Although a Turkish Islamist group called the Islamic Great Eastern Raiders (Akincilar) Front (which was active in the 1980s and whose leaders are in jail) took responsibility for the attacks, it is suspected that they were assisted by al-Qa`ida members or by other Turkish extremist groups such as Hizballah. Indeed, the London-based al-Quds al-Arab claimed, on 16 November, to have received an e-mail from an al-Qa`ida source claiming the group's involvement. It should be noted that the anti-western, anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli motifs in the ideologies of all these groups are basically similar. Three suspects were reportedly arrested by the Turkish police.

Neve Shalom Synagogue was the target of an earlier shooting attack in 1986, perpetrated by the radical Palestinian Abu Nidal group, as well as an attempted bombing in 1992. Three members of the outlawed Hizballah network were jailed for the latter attack. In addition, attempts were made on the lives of two leading members of the Jewish community Jak Kamhi in Istanbul (1993) and Yuda Yurum in Ankara (1995).

The other incident took place also on the Sabbath in France, where an arson attack gutted the Merkaz HaTorah Jewish secondary school in Gagny, a suburb of Paris. No one was injured. In 1995, members of the Algerian GIA (Groupe Islamique Arme) attacked a Jewish school in Lyon, injuring fourteen.

Although there is no apparent connection between the incidents in Turkey and France, they reflect the rise of antisemitic sentiments worldwide. The attacks were denounced by most world leaders, including Egyptian and Syrian heads. However, Arab League Secretary General `Amru Musa accused Israel and its deeds for provoking such radical acts.

The 10-page speech had originally appeared on the website of CDU Neuhof, Hohmann's constituency. On 27 October right-wing extremist Horst Mahler, distributed it to neo-Nazi members of a Holocaust deniers' mailing list. Having been brought to the attention of German TV by the Jewish Hagalil Internet site, the speech became the subject of the 30 October news program 'ARD Tagesthemen'. The text has since been deleted from the CDU Neuhof website.

Paul Spiegel, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany branded Hohmann's remarks "disgusting antisemitism," and is considering legal proceedings against Hohmann for incitement. Andrea Merkel, chairman of the CDU, labeled Hohmann's speech "completely unacceptable and intolerable."

Under pressure, the German MP finally "retracted" his remarks on 31 October, in a brief statement which again contained denial of German guilt: "I describe neither Jews nor Germans as a nation of perpetrators," he said. "It wasn't and isn't my intention to hurt anyone's feeling." Hohmann cited antisemitic statements of Henry Ford in defense of his argumentation. One day later, he issued another excuse: "It was not my intention to characterize the Jews as a nation of perpetrators.. I emphatically apologize and am sorry if I have hurt feelings," he said.

Mahathir's statement, which aroused angry Jewish reactions and protests, was not his first reference to the Jews. In October 1997, he accused the Jews, and specifically Jewish tycoon George Soros, of ruining the Malaysian economy. The European Parliament contemplated issuing a condemnation of his latest statement but retracted due to French opposition. However, French President Chirac later denounced the statement and President Bush reproached Mahathir during the APEC meeting in Bangkok on 20 October.

It was also revealed on 11 September 2003 that four members of the al-Tahid group were charged, on 27 August, with planning an attack on Jewish sites in D?sseldorf and Berlin.

In October 2000 Garaudy appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in an attempt to overturn his conviction, under Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention of Human Rights. His appeal was rejected on 7 July 2003 when the ECHR declared his application inadmissible. The court ruled, inter alia, that Garaudy had "systematically disputed the existence of crimes against humanity which the Nazis had committed against the Jewish community" and that his writings "constituted a serious threat to public order," as the "real purpose of such a work was to rehabilitate the National Socialist regime."

In the past decade Romania has made major headway in dealing with its past, in relation both to the fate of some 300,000 Jews for whose death the wartime Romanian regime was directly responsible, and to the survival of half of Romania's Jewry for whom, according to the latest historical research, wartime fascist leader Ion Antonescu had intended a similar destiny but changed his plans to hand them over to the Germans for pragmatic reasons.

The details of the Romanian Holocaust are well documented, inter alia, in two volumes published by Yad Vashem (the largest documented work on one country) and in a three-volume work by noted Israeli historian Jean Ancel on Transnistria, containing hundreds of documents.

The Romanian statement tries to evade responsibility for the Holocaust by denying that it took place "within Romania's borders," but even this circumscription is false given the pogroms of Iasi, Dorohoi and other places (approximately 15,000 murdered in late June 1941). Moreover, the ghettoization and expulsions from Northern Bukovina and Bessarabia took place in areas that were considered "Romanian territory." As to the killing fields of Transnistria in which the Romanians deny participation, these are by now well documented with the killing orders signed by head of state Antonescu. Finally, Nazi documents and the writings of the Italian journalist Curzio Malparte serve as testimony to the brutality of the Romanian troops in their areas of occupation, amazing even seasoned Nazi executioners.

Hopefully, the projects to teach the Holocaust in Romania, as well as the conferences and scientific meetings at which Romanian historians have expressed a readiness to deal with the past for the sake of their own future, will continue. Above all, it might be expected that the denial of the Holocaust by a state whose president signed the Stockholm Declaration of 2000 will arouse strong protests. Unless the Romanian government's claim is retracted, Romania's efforts to integrate into Europe and other structures such as NATO will suffer a severe setback.

It should be noted that MCA - The Center for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism in Romania - lodged a strong protest immediately following the Romanian government communiqu?. Moreover, the Romanian ambassador to Israel was summoned to the Israel Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem and warned that her government must find a way to correct its "unfortunate" statement, if bilateral relations were to return to the status quo ante.

For a more detailed analysis, see General Analysis

AN "AXIS OF EVIL": BETWEEN THE TWIN TOWERS AND THE WAR ON IRAQ

The year 2002 witnessed the highest number of violent antisemitic acts in more than 12 years: 311 cases worldwide, among them 56 major attacks (using violent means) and 255 major violent incidents (without the use of a weapon). The year 2003 seems to be undergoing a further wave of antisemitism as a result of the war on Iraq.

No less troubling was the change in targeting. While in 2000/1, about 60 percent of violent acts were directed at synagogues, mainly arson attacks, and before that at cemeteries, in 2002 a similar percentage was directed against persons identified as Jews.

Location was also significant. Western Europe has led the world in terms of antisemitic violence since the outbreak of the second intifada in October 2000, with France, Belgium and the UK topping the list. North America and Russia registered a moderate increase in violent incidents, while numbers in east European countries and in Latin America remained more or less on the same level. Thus, in recent years, there has been a clear shift in antisemitic activity from totalitarian states to western democratic ones.

The main waves of antisemitic violence were from October to November 2000, August to October 2001, April to August 2002, and the most recent one beginning with the preparations for the war on Iraq. They have tended to originate chiefly among Muslim immigrant circles in Europe, with extreme right groups jumping on the bandwagon. These waves were stimulated and accompanied by extremely antisemitic verbal, written and visual expressions in the media, in academia, in official circles and in society at large. They appeared as cartoons and illustrations, threat letters, graffiti, placards and calls at demonstrations, on Internet sites, and as personal insults, especially in western Europe, from Scandinavia to Italy and Spain.

Organizations and groups which in the 1990s championed anti-racism and then led the opposition to globalization now call themselves pacifists. They attack the US, depicting it as a power-hungry super-state, which aims to dominate world politics and the economy and is driven by Israel and world Jewry. In a contemporary version of the blood libel the Jews and Israel are blamed for the destruction of the World Trade Center, an act they supposedly plotted in order to push the US into a wholesale war against Islam, beginning in Afghanistan and now in Iraq. Thus, the US and Israel, supported allegedly by the many Jews in the Washington administration, are conceived not only as political and strategic partners, but as a modern axis of evil, manipulating the rest of the world in order to attain their interests.

In demonstrations held throughout 2002/3, Israel and the US and their leaders were repeatedly compared to Nazis, symbolizing the ultimate contemporary iniquity. Such analogies contribute to weakening Europe's obligation to the Holocaust and, even more troubling, to undermining the legitimacy of the Jewish state and its Jewish supporters. This trend, now a mainstream phenomenon at western universities, is defined as anti-Zionism, supposedly a more civilized and legitimate term than antisemitism. In fact, it is discrimination against a nation which is deemed unworthy of a national life.

All the themes mentioned above form a meeting point between the extreme right and left, major segments of the liberal left, particularly in Europe, and radical Islamists who, in their struggle against Israel, "the small Satan," and the US, "the big Satan," spread and finance venomous anti-Jewish and anti-Israel propaganda. It is this alignment of interests that has brought about the current antisemitic explosion.