- BRUSSELS -- The president
of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, angrily suspended a conference
on anti-Semitism on Monday and accused two large Jewish groups of working
against ''our best and mutual interests.''
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- Prodi sent a letter Monday to Cobi Benatoff, president
of the European Jewish Congress, and Edgar Bronfman, president of the World
Jewish Congress, saying he was ''surprised and shocked'' by an article
the two men had written that accused the European Commission, the European
Union's executive branch, of being anti-Semitic.
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- ''The attitude you have shown,'' Prodi said in his letter,
which was obtained by the International Herald Tribune, ''goes against
our best and mutual interests'' and ''forces me to suspend the preparations''
for the seminar.
- In their bluntly written article, which appeared in The
Financial Times on Monday, Benatoff and Bronfman accused the European Commission
of censoring a study about anti-Semitism and issuing a ''a flawed and dangerously
inflammatory'' opinion poll that listed Israel as the biggest threat to
world security.
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- ''Anti-Semitism can be expressed in two ways: by action
and inaction,'' Benatoff and Bronfman wrote in the article. ''Remarkably,
the European Commission is guilty of both.''
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- Censoring the study and issuing the polls, the authors
said, were ''politically motivated, demonstrating a failure of will and
decency.''
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- ''For the EU to hide these facts,'' they wrote of the
study on anti-Semitism, ''reeks of intellectual dishonesty and moral treachery.''
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- An aide to Prodi, Marco Vignudelli, said in a telephone
interview Monday that the conference on anti-Semitism could still take
place ''if we are able to solve this misunderstanding.''
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- ''We want to have this meeting,'' he said. ''But not
at any cost.'' Vignudelli described Prodi as ''deeply disappointed'' by
the article. ''Then he became angry,'' Vignudelli said. ''He was really
offended.''
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- Prodi announced the conference after meeting last month
with Jewish leaders, including Benatoff.
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- Prodi implied in the letter that he felt betrayed.
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- ''I vividly remember you, Mr. Benatoff, on that occasion
conveying me Mr. Bronfman's personal regards and thanks for my commitment
and dedication on issues relating to the Jewish cause and to the fight
against anti-Semitism.''
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- Jewish groups have accused the commission of censoring
a report by the European Monitoring Center on Racism, a commission agency.
The report, ''Manifestations of anti-Semitism in the European Union'' dealt
with the involvement of Muslims in incidents of anti-Semitism.
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- The Monitoring Center, which is based in Vienna, released
the report in early December after the World Jewish Congress published
a leaked version of it.
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- The center, which the commission says is independent,
initially said the report was unfit for publication because it was based
on too little data.
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- The opinion poll, which was released late last year,
showed that 59 percent of Europeans surveyed said they thought Israel was
a ''threat to peace in the world.''
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- More than 7,500 people were surveyed in the poll, which
was sponsored and released by the European Commission.
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- Respondents ranked Iran, North Korea and the United States
as posing the second, third and fourth greatest threats to world peace.
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- International Herald Tribune
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- Copyright © 2003 the International Herald Tribune
All Rights Reserved
- http://www.iht.com./articles/123581.htm
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