DATE=04/08/2002

TYPE=EDITORIAL

NUMBER=0-09810

TITLE=EDITORIAL: ANTI-SEMITISM -- PAST AND PRESENT

INTERNET=YES

CONTENT=THIS EDITORIAL IS BEING RELEASED FOR USE BY ALL SERVICES.

Anncr: Next, an editorial reflecting American ideals and institutions:

Voice: April 7th to April 14th is being observed as Holocaust Memorial week in the United States. It is a time when Americans remember the six million Jews and millions of others murdered by Nazi Germany during the Second World War.

The Holocaust was clearly the most horrible anti-Semitic atrocity in history. But it was far from the only expression of that evil -- either before or since. In recent months, in fact, anti-Semitism has flared up in a number of places.

In France, hundreds of incidents of anti-Jewish violence have been reported in the past year and a half. On March 31st, a synagogue in Marseilles was burned to the ground. The day before, synagogues in Strasbourg and Lyon were attacked, along with a Jewish-run shop in Toulouse. French President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin have condemned these attacks. And the French government announced new measures to protect Jewish schools and other institutions.

Anti-Semitism has long been endemic in the Middle East. Incitements to hatred of Jews are all too common in newspapers and on radio and television in Palestinian areas as well as in such countries as Saudi Arabia and Egypt. In some cases, Nazi Germany has actually been praised by Palestinian or Arab media for murdering Jews. At other times, commentators have minimized the Holocaust or even denied that it took place.

Last month, the Saudi newspaper Al-Riyadh published two columns making the preposterous claim that Jews kill Muslim and Christian young people to use their blood in making holiday food. This centuries-old lie is known as the "blood libel" and is a favorite of extreme anti-Semites.

Time and again, the long discredited anti-Semitic tract, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," has been presented as fact in Middle East media. Indeed, Egyptian television stations recently showed a long series based on this notorious Russian fabrication of the nineteenth century.

The Holocaust of the 1940s did not take place in a vacuum. The way was prepared by decades and, indeed, centuries of anti-Semitism. It must never happen again. That is why Americans will continue to speak out against anti-Semitism -- and all other incitements to hate people on the basis of their religion, race, or ethnicity.

Anncr: That was an editorial reflecting American ideals and institutions. If you have a comment, please write to Editorials, V-O-A, Washington, D-C, 20237, U-S-A. You may also comment at www-dot-ibb-dot-gov-slash-editorials, or fax us at (202) 619-1043.