VIENNA, June 20 - In 1938, after Germany annexed Austria,

Hitler addressed a cheering crowd from a balcony at the

Hofburg royal palace here, a fact much noted by

participants in the first major international conference

devoted exclusively to the subject of anti-Semitism.

 

The two-day meeting, which ended today at the palace,

brought together the 55 member countries of the

Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe,

including a delegation of members of Congress and Jewish

leaders from the United States, led by the former mayor of

New York, Rudolph W. Giuliani.

 

The overall theme of the meeting was a new kind of

anti-Semitism - a virulent hybrid derived from the

Israeli-Palestinian conflict and old anti-Jewish

stereotypes that many believed had long faded into history.

 

 

"We are witnessing an old-new, escalating, global and even

lethal anti-Semitism," Irwin Cotler, a Canadian member of

Parliament, said in a speech to the conference today. Its

chief characteristic, Mr. Cotler and other delegates

argued, is that it singles out Israel for criticism and

condemnation beyond any other nation, and asserts that a

Jewish homeland, by its nature and the nature of its

citizens, violates the rights of others.

 

"It is anti-Semitism under the banner of human rights at a

time when human rights is the new secular religion," Mr.

Cotler said.

 

In recent years, European countries, in particular, have

experienced new waves of anti-Jewish attacks, many of them

carried out by young immigrants from North Africa against

synagogues and cemeteries in France. The French government,

in a move that was widely praised here, has passed new

legislation giving greater powers to the police to crack

down on hate crimes.

 

"We have seen a level of anxiety in Europe that we hadn't

seen in a very long time," Andrew Baker, a rabbi and member

of the American delegation, said in an interview.

 

The conference was initially suggested by members of the

Parliamentary Commission, a group of legislators from

several countries, which proposed it to the United States

Department of State. From that point, according to members

of the American delegation, Secretary of State Colin L.

Powell pressed the idea against considerable resistance

from other states, which argued that anti-Semitism should

be taken up in the context of racism and discrimination

generally, rather than as a separate subject.

 

"Plenty of people came in here kicking and screaming and

with the idea that, O.K., we've done it, rather than with

the idea of really drawing some lessons," Rabbi Baker,

director of international affairs for the American Jewish

Committee in Washington, told delegates today.

 

The conference itself consisted largely of statements by

delegates and members of the many nongovernmental

organizations present. There was almost no debate, nor were

there authoritative presentations on the level of

anti-Semitism or anti-Semitic violence around the world.

 

Controversial ideas were raised, but not debated. For

example, several delegates said that governments should

control publications and Web sites that promote

anti-Semitism. One delegate, Jean Kahn, president of the

Union of French Jewish Communities, argued that Al Jazeera,

the Arab television network, fomented anti-Semitism and its

broadcasts should be suppressed.

 

The proliferation of anti-Semitic Web sites, and the power

of the Internet to spread hate, were general themes of the

conference.

 

"Hypertexts and cybertexts are mostly imitations through

which the social deviancy present in society speaks,"

Jacques Picard, a professor at the University of Basel told

the conferees. His point was that, while the ideas

expressed on anti-Semitic Internet sites are generally very

old - assertions of Jewish conspiracies and crimes and so

on - they can be disseminated more easily than ever before.

The Internet, Mr. Picard added, also protects hate mongers

who use it.

 

"What's new here is that the internet disseminates these

ideas with the protection of anonymity," Mr. Picard said.

"Anonymity should be lifted."

 

Ultimately, the significance of the gathering, for many,

was that it put recent violence against Jews and Jewish

institutions, especially in Europe, on the international

agenda.

 

In that sense, the signal event was the invitation from the

German ambassador to the Organization for Security and

Cooperation, Dieter Boden, to hold a follow-up meeting in

Berlin next year.

 

"It's truly historic," Mr. Giuliani said during the final

session, referring to the prospect that the two most

important centers of Jewish persecution in Europe will be

where the organization's member countries meet to combat

the new anti-Semitism.

 

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/21/international/europe/21VIEN.html?ex=1057238720&ei=1&en=bf141594b71d9876