded since 1989.

Although trends observed in 2004, the worst year in decades in terms of antisemitic activity, continued, other factors emerged which offered some hope. In our 2004 report and analysis we noted two parallel developments: violence against Jews, and against their property and institutions, in which social frustration combined with anti-Jewish prejudice and virulently anti-Israel sentiment played a significant role, on the one hand, and the efforts of international and regional organizations to combat antisemitism, on the other. The decrease in violence in 2005 may be explained partly by the initial, modest impact of these endeavors. Organizations such as ECRI (European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance), the EUMC (European Union Monitoring Center Against Racism and Xenophobia) and the UN, as well as church authorities and public and political figures, issued declarations against antisemitism, sought to work out a definition of the term, enhanced legislation, arrested Holocaust deniers, asked for forgiveness for the Holocaust and commemorated the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. The period of relative calm in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which often acts as a trigger for antisemitic events, contributed to the decline.

In contrast, verbal and written attacks of all kinds − including caricatures, slander, boycotts, accusations, the identification of Jews with Israelis and the comparison of Israelis to Nazis − proliferated. Though uncountable, such expressions, emanating especially from intellectual and academic circles (in the UK Russia, Ukraine and Canada) and from heads of state and politicians (in Iran and Venezuela), appear to have increased. Most troubling is the notion that Israel – and sometimes the Jewish people as a whole– should not exist. Holocaust denial has suffered some serious setbacks, particularly as a result of the arrest of some of its leading proponents. Moreover, the numerous events commemorating the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz have contributed to public awareness of the Holocaust. However, as polls show, many in the world are still ignorant of even basic facts about the Holocaust. They are also unaware that denial is being used as a political weapon, especially in the Arabic and Muslim world, with Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad as the spearhead. His inflammatory rhetoric, which combines denial of the Holocaust with delegitimation of Israel’s right to exist, has won supporters in the West as well as in the Arab world.

Figures for violent acts and other antisemitic manifestations declined somewhat in Canada and the US and greatly in France, where a fall of 48 percent was registered compared to 2004. In the UK, although the total number of antisemitic events declined by 14 percent from 532 in 2004 to 455 in 2005, the figures for assaults and for vandalism against Jewish sites and property remained relatively the same. Canada, France and the UK recorded the second highest figure since monitoring began. The number of incidents almost doubled in Argentina and antisemitic attacks in Ukraine became more violent. As mentioned in previous reports, while numbers are important, we must also determine the nature of the incidents in order to obtain a complete picture. Indeed, hate and brutality were hallmarks of the acts perpetrated in 2005, often by frustrated young Muslim immigrants, acting spontaneously and independently, and by extreme right wingers who attacked both foreigners and Jews.

In conclusion, while anti-Israel diatribes by intellectuals, and anti-American and anti-Zionist sentiments in western Europe and North America as well as in some Latin American and Muslim countries, have combined to instill a sense among Jews and Israelis that they are under physical and moral attack, the launching of activities aimed at studying the lessons of the past in order to improve the present, are encouraging signs for the future.

 

 

general analysis

 

Introduction

On 1 November 2005 the United Nations General Assembly unanimously passed a historical resolution to institute 27 January, the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp in 1945, as Holocaust Remembrance Day. The draft of the resolution, submitted during the 60th session of the Assembly by the Israeli ambassador to the UN, was co-sponsored by the US, Australia, Canada, Russia and Israel. It should be noted that this was the first time that an Israeli proposal had ever been accepted by the UN.

Addressing the General Assembly on 24 January at an unprecedented special session marking the liberation of Auschwitz and other camps, Secretary-General Kofi Annan noted that the UN had been born out of the ashes of the Holocaust and that the murder of European Jews had led to the destruction of “an entire civilization.” He stressed that in the wake of the Holocaust the world was obliged, among other tasks, to struggle against antisemitism: “We must be on the watch for any revival of antisemitism and [be] ready to act against the new forms of it that are appearing today.”

In contrast, statements denying the Holocaust and defaming the Jewish people made by heads of states, members of parliament and leading academic figures were some of the most extreme ever heard. In a speech delivered on 10 December to the Islamic Conference Organization, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad declared that Israel should be transferred to Europe. Any historian or commentator who dares challenge the claim of some European countries that Hitler burnt millions of Jews is denounced and persecuted, he said, noting that he himself does not accept the assertion. If the Europeans feel such guilt, he continued, they should allocate areas in Germany or Austria for settling the Israelis. A month before, at a conference on Zionism held in Tehran, Ahmadinejad called for the elimination of Israel.

In Russia an appeal to the state prosecutor’s office to investigate and ban all Jewish organizations in the country because of alleged extremist activity was signed in January 2005 by 500 people, including newspaper editors, intellectuals and 19 Duma deputies. The petition labels Judaism ‘anti-Christian’ and revives the antisemitic accusation of the blood libel. By autumn 2005 there were 15,000 signatures.

In Ukraine, Georgii Shchokin, president of the Inter-Regional Academy of Personnel Management (MAUP), wrote that the Jewish-Bolshevik yoke had dominated Ukraine for 70 years, causing millions of victims. MAUP, the largest non-governmental higher education institution in Ukraine, with about 50,000 students, was a primary source of antisemitic agitation and propaganda in the country in 2005.

In June, the nationalist Ataka (Attack), the fourth largest party in Bulgaria, published a list of 1,500 well-known Bulgarian Jews on their homepage. The list appeared under the heading: “A plague infected, leprous and dangerous race, which has deserved to be eradicated since the day of its creation.”

In Venezuela, politicians and journalists associated with the party of President Hugo Chavez used the Holocaust to attack both Israel and the local Jewish community, and compared the plight of the Palestinians to the Holocaust or denied it altogether. Chavez himself was criticized for using motifs from traditional anti-Jewish Christian texts, such as ‘the wandering Jew’ and the Jews’ alleged crucifixion of Christ. Venezuelan oil interests have undoubtedly contributed to radicalizing the rhetoric of Venezuelan public figures, which sometimes does not fall short of the utterances of Iranian leaders.

 

The following analysis for 2005 will address three issues:

1. Trends in antisemitic violence
2. Commemoration of the Holocaust and the struggle against antisemitism
3. Antisemitic and anti-Zionist manifestations on campus and the attempt to impose an academic boycott on Israel

 

Trends in antisemitic violence

The level of antisemitic violence (including major violent and vandalistic incidents and attacks by violent means) in 2005 decreased considerably compared to 2004, from 501 instances to 406. The decline in violent and vandalistic incidents may be explained by a period of relative calm in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which often acts as a trigger for antisemitic events, and/or better security and enforcement measures. Nevertheless, this was the second highest level recorded since 1989 (see Appendix).

There is a noticeable difference between the trends in the two types of violence, which calls for an explanation. While the number of major violent and vandalistic incidents rose almost steadily from the end of 2000, reaching a peak in 2004 and 2005, the figure for major attacks by violent means decreased, particularly after 2002, to 15 in 2005 − the lowest since the end of the 1980s − indicating the random nature of many antisemitic incidents. Analysis of numerous cases (as noted in our previous reports) shows that most violent incidents were spontaneous rather than premeditated and that most perpetrators did not belong to organized ideological groups which conspired to attack Jews. Socio-economic tensions in western Europe, where most of the violence is perpetrated, appear to play a significant role in the behavior of these groups and individuals.

The continuous increase since 2000 in the level of antisemitic violence in France culminated in 2004 in a total of 104 incidents. The 72 violent incidents recorded in 2005, equaling the 2003 figure, constituted the second highest number in the last 15 years. By comparison, in 1999, a year before the outbreak of the antisemitic wave in Europe, France witnessed only 14 violent incidents. While confirming French Ministry of Interior data, which showed a decrease of 48 percent in antisemitic events of all types (504 in 2005 compared to 974 in 2004), CRIF, the leading Jewish organization in France, stressed that the number of violent acts against Jews was still ten times higher than in 1990. The decrease in antisemitic manifestations in 2005, especially in violent acts, might be explained, inter alia, by: intensive educational work, enforcement of anti-hate legislation, and the absence of trigger events in the Middle East. Nevertheless, the high level of antisemitic violence in 2005 indicates that the main factors responsible for the outbreak of the wave of antisemitism continued to be behind anti-Jewish activity, namely: a combination of social frustration and anti-Jewish prejudice and virulently anti-Israel sentiment, which exploded into violence against Jewish individuals and property.

Despite the decrease in the number of violent incidents, the pattern of incidents in France in 2005 pointed to a high level of antisemitic hatred directed against visibly Jewish victims. “We have a Jew,” rejoiced one of the attackers of a young French Jew as he knifed him in a Lyon street in mid-February. The men who attacked the youth were charged with attempted homicide. A week earlier, at the Charpenne metro station in Villeurbanne, a group of youngsters caused serious head injuries to a Jewish man as they yelled, “Jews to the gas chambers.” In Paris, three petrol bombs were thrown at the Sinai Jewish school in July and the slogans “Screw the Jews” and “Cremate the Jews” were painted on a synagogue in mid-February.

In contrast to the years 2003−2004, the level of violence against Jews in the UK in 2005 was higher than in France. According to Britain’s Community Security Trust (CST), although the total number of antisemitic events in UK declined from 532 in 2004 to 455 in 2005, the figures for assaults and vandalism against Jewish sites and property remained more or less the same. Moreover, 2005 was the second successive year in which violent attacks on Jewish individuals outnumbered attacks on property, and the total number of events was the second highest ever recorded, corresponding to the long-term trend of rising incident levels since 1997. A series of violent assaults by gangs with metal bars on Orthodox Jews in Stamford Hill, London, which began in December 2004, illustrates the serious nature of some of the incidents.

In other west European countries such as the Netherlands, Sweden and particularly Belgium, which witnessed a considerable rise in numbers of violent incidents in the last couple of years, a relative decline was noted in 2005. Nevertheless, on 7 May 2005, five petrol bombs were thrown at a synagogue in the Anderlecht district of Brussels, causing a fire which took 45 minutes to extinguish and considerable damage. On 14 April, a 17-year-old Jewish youth was viciously attacked in Brussels by two young thugs, who yelled “Dirty Jew” and “Yahudi.” In Switzerland, a synagogue and a Jewish-owned clothing store were torched on the same night in March in the southern city of Lugano.

A rise in antisemitic violence and vandalism was observed in Denmark. As in France and the UK, Jewish private property was damaged and Jewish individuals, including women and the elderly, were insulted, threatened and assaulted by persons of Muslim/Arab or African origin.

Based on victims’ testimony, it seems that first- and second-generation immigrants, many of them Muslims, continue to play a role in violence perpetrated against Jews in Europe. In addition, as in previous years, neo-Nazis and the traditionally antisemitic extreme right in general were behind numerous incidents of violence, abusive behavior, threats and vandalism. According to the CST in London, out of 168 antisemitic events of all kinds in 2005 in which a physical description of the perpetrator was provided, 85 were ‘white’, 2 were east European, 27 black, 30 Asian and 19 of ‘Arab’ appearance. Therefore 52 per cent − the majority − involved ‘white’ perpetrators. In Manchester, for example, a Jewish family walking down a street was attacked by a group of three white men, who shouted antisemitic abuse and punched the father in the face. Extreme rightists were probably behind the desecration of dozens of Jewish cemeteries, synagogues and memorials in Europe. In the UK, for example, Nazi symbols were daubed on 12 gravestones in the Jewish section of Aldershot cemetery in Hampshire; the door of the Rothschild family mausoleum was smashed and daubed with Nazi insignia, and in June, one hundred gravestones were overturned in West Ham Jewish cemetery. In France, vandals painted swastikas on 20 Jewish graves in the cemetery of Remiremont in early November, and in Switzerland the slogans “Heil Hitler” and “Gas the Jews” were painted on a Holocaust memorial and on the walls of the Great Synagogue in Geneva on 16 April. As in previous years extreme rightists and neo-Nazis were behind much cemetery desecration in Germany, too. The 36 incidents of vandalism of cemeteries and Jewish memorials constituted the largest number in Europe.

 

Canada

Canada has witnessed a continuing increase in violent antisemitic incidents in recent years, mainly due to the growing involvement of immigrants, many of them Muslims or persons of Arab origin, in hate activity against Jews. In 2005, the League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith Canada (the League), which monitors antisemitic events in Canada, reported a marginal decrease of 3.3 percent in 2005 compared to 2004, including a fall in violent and vandalistic incidents. Indeed, according to our classification of major violent incidents, the number of such attacks against Jewish individuals and Jewish property and sites decreased from 54 in 2004 to 44 in 2005.

While the absence of Middle East triggers may have led to the small decrease in 2005, the pattern of incidents over the last four years persisted, with social frustration inflamed by anti-Jewish prejudice and extreme anti-Israel propaganda continuing to fuel violence against Jews in Canada. In several cases Jews were assaulted being first asked after if they were Jewish. In Montreal a visibly Jewish woman was hit on the back and harassed with insults as she walked past a group of young teens in May, while in Kitchener/Waterloo a visiting rabbi was assaulted as he was walking along the street with his family in June. In addition, synagogues, community centers, cemeteries and Jewish private property were vandalized in Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver.

 

Ukraine

A continuous increase in the level of antisemitic violence has been observed in recent years in Ukraine. This may be partly linked to the intensified proliferation of antisemitic propaganda and incitement by institutions such as the Inter-Regional Academy of Personnel Management (MAUP; see below). In one of the most serious incidents, ten skinheads, armed with bottles, sticks and knifes, attacked two Jewish yeshiva students in an underground passage in the center of Kiev in August. Mordekhaii Molozhenov, 28, was critically injured. Other students from the yeshiva reported previous skinhead attacks on them at the same place. Of the three suspects, one confessed, claiming he belonged to a skinhead group which beat the students because they were Jews. In April the rabbi of Zhitomir, Shlomo Wilhelm, was beaten by three young people on the street and in September two Israeli citizens, Rabbi Mikhail Menis and his son, were assaulted with chains and other weapons in Kiev by assailants who shouted Nazi slogans.

 

Antisemitic and Anti-Zionist Manifestations on Campus and the attempt to impose an Academic Boycott on Israel

Western Europe

On 22 April 2005 the council of the Association of University Teachers in Britain (AUT) announced a boycott of Israel’s Bar-Ilan and Haifa universities. The accusations against them were proven to be false and following a counter-campaign of AUT members, the boycott decision was revoked by a majority of the council a month later.

Nevertheless, the support expressed by other academic unions in the UK, such as NATFHE (National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education), as well as by many scholars in other countries, indicates that a boycott of Israeli universities would have strong appeal. It was clear that the move against the two Israeli universities was, in fact, part of a comprehensive, ongoing campaign against academic and cultural life in Israel, expressed in boycotting Israeli students and the participation of Israeli academics in international conferences, rejection of articles sent to scientific journals by Israeli scholars, and refusal to cooperate with Israeli academic institutions.

Despite the failure of the boycott attempt, the leaders of the campaign declared that the decision had set a precedent in a long war. Indeed, it was the culmination of a five-year campaign that began in Durban with article 425 of the final NGO declaration, which proclaimed a policy of complete and total isolation of Israel as an apartheid state. The main stages of this operation in Europe included a letter to the Guardian, written by Profs. Steven and Hilary Rose and signed by hundreds of academics, calling for a halt to European Union funding of research projects in Israel; the decision of Prof. Mona Baker from Manchester University to dismiss two Israeli researchers from the academic board of two translation journals; a motion adopted by Pierre and Marie Curie University (Paris 6) to suspend scientific cooperation with Israeli academic institutions; the refusal of Professor Andrew Wilkie from Oxford University to accept an Israeli PhD student because of his nationality; and an international conference, “Resisting Israeli Apartheid,” held at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies.

The first AUT decision, reprehensible in its interference with academic freedom and attempts to blackmail academics in order to change the governmental policy of a democratic state, may also be questioned in relation to the motivation of the boycott leaders: Was the initiative merely a part of the struggle against Israel’s continued control of the territories, or was it indeed a part of the anti-Zionist drive against the existence of Israel as a Jewish state?

The international conference, “Resisting Israeli Apartheid,” held at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, in January 2005, provided a clear response to this question. Leading boycott activists urged the 270 scholars gathered from various countries to undermine all Israeli institutions that “allow a pariah state to function and claim membership of the international community.” The Israeli university community, in their view, was merely a branch of the criminal and illegitimate entity ‘the State of Israel’. They also expressed the hope that just as external pressure, including cultural and academic boycotts, had contributed to the fall of white South Africa, it would prove to be an important weapon in the delegitimization of Israel.

A related question concerns the classification of the boycott as an antisemitic act, a claim rejected by the anti-Zionist initiators of the campaign, some of them Jews. Anti-Zionism, however, is an ideology with a specific target − to bring about the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state − and is thus perceived by many Jews and non-Jews as an antisemitic expression. As noted above, the EUMC in its ‘working definition’ accepted the contention, raised in the 1970s and 1980s during the anti-Zionist campaign led by the Arab world and by the Soviet Union and its satellites, that denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination by claiming that the existence of the State of Israel is a racist endeavor, is a manifestation of antisemitism.

 

North America

Radically anti-Israel activity at certain US universities has created an atmosphere of intimidation and fear among Jewish students. While 2005 saw a slight decline in such activity, militants on college campuses continued to link their opposition to the war in Iraq to Israel.

Major anti-Israel events organized in 2005 included the Al Awda “Right of Return” conference at the University of California, Los Angeles, on 13 April 2005, and a conference at Pace University, 24 February 2005, to ‘educate’ students and faculty on why Israel is an apartheid state. However, attempts to promote the movement for divestment of American investment in Israel and academic boycotts were unsuccessful. Pro-divestment activists managed to pass a couple of favorable resolutions at student and professional bodies in small colleges associated with the Michigan and Wisconsin systems, but these localized achievements lacked broad support within the institutions and were ultimately rejected by the universities’ Board of Regents.

The most public controversy at an American university concerned allegations of anti-Israel bias in the Middle East and Asia Languages and Cultures (MELAC) Department at Columbia University. Many claims of strongly anti-Israel rhetoric were made by students against MELAC professors, two of whom had signed Columbia’s divestment petition, and a committee was appointed to investigate the charges. The report concluded that there was no evidence of antisemitism, although no such complaint had been made. The report merely recommended strengthening Columbia’s grievance procedures for students.

Radical speakers who appeared on college campuses under the guise of legitimate criticism of Israel and other covers continued to be the most troubling phenomena. On 2 February 2005, Amir-Abdel Malik Ali gave a lecture at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), in which he alluded to Zionist control of the media and Zionist conspiracies to control US foreign policy, including the occupation of Iraq. Large anti-Israel rallies on campus, with body bags representing ‘victims of Israeli genocide’, and students wearing green robes signifying solidarity with Hamas, were other events held at UCI.

Malik Zulu Shabazz, the antisemitic leader of the New Black Panther Party, was invited by a multicultural group to speak at Carnegie Mellon University, 17 February 2005, on ‘black empowerment’. Shabazz vilified Jews, declaring that “Zionism is terrorism” and Israel a “terrorist state.” He added that “you cannot be a real Jew and a Zionist at the same time,” and frequently referred to “so-called Jews” and to “quote-unquote Jews.”

In Canada, too, the campus continued to be an arena of virulently anti Zionist agitation. Anti-Zionist propaganda, frequently intertwined with antisemitic motifs, was distributed, Jewish students were victims of harassment and intimidation, and their property was vandalized. Many students who refused to vilify Israel or were suspected of supporting it were singled out. The League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith Canada reported that in 2005 Jewish students − often visibly Jewish ones − were targeted in 48 antisemitic incidents on campus, a level similar to that in 2003 and 2004. In early November 2005, for example, antisemitic pamphlets entitled “Jewish Supremacism Unmasked” appeared at the University of Toronto, York University and Ryerson University.

An increasing number of Jewish students in universities and colleges in Canada claim that they fear reprisals if they argue that Israel has the right to exist. Some have reportedly ceased wearing any distinguishing marks of their religion such as skullcaps or Star of David jewelry. Anti-Zionism or denial of Israel’s right to exist is not treated as legitimate grounds for complaint and only in rare cases can students who dare to complain prove that antisemitic rhetoric was used by extremely anti-Zionist professors who hurt their feelings as Jews (Alain Goldschläger, “The Campus Scene,” in 2005 Audit of Antisemitic Incidents, League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith Canada). A weeklong series of lectures entitled “Israeli Apartheid Week,” at the University of Toronto, illustrates the virulence of the anti-Zionist campaign on Canadian campuses.

Following several cases in which Israeli officials and politicians were violently denied the right to present their opinions, a new initiative has been launched to prevent ‘Israeli soldiers’ from lecturing to Canadian students. Since many visiting professors are known to be in the reserves, the move should be seen as part of the academic boycott against Israel (see Goldschläger, above).

 

 Ukraine

The Inter-Regional Academy of Personnel Management (MAUP) was a primary source of antisemitic agitation and propaganda in Ukraine in 2005. Founded in 1989 as a non-governmental institution of higher learning, MAUP was accredited by the Ukrainian Ministry of Education and today is the largest such establishment in Ukraine, with about 50,000 students at a number of campuses, the largest  in Kiev. MAUP graduates include chairmen of state committees, deputy ministers, mayors, diplomats, leading members of the president’s administration, heads of universities and schools, businessmen and military commanders.

The university organizes meetings and demonstrations, regularly issues antisemitic statements and since 1991 has published two academic periodicals, Personal and Personal Plus, with antisemitic content. MAUP directors were among the initiators of attempts to outlaw Jewish organizations in Ukraine and called for a ban on the Hassidic Jewish classic Tanya on the grounds that it incites racism against non-Jews.

MAUP President Georgii Shchokin, the force behind the antisemitic line of these publications, also serves as head of the International Personnel Academy (IPA − an international NGO, and a member of the European Network of National Information Centers [ENIC] for academic recognition and mobility, of the Council of Europe and UNESCO), from whose offices he issues antisemitic statements. Shchokin is a leader of the antisemitic Ukrainian Conservative Party (UKP), registered in March 2005 and labeled “the Ukrainian Ku Klux Klan” by the Ukrainian media. It publishes a newspaper, Ukrainskii Konservator, also with antisemitic content, as a supplement to Personal Plus. For example, an article in the fourth issue of Ukrainskii Konservator, 6 July 2005, demanded that the Ukrainian president order the investigation of several Jews, including Josef Zisels, chairperson of the General Council of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress, for ‘anti-Ukrainian activity’, allegedly conducted through “various Zionist and Judeo-Nazi organizations and media.”

The weekly Personal Plus published numerous antisemitic articles in 2005. In September alone there were four articles attacking the Shulchan Aruch (‘Set Table’, a repository of Jewish law) − for inciting ethnic hatred and provoking “pogroms against the Jews”; a list of Ukrainian Jewish organizations labeled “enemies of Ukraine” and a call to investigate them; and book recommendations such as the collection Zionist Protocols: Origins and Documents: A Historic Review; O. Platonov’s 100 Laws from the Talmud, When Jews are Marching; Jürgen Graf’s Great Lie of the 20th Century: The Myth of the Genocide of the Jews during World War II; and an article, “Jewish Legislation on Ukraine’s Territory,” listing kosher products available in Ukraine and urging Ukrainians not to buy them.

Many antisemitic articles in Personal Plus were written by Shchokin himself. On 11 November, for example, he claimed in “Zionist-Socialist Counter-Revolution in Ukraine and Its Manifestations in Education,” that the Jewish-Bolshevik yoke had dominated Ukraine for 70 years, causing millions of victims. In the 23−29 November issue Personal Plus published “Zionist Blackmail Will Not Pass,” a letter sent by Shchokin to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan accusing the Jews of the genocide of Ukrainians. Shchokin also complained to Anan of Israeli attempts to close MAUP and requested an investigation of ‘Jewish Nazis’ who, he claimed, were responsible for the Jewish-Bolshevik revolution, and for wars, repression and starvation which caused the death of over 50 million people. MAUP was therefore demanding an end to the State of Israel if it failed to comply with the UN Partition Resolution of 29 November 1947.

In June the MAUP website published a list of 16 names of “distributors, defenders and Judeo-Nazi activists,” as well as a list of media organs and organizations that support “Jewish racism.” In November MAUP put out a collection of antisemitic articles, “Stop the Criminal Activity of Organized Judaism.” In December its publishing house issued a translation of Jürgen Graf’s Holocaust denying book The Great Lie of the 20th Century: The Myth of the Genocide of the Jews during World War II. The book was sold at the institution’s campuses and at MAUP kiosks in Kiev.

MAUP also organized demonstrations and international conferences. On 3 June 2005 it sponsored a symposium in Kiev entitled “Zionism − The Great Threat to Contemporary Civilization,” attended by Levka Lukianenko, Ukrainian MP from the bloc of then Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko, American white supremacist David Duke, and other extremists from abroad. Several speakers called for the deportation of Ukraine’s Jews. Another international conference, “The Jewish-Bolshevik Take-Over of 1917 as a Precondition for the Red Terror and Ukrainian Famine,” with participants from Algeria, Afghanistan, Iran, Vietnam, Indonesia, Moldova, Russia, Ukraine and the US, was held by MAUP from 28 November to 1 December. In his speech, Georgii Shchokin claimed that bolshevism was the Jewish totalitarian ethnocracy behind the civil war (1917−22) and the starvation of the Ukrainian people (1922−23, 1932−33, 1946−47). He considered today’s socialists and communists the direct successors of Jewish-Bolshevik ideology. The participants stressed the struggle against Zionism and its world influence. It was stated that the “Jewish-Bolshevik regime” was to blame for all the misfortunes of the Ukrainian people and an appeal was made to the UN and national governments to struggle against Jewish racism and the influence of the Jewish Diaspora. On 29 December, 15 MAUP students demonstrated in Kiev, demanding the expulsion of Jews and Russians from Ukrainian TV and radio.

White supremacist David Duke has close links to MAUP: on 9 September he received a PhD in history from the institution. His dissertation topic was “Zionism as a Form of Ethnic Supremacy.” Defending his thesis, Duke claimed that “Jewish supremacism and extremism” were growing ever more radical and that Israel had been taken over by extremists. Duke teaches a course on history and international relations at MAUP.

MAUP has close contacts with several Muslim countries, particularly Saudi Arabia and Iran, and is partially funded by them. Although it maintains that its activities are ‘merely’ anti-Zionist, its use of traditional antisemitic propaganda, such as religious antisemitism and accusing the Jews of sole responsibility for the Russian October Revolution and for starvation in Ukraine, as well as the institution’s ties with Holocaust deniers and Islamic forces, belies this claim.

As noted above, violent activities against Jews have intensified in recent years. On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, in January 2005, Ukrainian President Viktor Iushchenko declared that his country would not tolerate antisemitism. On 5 December he specifically mentioned MAUP when he urged Ukrainians to combat antisemitism and xenophobia and called for stronger measures to protect all religions and nationalities in Ukraine. In response, the MAUP website accused the president of being surrounded by Zionists and threatened a suit against his press secretary. However, the president has taken no action against MAUP, except to resign from its board. On 12 December 2005 Vladimir Matveev, correspondent of JTA (Jewish Telegraphic Agency), was beaten near his home in Kiev a day after he had published an article about antisemitic activity at MAUP. Matveev was hospitalized.

On 11 July, 100 Ukrainian cultural figures, including writers, priests, scientists and artists, published a call “Against Xenophobia, for a European Ukraine,” in the media. Noting governmental indifference to antisemitism and intolerance in general, and to the activity of MAUP in particular, they urged equal treatment for all Ukrainians without regard to ethnic origin. In a press release issued on 4 July, the Human Rights Center Nash Mir (Our World) condemned xenophobic and antisemitic statements emanating from MAUP sources, and accused the institution, among other charges, of justifying the Nazi regime and insulting the memory of Jews and non-Jews killed by the Nazis and their collaborators.

In October a group of Ukrainian deputies wrote to the Ministry of Education asking for assistance in the struggle against the propagation of ethnic hatred in several institutions of higher learning, and especially in MAUP. They received no response.

In November the government of Israel urged the Ukrainian authorities to close MAUP for its antisemitic attacks in Personal Plus. The request was made after numerous antisemitic articles, including one supporting the call of Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad in October to destroy Israel, appeared in the paper. The Simon Wiesenthal Center published a similar request on its website on 21 November. MAUP denied the allegations of antisemitism. A month later the ADL published an open letter on its website to President Iushchenko urging him to fight antisemitism in his country, and particularly in MAUP.

On 14 December Vadim Rabinovich, leader of the All-Ukrainian Jewish Congress, asked the minister of justice and the Central Elections Committee to invalidate the registration of the antisemitic UKP headed by Georgii Shchokin, who announced that the party would run in the March 2006 parliamentary elections. Although the party was not banned, it did not receive the minimum 3 percent threshold required to elect representatives to the Ukrainian parliament.

 

commemoration of the Holocaust and The struggle

against antisemitism

Western Europe

The year 2005 saw groundbreaking decisions and statements as part of the continuing effort to curb antisemitic hatred and violence. On 17 March ECRI (European Commission against Racism and Intolerance) adopted a resolution condemning the use of racist, antisemitic and xenophobic elements in political discourse, a trend that had become noticeable among elements of mainstream parties. The EUMC (European Union Monitoring Centre against Racism and Xenophobia) published a ‘working definition’ of antisemitism as a practical guide for identifying and monitoring antisemitism. It determined, inter alia, that denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of the State of Israel is a racist endeavor, was an expression of antisemitism. On 30 August the French National School of Magistrates for judges, students, police and judicial functionaries decided to study the specific characteristics of antisemitic attacks, as a result of which one magistrate in each of the 35 courts of appeal is to oversee relations with the local Jewish community.

A clear stand on antisemitism and the Holocaust was taken in 2005 by Church representatives. During his visit to the synagogue of Cologne, Germany, on 19 August, Pope Benedict XVI condemned antisemitism and denial of the Holocaust and declared that humanity must never be allowed to forget or repeat such atrocious crimes. On 10 November the German Evangelical Church (EKD) announced that it would resist all extremism, including religious fanaticism. The declaration was published during the EKD Synod, at which religious fanaticism was compared to political extremism, antisemitism and racism. Member of the German Federal Parliament Herman Gröhe stressed that the Church must speak out against radical Islamism when it encourages murder, and violence. In May the Church of Scotland Commission published a declaration protesting sweeping criticism of Israel and pointing to the worrying increase in antisemitism incited by anti-Zionist elements of the left and members of the Muslim community.

Laws against hate crimes, antisemitism and Holocaust denial were discussed and enforced in several high-profile cases. In May the National Council of Switzerland said it would favor legislation forbidding the use in public of Nazi and fascist symbols. Racism, antisemitism and Holocaust denial are currently punishable by Swiss law, but not the open display of such insignia. Twenty cantons support the legislation as well as most parties, except the Swiss People’s Party of Christoph Blocher, the right-wing Swiss Democrats and the Greens.

On 3 November Judge Jeremy Roberts passed sentence in the Old Bailey, totaling 15 years imprisonment, on five leading members of the Racial Volunteer Force, an offshoot of Combat 18, for producing and distributing race hate material which called for the liquidation of Jews and blacks and firebombing synagogues. At the end of May, the Versailles Court of Appeals found Jean-Marie Colombani, editor of Le Monde, sociologist Edgar Morim, writer Daniele Sallenave and MEP Sami Nair, guilty of racial defamation of the Jewish people for a June 2002 article, “Israel-Palestine: The Cancer.”

Holocaust denial was at the center of several court deliberations. In France Judge Emmanuel Binoche ruled on 13 June that Internet service providers must filter access to the AAARGH (Association of Veteran Fans of Stories of War and Holocausts) site, which disseminates material denying the Holocaust. The judgment was the first based on the June 2004 Trust in the Digital Economy law. On 3 February Bruno Gollnisch, professor at Lyon III University, was suspended from teaching by the minister of education for denying the Holocaust. (Gollnisch is Jean-Marie Le Pen’s deputy in the extreme right Front National and representative of the FN in the European Parliament.) On 13 December Gollnisch’s immunity was revoked by the European Parliament in Strasbourg and he was to face trial in May 2006. In Austria, John Gudenus, a legislator in the Bundesrat (Austria’s Upper House), was stripped of his parliamentary immunity for a second time by the Vienna City Council, on 15 September, for remarks casting doubt on the Holocaust made in May 2005 during his visit to Mauthausen concentration camp.

The arrest of leading Holocaust deniers worldwide at the end of 2005 should be viewed against the backdrop of the European effort to implement existing laws against hate crimes. Ernst Zündel, a Canadian citizen of German origin, has been detained in a German prison since March 2005; Belgium denier Siegfried Verbeke was arrested in Amsterdam; German denier Germar Rudolf was arrested in Frankfurt (after being deported from the US); and British Holocaust denier David Irving was arrested in Austria on 11 November (and sentenced to prison in 2006).

In 2005, 60 years after the end of the war, commemoration of the Holocaust and its meaning for the new generations in Europe was the theme of public events, political statements and educational endeavors. On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the European Parliament issued a statement urging European citizens to remember and condemn the horror and tragedy of the Holocaust and to address the rise in antisemitism.

Public admission of responsibility and the request for forgiveness are important gestures in Holocaust commemoration and teaching. Marking the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, in Berlin on 25 January, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder stressed the historical responsibility of his country. A permanent exhibition, “The Deportation of the Jews on the German Railways, 1941−1945,” opened at the Museum of German Technology, Berlin, on 25 October. On 27 January Il Corriere della Sera published a letter by a representative of the House of Savoy, Prince Victor Emmanuel, asking forgiveness from the Italian Jewish community and declaring that it was an error for the Italian Royal Family to have signed the racial laws of 1938. On 4 May Danish Prime Minister Fogh Rasmussen apologized before Queen Margrethe II and an audience of 5,000 people for the expulsion of innocent people to Nazi Germany, among them 21 Jews, during World War II. On 29 September Aad Veenman, head of the Nederlandse Spoorwegen (Netherlands Railways), admitted his company had taken an active part in the deportation of Dutch Jews to extermination camps during World War II by providing trains and personnel to transport Jews to camps in Germany and Poland. He apologized for the involvement of the company in Nazi crimes. In fall 2005, as part of their training, 100 young French policemen were told about their country’s collaboration with the Nazi regime and of the role played by French police in the deportation of Jews and members of the French resistance movement.

National and international organizations and foundations, such as the OSCE, the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research, and the French Foundation for Shoah Remembrance, worked to promote Holocaust studies programs in educational institutions. In November 2005, for example, the Foundation for Shoah Remembrance distributed a DVD on the Holocaust to 28,000 high school students, teachers and libraries in the Paris area. The DVD deals with the deportation of 76,000 Jews from France and the liberation of the concentration camps.

It should be noted, however, that despite these efforts, polls conducted in Europe show that many people are ignorant about the Holocaust. A 2004 BBC poll in the UK showed that 45 percent of Britons (60 percent under 35) had never heard of Auschwitz. In March 2005 the American Jewish Committee (AJC) released a survey, “Thinking about the Holocaust 60 Years Later,” on Holocaust remembrance and attitudes toward Jews in Europe and the US. The findings revealed that only 53 percent of those polled in Britain (and 44 percent in the US) knew that Auschwitz, Dachau and Treblinka were concentration or death camps; however, 88 percent in Austria, 77 percent in Germany and 78 percent in France were able to identify these places. In Germany a survey carried out by the University of Bielefeld showed that 50 percent of interviewees compared Israel’s policy toward the Palestinians with the Nazi treatment of Jews in Germany, indicating a grave lack of knowledge about the Holocaust and misunderstanding of the situation in the Middle East.

 

Eastern Europe

Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany declared during a visit to New York in October 2005 that he would “ensure that the tragedy inflicted upon the Jewish people will never occur again and that Hungarian Jews will be protected.” He and other leaders of central and east European states were among prominent figures who attended public events commemorating 60 years to the end of World War II. The US Congress resolution in January, commending countries and organizations for marking the liberation of Auschwitz and urging them to strengthen “the fight against racism, intolerance, bigotry, prejudice, discrimination, and antisemitism” seems to have made a considerable impression on leaders of east European states such as Hungary and Romania. On Holocaust Memorial Day in Romania, instituted in 2004, Foreign Minister Razvan Ungureanu declared that Romanian children must be taught that Jews were murdered in their country. This event, among several others held in Romania, took place in Iasi, the site of a mass pogrom in June 1941. Romanian President Traian Basescu emphasized the need for further education of the younger generation on the fate of the Jews in the Holocaust. These statements were in sharp contrast to the attitude that prevailed in Romania only few years ago (see ASW 2002/3).

Historical memory pertaining to the 60th anniversary of the end of the World War II and the liberation of the camps was a primary theme in the media of east European states. While the countries’ leaders tried to avoid controversial statements on these issues, media articles focused on the different narratives relating to the end of the war, the liberation of the death camps and the impact of the beginning of the Cold War on the area. Both center-right and left-wing organs, such as the Hungarian Népszabadság, stressed the participation of senior officials in the ceremonies as an indication of the attitude of the current political elites toward the past. Media discussion also centered on the postwar world and the Soviet communist takeover. The extremist right-wing press, such as Hungary’s Magyar Demokrata, complained of ‘overemphasis’ on the alleged suffering of the Jews and disregard of the ‘Judeo-communist’ terror of the communist period. They recalled the behavior of Soviet troops, often in gruesome detail, in the countries liberated by the Soviet armies (most of the former socialist countries of eastern Europe and the Balkans) in order to highlight the end of one of type of suffering and the beginning of another. Further, they discussed the nature of ‘liberation’ and its transformation at the end of the war, into ‘occupation’ by the Soviets and local communists. Thus, there is a clear division between the nationalist right-wing, on the one hand, and the center and the liberal left, on the other, over the nature of the postwar situation, although no significant political force even hinted that it preferred continuation of the war and living under Nazi rule or auspices, and they all welcomed the end of the war as having brought relief to their devastated societies and states.

The year 2005, in fact, highlighted the struggle for the memory of postwar events, which results from the different experiences of various social and ethnic groups (Adam Krzeminski, “As Many Wars as Nations,” Sign and Sight, 6 April 2005, www.signandsight.com). While Jewish collective memory stresses liberation and the end of the attempt by Nazis and local collaborators to annihilate the Jewish nation, non-Jewish memory focuses on the communist era from an opposing viewpoint, as well as the postwar plight, Soviet plunder of the remnants of local economies, and the postwar trials. An example of differing perceptions of the past can be found in Slovakia in the case of Bishop Jan Vojtassak. In October 2005 the regional council of Presov approved a posthumous award to Bishop Jan Vojtassak. He had spent 12 years in jail after being persecuted by the communist regime. However, the Jewish community protested the award since Vojtassak had been president of the State Council of Slovakia during World War II and had taken part in the deportation of Jews to death camps.

The events and discourse surrounding the 60th anniversary events were held against the background of the extreme right’s continued dissemination of antisemitic propaganda, mostly in relation to the Holocaust period. As always, while distorting the Holocaust they linked the suffering of the east European people to the Jews and their role in the communist regime. A “Letter to President G.W. Bush” published in the weekly Romania Mare of 8 April 2005 by Ion Coja, a notorious Romanian antisemitic academic, typified this trend. Coja denied there was a Holocaust in Romania, and accused the Jews of causing antisemitism in Romania and of subjugating Romania to the “international mafia dominated by the Jews.” He also claimed the Jews had held key positions in the postwar Communist Party and had brought about the indictment and execution of wartime fascist ruler Ion Antonescu. Coja is well known for his attempts to rehabilitate Antonescu, a campaign that has intensified with the approach of the 60th anniversary of his execution in 1946.

Interestingly, in eastern Europe the so-called new antisemitism, mainly demonization of Israel, is much less evident than in western Europe. The mainstream media in 2005 was usually less critical of Israel than some of the western press, such as Le Monde and the Guardian, and anti-Israel material that appeared was often attributed to western sources. Furthermore, the mainstream media was careful to avoid making a direct link between Israeli ‘behavior’ and Jewish stereotypes. In fact, they made it plain whenever an antisemitic motive was present in events that occurred in the West.

However, small though vocal groups, such as Istvan Csurka’s Hungarian Life and Justice Party (MIEP), which is internally fragmented for reasons unrelated to the extremist line of the movement, stress alleged Israeli interests in keeping the war in Iraq alive through the US presence. Such voices are rare, and although opposition to the US presence in Iraq is growing, it does not appear to be translated into more vehement criticism of Israel.

The east/central European position toward Israel may be explained, first, by the ongoing debate between moderates and extremists in most of the states over their national history and the fate of the Jews during the Holocaust. Thus, the unresolved past is of more concern than attacking Israel. Second, a virulently anti-Israel line is still associated with the legacy of the hated communist regime. Third, there is little sympathy for the Arab cause, and since there are no significant Muslim and Arab communities within these states, the media have no need to take their views into account. Moreover, since the post-communist countries are in the process of expanding relations with moderate Arab and Muslim states, they are more interested in promoting a solution of the Arab-Israeli conflict than in supporting Islamic radicals. Fourth, countries that have joined the EU, as well as those expecting to become members in 2007 (Romania and Bulgaria), are busy adjusting their economies and systems to the new realities, and are less inclined, at least at this stage, to endanger the delicate balance between their deep friendship with the US and their new status in the EU by adopting the coded anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric typically found in the West.

 

Latin America

In Latin America events marking the 60th anniversary of the end of the war and the liberation of Auschwitz were held for the most part by the Jewish communities. In Mexico Tribuna Israelita, the chief organization for monitoring and countering antisemitism, co-edited, together with the National Council against Discrimination (CONAPRED), a collection of articles by 30 Mexican journalists and writers commemorating 60 years from the liberation of Auschwitz. The work “Moon Landscape,” painted by Petr Ginz, a 14-year-old Jewish boy, during his incarceration in the Theresienstadt ghetto, was immortalized in a postage stamp. Thanks to the community’s efforts the anniversary activities received wide media coverage.

In Brazil, commemoration of Yom Hashoah and the end of World War II took place against the background of a virulently anti-Zionist campaign verging on antisemitism, in particular, comparisons between Nazi Germany and Israel (see ASW 2004). In Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Jewish communities held ceremonies to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the end of the war. In São Paulo, 200 soldiers from the army, the navy, the air force, the police, and the fire brigade participated in a ceremony in the Jewish Cultural Center.

A dramatic increase in neo-Nazi and antisemitic manifestations, and especially of antisemitic graffiti, cast a shadow on the ceremonies held in Argentina. Although governmental bodies and civic organizations and institutions adopted the US Senate decision to monitor antisemitism, the DAIA, the leading Jewish organization in Argentina, met with Minister of the Interior Anibal Fernandez, on 10 May, to protest the proliferation of swastikas in Buenos Aires, and particularly in the city of General Roca, in the southern province of Rio Negro. While in previous years the average number of antisemitic events ranged between 160 and 185, the figure for 2005 almost doubled, to 375. In addition to antisemitic graffiti, several Jewish organizations and community members reported receiving threats.

In addition, the 1994 AMIA community center bombing, in which 86 people were killed and over 200 injured, remains an open wound. After more than ten years of investigations and trials, the chief accomplices in the local connection have not been brought to justice. Undoubtedly, important evidence was concealed or forged and new scandals continue to be exposed (see Graciela Ben-Dror, “Antisemitism in Argentina from the Military Junta to the Democratic Era”).

In their speeches leaders of the Argentinean Jewish community linked the 60th anniversary to rising antisemitism. The DAIA press release, issued on 27 January, mentioned the “dissemination of antisemitic material that is growing daily, and even denying the Holocaust.” The statement also spoke of “the silence of the world then,” and “the new antisemitism, often expressed as anti-Zionism.” The DAIA president also raised this topic on 3 May when the organization commemorated 62 years from the Warsaw ghetto uprising. The event, held in the San Martin Cultural Center, Buenos Aires, was attended by leading representatives of the state and the military as well as several ambassadors.

The 60th anniversary events also prompted a reflection on the history of antisemitism in Argentina and criticism of the school curricula. In a ceremony marking 60 years to the liberation of the camps that took place in the Holocaust Museum of Buenos Aires, Mario Feferbaum, president of the museum, spoke of the prohibition of the Yiddish press in Argentina, and the closure of the Jewish community’s schools and newspapers from 1943 until the end of the war by the ruling junta. He stated that several streets still bore the name of those who were ideologically responsible for the regime and its acts. He also said that it was necessary to change the content of school curricula in Argentina because they ignored the role of the Jews in the nation.

Venezuela has witnessed an increased proliferation of virulently anti-Israel and anti-Zionist propaganda, frequently entwined with anti-Jewish slogans, since the election of President Hugo Chavez in 1998. This tendency has escalated since the failed coup against Chavez in 2002 in which circles close to the government accused Israel of involvement (see ASW 2002/3, 2003/4, 2004).

Official and semi-official events marking the 60th anniversary of the end of the war featured anti-Zionist expressions, including distortion of the Holocaust and demonization of Israel. Parliamentary President Nicolas Maduro, a Congressman from Chavez’s party MVR, said, for example, in February 2005: “If we cry and condemn what was done in Auschwitz, we have also to… condemn what is being done to the Palestinian and Iraqi peoples.” Similarly, journalist Augusto Hernandez wrote at the end of January that Israel “is doing the same thing to other people that the Nazis did to them, for very similar reasons,” and an article in the supplement Orbe of the pro-Chavez newspaper Vea (7 Feb. 2005) stated that the Jews were “applying very similar practices that they suffered in Auschwitz to the Arabs.” Further, it asserted that the Jews and the Zionists worked hand with hand with the Nazis to fulfill the Zionist mission.

At the end of October Vea editor Garcia Ponce wrote under the title “Genocide” that if somebody had to be judged for perpetrating genocide it was the government of the State of Israel. On 4 April journalist Basem Tajeldine claimed in the paper that the Zionists were the heirs of the rabbis who had asked for the death of Jesus “because they were defending their own interests.”

Holocaust denial, anti-Zionism and demonization of Israel were broadcast on Venezuelan National Radio following the ceremonies in January at the UN and in Poland marking the liberation of the death camps. For example, Vladimir Acosta, program director of Sobre el Tapete (‘Under Discussion’), said it was untrue that 6 million Jews were killed, “although it is terrible even if only 1 million were killed.” He claimed that most of the victims were not Jews but communists and that the Jews had managed to attract world attention to their tragedy only and to make it forget the murder of others. A month later Acosta, said that “what is important is not the Holocaust 60 years ago but the current mass killing of the Palestinians that Jews are carrying out today.” He continued his attacks during the year but gradually replaced the word ‘Jews’ with ‘Zionists’.

The Jewish community in Venezuela was also the target of extremely anti-Israel propaganda. In the radio program “Los papeles de Mandiga” broadcast by “YVKE Mundial” on 9 September, commentator Alberto Noria condemned Rabbi Pynchas Brenner and the community, claiming that some of them were rogues (canallas), and that when someone like the writer Mario Vargas Llosa criticized the State of Israel, they denounced him as an ‘antisemite’. This is the “racist and criminal conception of the Jews who have control over the Jewish Confederation of Venezuela.”

Chavez himself made a controversial statement in 2005 which was interpreted by some critics as antisemitic. In a Christmas speech delivered at the Manantial de los Suenos rehabilitation center on 24 December 2005, he declared: “Some minorities, the descendants of the same ones who crucified Christ, the descendants of the same ones who threw out [South American liberator Simon] Bolivar from here and also crucified him in a way in Santa Marta, over there in Colombia — a minority took possession of all the planet's gold, of the silver, the minerals, the waters, the good land, the oil, the riches, and they have concentrated the riches in a few hands.” Chavez rejected the accusation that his speech included antisemitic nuances, alleging the attack on him was part of “an imperialist campaign.” He was supported by Venezuelan Jewish community leaders of the CAIV (Confederation of Jewish Associations of Venezuela), who maintained that Chavez’s comments were not antisemitic but were aimed at the white oligarchy. However, this was not the first time that Chavez used motifs from traditional Christian anti-Jewish texts. On 25 August 2004, a few days after his questionable victory in the referendum aimed at recalling him from office, the president attacked the opposition leadership, stating: “Don’t let yourselves be poisoned by those wandering Jews.” Relating to those who did not support him, he declared on the following day: “There are some − every day there are fewer − ‘small leaders’ [dirigencillos] who don’t lead anyone, they are more isolated every day, and wander around like the wandering Jew.” According to the Jewish community, the phrase ‘wandering Jews’, was directed metaphorically at the leaders of the opposition parties, which Chavez claims have nothing to offer the country’s citizens (see ASW 2004).

The tendencies toward extreme anti-Zionist expressions and distortion of the Holocaust might be explained partly against the background of the close relationship between Venezuela and Iran and other Muslim countries, mainly in regard to mutual oil interests. They are also part of the Chavez government’s anti-American and anti-imperialist rhetoric, since Israel is viewed as a key factor in US politics and thus an enemy of the ‘anti imperialist revolution’.

 

The Arab Media

No new trends appeared in the antisemitic discourse in the Arab and Muslim worlds, despite the impetus given by newly elected (on 24 June 2005) President of Iran Mahmud Ahmadinejad. However, existing themes, discerned since the outbreak of the al-Aqsa intifada at the end of September 2000, continued. These included increased preoccupation with the Holocaust, as well as intensified attacks on Zionism by leaders who sought to incite not only regional but worldwide public opinion. Both these motifs had emerged in September 2001, in the course of Arab and Iranian efforts to bring about the denunciation of Zionism as racism and to trivialize the Holocaust at the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in Durban, South Africa.

Discussion of the Holocaust was prompted by the UN Special Session in January 2005 commemorating 60 years to the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps and by the later UN decision to designate 27 January, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, as Holocaust Remembrance Day, as well as by Ahmadinejad’s statements at the end of the year.

It should be noted at the outset that several Arab and Muslim countries, such as Jordan, Morocco and Pakistan, supported the UN initiative in January. However, the response by many in the Arab and Muslim world was either outright rejection or reservation. The Egyptian Parliament, for instance, unanimously dismissed it and the Muslim Council of Britain, the umbrella organization of British Muslim representative organizations, headed by Iqbal Sacaranie, refused to take part in Britain’s official Holocaust Remembrance Day. This mixed reaction was fully reflected in the debate which evolved in the media, revealing once again that the Arab discourse on the Holocaust is less monolithic and more complex than it was in the past. Yet, it still fails to distinguish between the human aspects of the Holocaust and the perceived resultant political gains of the Zionists, and persists in linking the Jewish tragedy to the plight of the Palestinians. Undoubtedly, the liberation of the concentration camps was an important historical event, wrote Ghida Fakhri in the London-based daily al-Sharq al-Awsat (21 Jan.), but does it really represent the end of the war? Why did the UN General Assembly decide to commemorate only one aspect of the horrors, which caused millions of deaths in Europe, Asia and Africa? Why did it not mark, for instance, ten years to the genocide in Rwanda, in 2004?

Many commentators in the Arab and Muslim world agreed that the UN decision reflected President George Bush’s agenda, and handed a victory to Israeli PM Ariel Sharon, who would now be able to pursue his “aggressive and murderous policies” toward the Palestinians. By continually spotlighting the Holocaust, they added, Europe’s response to the Palestinian problem would remain indecisive.

In a leader entitled “Auschwitz and Palestine” (27 Jan.), London-based Al-Hayat editor `Abd al-Wahhab Badrakhan linked the two directly. It was natural for the UN to engage in memory of the Holocaust, which concerned all humanity, he wrote, but its exploitation in order to exonerate Israel’s “bloody record” was a different matter. Any confusion between Israel and the Holocaust was a manipulation of its memory and detrimental to its lessons. Israel considered worldwide solidarity with the Jews in remembrance of the Holocaust as sympathy for its crimes against the Palestinian people, he contended, adding that the event itself and Kofi Annan’s failure in his speech to mention the Palestinians, who had paid the price of Israel’s ascent from the ashes, constituted an organized denial of the Palestinian catastrophe. Lebanese commentator Muhammad al-Sammak in al-Mustaqbal (31 Jan.) went further, accusing Israel of turning the West Bank and Gaza into a second Auschwitz.

Several Egyptian writers also accused Israel of exploiting memory of the Holocaust and slighting other persecutions, including African slavery and the persecution of non-Jews by the Nazis, and concluded that the UN decision reflected a change in the global balance of power and a victory for Israel. The same UN which a few years previously had denounced Zionism as a racist movement, wrote Egyptian Ambassador Sayyid Qasim al-Misri in the mainstream daily al-Akhbar (3 Feb.), had not only revoked the resolution but succumbed to Zionist pressure. Even leftist intellectual Muhammad Sid Ahmad, who fully supported preservation of the memory of the German death camps, viewed the commemoration as attesting “to Zionism’s ability to mobilize public opinion at the global level.” In an article published in al-Ahram Weekly (3 Feb.), he lamented that the message of the triumph of the values of humanity over the dark forces unleashed by Nazi ideology had not been conveyed, and claimed that Jews were not entitled to exploit their victimization by the Nazis to justify depriving the Palestinian people of their basic human and political rights.

In an al-Hayat editorial from 29 January, entitled “In the Margins of the Liberation of Auschwitz,” liberal Lebanese writer Hazim Saghiya justified Arab writers who criticized alleged Israeli exploitation of the Holocaust. Their concern, he said, was understandable in view of ignorance of Palestinian suffering; however, the link made by either Israel or the Arabs between the Holocaust and the conflict in the Middle East was unacceptable. Sanctification of the Holocaust in Europe was a spiritual need which transcended religion, he wrote, and its political and material exploitation should not cancel out the rich and valid findings about the Holocaust that were continually coming to light.

Islamists, on the other hand, mostly denied the Holocaust. Hizballah’s mouthpiece al-`Ahd al-Intiqad (24 Jan.) referred often to “alleged” massacres of “large numbers” of Jews in gas chambers and crematoria in Auschwitz, and to western revisionist historians persecuted because they were trying to demonstrate that “the so-called Holocaust” was invented to perpetuate European feelings of guilt toward the Jews and to cover up “unprecedented crimes” against the Arabs, and in particular against the Palestinians. Commemoration of the 60th anniversary had no symbolic meaning, the paper added, while the Paris-based Lebanese journalist Hayat al-Huwayk `Atiyya considered it “a hysteria” in the Islamist Jordanian weekly al-Sabil (18 Jan.). “Today the world celebrates the security of Israel,” asserted Jordanian Islamist Ibrahim `Allush in the same paper (1 Feb.). Notorious for his ideational support of Holocaust denial, `Allush branded the Holocaust “an invented lie” and “a global ideology” of the Zionist movement. Jews died in World War II like the other 45 million who perished due to war, hunger and disease. If we accept that Jews were exterminated in gas chambers, as a result of a policy planned to annihilate six million out of 15 million Jews, he argued, we acknowledge the “amazing Holocaust story.” These claims, he concluded, had been refuted by revisionist scholars.

Holocaust denial appeared in statements made by Iranian president Mahmud Ahmadinejad on two occasions in 2005: in an interview to Iranian TV during the Islamic Conference Organization meeting in Saudi Arabia on 8 December and on 15 December. “We do not accept the claim of some European countries,” he said, that during the war Hitler killed millions of innocent Jews in furnaces and sent them to concentration camps. The Holocaust was “a legend” invented by the Jews who held it in higher esteem than religion, he explained. Linking the Holocaust to the Palestinian cause, he asked why innocent Palestinian people had to pay the price for a crime they had not committed, and proposed that western countries allocate part of their lands for the establishment of a Jewish state. Similarly, at a student conference “A World without Zionism,” held on Jerusalem Day (instituted by Ayatollah Khomeini on the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan), 26 October, he called for Israel to be wiped off the map.

Why does the Iranian president engage in such rhetoric now? Is it intended solely for domestic consumption? Is it a response to the pressure of international opposition to Iran’s development of nuclear weapons? Are these statements, perhaps, the indiscretions of an inexperienced president?

The answers to these questions are beyond the scope of this analysis, yet there is no doubt that Ahmadinejad is a fanatical ideologue, loyal to his revolutionary upbringing and to the Islamist worldview, in which the liberation of Palestine and antisemitic motifs are intertwined. Arab reactions to these statements demonstrated support, on the one hand, and rejection, on the other. Naturally, Islamist movements such as Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Egyptian Muslim Brothers, as well as Egyptian opposition papers such as al-Wafd, identified with the president’s vision and goals. Khalid Mash`al, head of Hamas political bureau, praised him, while the statement of the general guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Muhammad Mahdi `Akif, “He said aloud what millions of Muslims think,” was a recurring theme. Ahmadinejad’s argument was hardly a surprise to an Arab audience, wrote Rasha Saad in al-Ahram Weekly (15 Dec.), and quoted al-Hayat editor `Abd al-Wahhab Badrakhan, who accepted the Iranian president’s statements as a reminder to the West and Israel, “that the historical facts do not match the image they have been portraying and which they work hard to sustain.” Ahmadinejad had only spoken the truth about the Arab-Israeli conflict and did not retract his claims despite angry reactions, asserted Yasir Za`atra, an Islamist, in the Jordanian daily al-Dustur (31 Oct. and 20 Dec.). Western reactions were the epitome of terrorism, hatred and hypocrisy, Rakan al-Majali concluded in al-Dustur (1 Nov.). Moreover, asserted Egyptian Islamist intellectual Fahmi Huwaydi in al-Sharq al-Awsat (2 Nov.), Palestine had been erased from the map with the consent of the same countries that had been upset by the Iranian president’s statements.

The worldwide condemnation of the Iranian president’s declarations was seen by other commentators as serving Israel’s interests, and although they agreed with his message, considered his tactics to be wrong. An al-Ahram editorial (30 Oct.) categorically rejected the statements which, it said, could only lead to further disasters. Perhaps Arabs, Iranians and Muslims wanted to eliminate Israel, concluded Salah al-Qallab in al-Sharq al-Awsat (3 Nov.), but they were incapable of doing so. The president’s declarations were merely an expression of will. Egyptian peace proponent `Abd al-Mun`im Sa`id (al-Sharq al-Awsat, 9 Nov.) maintained that they represented a complete reversal. Since the Madrid peace conference the perception of the conflict had changed substantially and questioning Israel’s legitimate right to exist had been superseded by acknowledgment of the Palestinians’ right to their own state. Ahmadinejad’s statements were also rejected by Hazim Saghiya in an editorial in al-Hayat (24 Dec.). Saghiya, who since the mid-1990s has advocated a new approach toward the Holocaust, deplored the fact that Ahmadinejad’s words had been received enthusiastically by the Arabs and that Holocaust denial had become “a disease” infecting Middle East rulers, whereas in the past it had been confined to the fanatic margins of society.