[Newsweek] Denis MacShane - As Europe faces up to its old demons of financial breakdown and job losses, a wind from the past is blowing through the continent. The extravagant rhetoric of the demagogic left and right is gaining ground, and the most obvious manifestation is the return of anti-Semitism as an organizing ideology. According to a recent Pew survey, the percentage of Germans who hold unfavorable views of Jews has climbed from 20% in 2004 to 25% today. In France, which has the largest number of Jews of any European nation, 20% view Jews unfavorably - up from 11% four years ago. In Spain, negative views of Jews climbed from 21% in 2005 to nearly one in two this year. In Poland, the percentage of those with unfavorable opinions about Jews is up from 27% in 2004 to 36% today. The writer, a Labour MP, has just published: Globalising Hatred: the New Antisemitism.
2008-12-19 06:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive