EU body shelves report on anti-semitism

[drdon326]

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1069132068176

The European Union's racism watchdog has shelved a report on anti-semitism because the study concluded Muslims and pro-Palestinian groups were behind many of the incidents it examined.

The Vienna-based European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) decided in February not to publish the 112-page study, a copy of which was obtained by the Financial Times, after clashing with its authors over their conclusions.

The news comes amid growing fears that there is an upsurge of anti-semitism in European Union countries. Among many recent incidents, a Jewish school near Paris was firebombed last Saturday, the same day two Istanbul synagogues were devastated by suicide truck bombs that killed 25 and wounded 300.

Turkey, which hopes to join the EU, suffered again at the hands of what are believed to be al-Qaeda inspired terrorists on Thursday with truck bomb attacks on British targets.

Following a spate of incidents in early 2002, the EUMC commissioned a report from the Centre for Research on Anti-semitism at Berlin's Technical University.

When the researchers submitted their work in October last year, however, the centre's senior staff and management board objected to their definition of anti-semitism, which included some anti-Israel acts. The focus on Muslim and pro-Palestinian perpetrators, meanwhile, was judged inflammatory.

.................................................................

Inflammatory ???...ahhh, yes...the spineless EU....


:puke::puke::puke:

[GabysPoppy]

1. Now DrDon, you know

That Israel is behind this because they are always wrong.

And when they say "anti-semitism" you have to include Arabs because they are semites too.

And that "non-liberal" demanded the release.


"In July, Robert Wexler, a US congressman, wrote to Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief, demanding the release of the study."

If it wasn't so early I could find the other reasons, but I have faith they will appear later.


(sarcasm off for the time being)

[drdon326]

2. Muslims and pro-Palestinian groups were behind racism ??

I find that hard to believe......


no, youre right....its israel's fault.

[rini]

3. Indeed

anti-semitism would disappear if it weren't for those pesky Semites!

[Darranar]

4. Now wait a second...

weren't you the one complaining of people being called pro-Sharon when they were simply pro-israel?

[GabysPoppy]

5. Note: "intended to mock or deride"

sar·casm < sr kàzzəm >

noun

cutting language: remarks that mean the opposite of what they seem to say and are intended to mock or deride


http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_/sarcasm.html

Link provided just in case you were about to ask for one.

(sarcasm now back off)

[Darranar]

6. I am well aware of your sarcasm...

I don't think you understood my post.

[GabysPoppy]

7. I rarely ever understand your posts

[JohnLocke]

12. Great Post!

Wexler is my neighboring districts's represenative.

[legin]

8. Mmmmm...

"legin the anti-Semitic, cultural imperialist, ex-stalinist, report-burying, garbage-loving, cockroach".

Going to have to copy this into my wordprocessor cause I'm starting to worry that I am forgeting bits.

[bluesoul]

9. You forgot

"misguided" leftist. Oh my ;)

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Jack Rabbit]

11. Brace yourself, Doc: I agree with you on this one

The scientific method is: study the facts, form a hypothesis, study more facts, test the hypothesis against the facts, draw conclusions and publish.

Beyond that, one lets the chips fall where they may.

A dissenting opinion could be issued with the report questioning the majority's findings. However, shelving the report does not seem to be the best course to follow.

[drdon326]

13. WHAAAA ??? I going to faint....

the room is spinning !! lol

Wrong jack...is not "not the best course to follow"..

its a cow-towing by the spineless EU which has shown itself
to be the pathetic group that it is.

[Jack Rabbit]

14. Spineless might be a little strong

It looks like a feeble attempt a political correctness.

Either way, it doesn't serve any good purpose.

[number6]

15. Publish it

it doesn't prove Palestinians and Muslims are bad
anymore than the klan proves white people are bad

Where's all the skin heads, fasists and neo-nazis ?
they retire ???

[bemildred]

16. Here is Orwell on anti-semitism:

From 1944.

The weakness of the left-wing attitude towards antisemitism is to approach it from a rationalistic angle. Obviously the charges made against Jews are not true. They cannot be true, partly because they cancel out, partly because no one people could have such a monopoly of wickedness. But simply by pointing this out one gets no further. The official left-wing view of antisemitism is that it is something `got up' by the ruling classes in order to divert attention away from the real evils of society. The Jews, in fact, are scapegoats. This is no doubt correct, but it is quite useless as an argument. One does not dispose of a belief by showing that it is irrational. Nor is it any use, in my experience, to talk about the persecution of the Jews in Germany. If a man has the slightest disposition towards antisemitism, such things bounce off his consciousness like peas off a steel helmet. The best argument of all, if rational arguments were ever of any use, would be to point out that the alleged crimes of the Jews are only possible because we live in a society which rewards crime. If all Jews are crooks, let us deal with them by so arranging our economic system that crooks cannot prosper. But what good is it to say that kind of thing to the man who believes as an article of faith that Jews dominate the Black Market, push their way to the front of queues and dodge military service?

---

One not only ought not to assume that the causes of antisemitism are economic in a crude, direct way (unemployment, business jealousy, etc.), one also ought not to assume that `sensible' people are immune to it. It flourishes especially among literary men, for instance. Without even getting up from this table to consult a book I can think of passages in Villon, Shakespeare, Smollett, Thackeray, H. G. Wells, Aldous Huxley, T. S. Eliot and many another which would be called antisemitic if they had been written since Hitler came to power. Both Belloc and Chesterton flirted, or something more than flirted, with antisemitism, and other writers whom it is possible to respect have swallowed it more or less in its Nazi form. Clearly the neurosis lies very deep, and just what it is that people hate when they say that they hate a non-existent entity called `the Jews' is still uncertain. And it is partly the fear of finding out how widespread antisemitism is that prevents it from being seriously investigated.

As I Please

[_Jumper_]

17. What good will publishing it do?

All it would do is inflame hatred against the most hated groups in Europe, Arabs and Muslims.

[Dirk39]

18. Thank you for posting this, here in Germany...

it wasn't mentioned. Not in any of the newspapers I read, not in the daily news on T.V.
There's one thing I don't understand about DU: why is a thread like this taken from the GD-Forum to this?
What does it imply to suppose that the growing antisemitism in Europe is an "Israeli/Palestinian Affair"?

I understand that being a moderator here at DU is a hard job, but to me this seems questionable and wrong.

Hello from Germany,
Dirk

[bemildred]

19. It is one of several subjects that are kept in

dungeons because otherwise they clutter up other
less controversial discussions with repetitive flame
wars. While the situation is unfortunate, the arrangement
seems to work well in furthering the purposes of DU as
a whole.

Hello from the pre-emptive rulers of the World.
:hi:

Edit: the inclusion of anti-semitism in the segregation occurs,
I think, on an as needed basis, it is not formal, but if a thread
starts to heat up it will be moved to maintain decorum in the
originating forum. Some posters will simply post in the "natural"
dungeon without thinking about it.