[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 434-435]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 ISRAEL'S DESIGNATION OF JANUARY 27, 2004 AS ``NATIONAL DAY TO COMBAT 
                            ANTI-SEMITISM''

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, today, people in Israel and around the 
world are joining in solidarity to commemorate January 27, 2004, as a 
``National Day to Combat Anti-Semitism.'' At a time when many Jewish 
communities are facing a rising tide of anti-Semitism, it is important 
that all people of goodwill work together to educate and fight anti-
Semitism. This insidious form of hatred has lingered in this world for 
so long that it has been dubbed ``the longest hatred.''
  Today marks the 64th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. 
While six decades have passed since the genocidal regime of Adolf 
Hitler fell, the urgency of combating anti-Semitism has never ceased. 
In the past year, numerous anti-Semitic acts have occurred across the 
world. In many European countries, including several countries that are 
amongst our closest allies, the frequency of anti-Semitic attacks are 
increasing. Jewish cemeteries, schools, synagogues, and individuals 
have been the center of an increasing number of violent incidents.
  These targets have essentially remained the same over the millenia. 
Such attacks seek to intimidate and threaten individuals and desecrate 
institutions. We face an increasing array of groups who would 
perpetrate these acts.
  In November 2003, people across the world were horrified when suicide 
bombers targeted two synagogues in Istanbul, Turkey. At least 25 people 
were killed and almost 300 people, both Jewish and Muslim, were 
wounded. One of the synagogues was Neve Shalom, the center of Turkey's 
Jewish community. This crowded congregation was celebrating a young 
boy's Bar Mitzvah at the time of the bombing. This attack was, without 
question, a specific and politically charged choice, given Turkey's 
close ties with Israel, the United States and NATO as well as its 
commitment to democracy.
  Another widely reported anti-Semitic act came a month earlier when 
former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahatir Muhammed stated that, ``The 
Europeans killed 6 million Jews out of 12 million. But today the Jews 
rule this world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them.'' 
That a leader would make allusions to a worldwide Jewish conspiracy, 
one of the foremost claims of anti-Semitic hatred, is particularly 
appalling. It is unconscionable to think that a longtime leader of a 
sovereign nation would fan the flames of hatred and recrimination 
against people of the Jewish faith. It is more disconcerting that 57 
leaders of the countries in the Islamic conference stood and applauded 
his speech. Mahatir's rhetoric was both ignorant and dangerous.
  Even while these two events splashed the front pages of newspapers 
worldwide, numerous other incidents that hardly received notice caused 
irreversible damage all the same.
  During an exhibit held in Australia last month called ``Courage to 
Care,'' two extremist groups sprayed a museum with anti-Semitic and 
racist slogans and covered it with swastikas. This was an exhibit that 
commemorated Australian survivors of the Holocaust. The criminals also 
left papers at the scene that portrayed a skull and crossbones and 
said, ``Death to Israel.''
  In an attack in a suburb of Paris that coincided with the synagogue 
bombings in Turkey, a Jewish school was set on fire. Just a month 
earlier in Paris, a rabbi was verbally and physically attacked on his 
way to synagogue. In October, tombstones in a Jewish cemetery east of 
Berlin, Germany, were defaced by vandals who painted swastikas and 
anti-Semitic statements such as ``you got what you deserved,'' and 
``Heil Hitler.''
  The United States has not been free from such attacks, either. 
Earlier this year, a Holocaust Museum in Terre Haute, IN, was destroyed 
by arson, with only the words ``Remember Timmy McVeigh,'' left behind.
  In April 2002, I joined with 99 of my colleagues in sending a letter 
to President Bush that requested that he and his administration ``make 
every effort possible to raise, at the highest level, our concerns 
about anti-Semitic acts in Europe and anti-Semitic portrayals in the 
Arab media.''
  I was heartened by German Foreign Minister Joshka Fischer's statement 
at

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a conference on anti-Semitism last fall that, we are firmly committed 
to countering every kind of anti-Semitism, every kind of racism and 
xenophobia.'' In addition, French Prime Minister Chirac announced that 
``attacking a Jew in France is an attack on all of France.'' Such 
remarks fully acknowledge the threat posed by anti-Semitism. Anti-
Semitism is not merely the enemy of Jews. It is the enemy of tolerance, 
freedom and openness; the very core values of all democracies.
  Attacks on one religion, race or ethnicity threaten all of us. We 
have learned that when hatred is allowed to fester and grow, it can 
spread with a frightening degree of rapidity and virulence. It is 
imperative that the global community work to address not only the 
continuing prevalence of anti-Semitism, but also hatred against all 
religious and ethnic minorities.
  I hope all my colleagues will join with me in commemorating Israel's 
``National Day To Combat Anti-Semitism,'' and in rededicating their 
commitment to fight hatred wherever it may be found.

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