EU: Anti-Semitic incidents are increasing in some European countries but not in Ireland, according to a controversial study of anti-Semitism released by a European Commission agency yesterday, writes Tim King in Brussels
The survey concludes that manifestations of anti-Semitism have been growing in frequency in the past two or three years in the UK, Germany, France, the Netherlands and Belgium.
In Greece, Italy, Austria and Spain violent incidents are relatively rare, but anti-Semitism is a part of everyday discourse and widespread in the population.
Ireland is grouped with Luxembourg, Finland and Portugal as a country in which "there has been relatively little reported in the way of a problem with anti-Semitism".
The report, published by the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia, concludes that the largest group of perpetrators of anti-Semitic actions are "young, disaffected white Europeans", but adds that "a further source of anti-Semitism in some countries was young Muslims of north African or Asian extraction".
In the section of the report devoted to Ireland, the bulk of the incidents in 2003 were categorised as "abusive behaviour" - mainly abusive and aggressive letters and phone calls - "totalling around 16".
The picture is more worrying in other countries. The section on Belgium records a series of attacks in April and May 2002 on synagogues in Charleroi, Brussels and Antwerp, including firebombs, Molotov cocktails and machine-gun fire. The number of incidents in 2002 was roughly double that in the previous two years. The study sees a connection between a peak of incidents in April 2002 and the fact that that month the Israeli government began construction of its security barrier.
There was a similar peak in incidents that month in Britain, although those collecting the data believe the majority of attacks were carried out by far-right extremists. "Nevertheless, the climate of hostility towards Israel provides such groups with a convenient cover," says the study.