BBC Clueless to Antisemitism Rise in Europe

"Is anti-Semitism really increasing? Is hostility towards Israeli policy in the Middle East becoming anti-Jewish? BBC News Online asked 12 experts on Jewish affairs from Europe and Israel to reflect on the charge.

Robert Wistrich, director of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism in Jerusalem:

There was outrage and shock over the recent EU poll. Many Israelis regard this as anti-Semitism of sorts. Even if there were other factors involved, people feel there must be a lot of general prejudice around for such results to occur.

There is a clear feeling from the Israeli point of view that what is at stake now is the very legitimacy of the state of Israel in a moral, historical and political sense.

When we get to a point when it is becoming acceptable in many places in Europe and even in mainstream opinion to label Israel as a Nazi state, or, in more diplomatic language, an apartheid state, the Israeli citizen feels that their very right to exist in any form, whether politically or as a nation, is being challenged.

Israelis feel that their country, whatever criticisms they have of it - and Jews in Israel are gold medallists where it comes to criticising their own government - is being made into a pariah.
People here have a sense of systematic stigmatisation and even a demonisation of Israel.
I think that one of the more hopeful signs in recent months is a growing realisation by governments, however reluctantly, of the need to come to grips with anti-Semitism.

President Jacques Chirac and the French Government were in denial for a long time. Mr Chirac was saying there was no anti-Semitism in the French republic. Now, there has been a complete turnaround. I fear it is a bit late, but better late than never. "

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