EU official: Half of European anti-Semitism related to radical Islam

European Commissioner Frattini speaks to minister Herzog about dealing with hate in the continent.

By HAVIV RETTIG GUR
anti-Semitism 298 (photo credit: AP)
anti-Semitism 298
(photo credit: AP)
Some 50 percent of anti-Semitic incidents on the European continent are connected to radical Islamic elements, according to a senior European Commission official. The figure comes from European Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security Franco Frattini, who is responsible in the EU for combating racism and anti-Semitism in Europe. Frattini mentioned it in a conversation with Minister for Diaspora Affairs Isaac Herzog last week, and said it was based on European Union reports. Frattini was in Israel last week for the Second European Union-Israel Seminar for Combating Racism and Anti-Semitism at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem. Herzog, who is responsible for coordinating government activities in combating anti-Semitism at the cabinet level, told The Jerusalem Post that it was "not new that Frattini relates a large percentage of anti-Semitic incidents to radical Islam, and it's important to say, not Islam as such." According to Herzog, European governments are responding to this "aggressively," including educating Muslim imams throughout the continent on "European values, principles of democracy, the rights of women and the like." Besides dealing with the radical Islamic source of a large part of anti-Semitic activity in Europe, European and international institutions are beginning to respond to anti-Semitic discourse through education, according to the minister.