Islam Online, UK
Jan 11 2005

Jewish Group Says US `Soft’ on Arabs

Bush signed in October into law a controversial bill on combating the
so-called global `anti-Semitism.’ (Reuters)

By Adam Wild Aba, IOL Correspondent

WASHINGTON, January 11 (IslamOnline.net) – A US Jewish organization
has criticized the State Department’s first annual report on
anti-Semitism, saying it has taken a soft line with `anti-Semitic’
Arab governments.

The Philadelphia-based Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies said in
a press release that the US report only concentrated on anti-Semitic
practices in South America and Europe while it turned a blind eye to
the `anti-Semitism sponsored by some Arab governments.’

`It is encouraging that the report includes Israel-Nazi analogies in
its definition of anti-Semitism, but it is disappointing that the
report says so little about some Arab governments which promote such
analogies and other types of anti- Semitism,’ the institute said in a
press release on its website.

The US State Department issued on January 5 its first annual report
on anti-Semitism around the globe.

The 37-page report claimed that anti-Jewish practices were mounting
in Europe and other parts of the world since the outbreak of the
second Palestinian Intifada four years ago.

On October 17, US President George W. Bush signed into law a
controversial bill on combating the so-called global anti-Semitism.

The law commits the US State Department to documenting acts of
physical violence against Jews, their property, cemeteries and places
of worship abroad, as well as local governments’ responses to them
and take note of instances of anti-Jewish propaganda and governments’
readiness to promote unbiased school curricula.

`Soft’

The institute claimed that the US report was `soft’ on addressing
`anti-Semitic’ practices in the Arab world.

`The section about Iceland, for instance, is 387 words long, even
though the report notes only one instance of anti-Semitic harassment
and one hostile cartoon there.

`By contrast, Saudi Arabia is given just 182 words, including the
apparently contradictory statements that `Anti-Semitic
sentiments…were present in the print and electronic media. The
local press rarely printed articles or commentaries disparaging other
religions,” the institute said.

It said the report only mentioned 86 words about the Palestinian
Authority, more than half of which cited a sermon broadcast by the
Palestinian television pressing for tolerance `but without mentioning
Jews.’

`That sermon unfortunately was not typical of sermons that are
broadcast on PA TV and radio, which often contain anti-Semitic
themes, including denial of the Holocaust. Additionally, the State
Department report does not mention instances of anti-Semitism in the
PA-controlled press,’ the institute added.

The press release further alleged that the government-sponsored
anti-Semitic practices in countries such as Armenia (194 words),
Brazil (149) and Azerbaijan (142) were given more space in the report
rather than anti-Semitic practices of some Arab countries.

`Anti-Semitism’

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, anti-Semitism is hostility
toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious or racial group.

It was coined in 1879 by German agitator Wilhelm Marr to designate
the anti-Jewish campaigns underway in central Europe at that time.

However, Richard Levy, a professor of History in Chicago, had told
IslamOnline.net the term was often misused when Jews and others
`refuse to see any difference between criticism of Israeli policies
and anti-Semitism’.

Pundits and linguists also believe that Israeli officials and US
neo-conservatives are using now `anti-Semitism’ to stifle any
criticism of the aggressive Israeli practices against the Palestinian
people.

Former Israeli immigration minister Natan Sharansky had said that the
`specious line between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism has now become
completely blurred.’

Norman Podhoretz, a prominent US neo-conservative writer, agreed that
anti-Zionism was not the other side of the coin.

`Anti-Zionism has become the main and most relevant form of
anti-Semitism,’ he had said.

A leading American civil rights organization kept pressure on the
publishers of an edition of a Merriam Webster’s dictionary for
linking anti-Semitism to Zionism and Israel.