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Remarks by FDP politician Jürgen Möllemann prompted hundreds to gather to protest in front of the party’s Berlin headquarters last week

How Bad is It?
	The recent upturn in anti-Semitic incidents arouses fears that Europe is reverting to an ugly past. The truth is less dramatic, but still troubling
	By JAMES GEARY

Posted Monday, June 10, 2002; 11:45 a.m. BST
In Berlin, a leading politician from the opposition Free Democratic Party (FDP) had to apologize for remarks that German Jewish leader Paul Spiegel called the "worst insult" against German Jews since World War II. In Amsterdam, Gretta Duisenberg, the wife of European Central Bank President Wim Duisenberg, blamed "rich American Jews" for Palestinian suffering. Across France, dozens of Jewish cemeteries and synagogues have been firebombed and desecrated. And in Moscow, a Russian motorist took it upon herself to remove an anti-Semitic placard along one of the city's busiest highways — only to have the booby-trapped sign blow up in her face. Has the old scourge of anti-Semitism returned with new and terrifying force to Europe?

Many people seem to think so, especially in the United States. A Boston newspaper blared "Kristallnacht Returns," and declared, "not since the Third Reich has there been anything like it." In response to anxious inquiries, the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles issued an advisory warning Jews "to exercise extreme caution while traveling [to France and Belgium]." The L.A. branch of the American Jewish Congress threatened to boycott France until the country is once more "safe for Jews." There have been hearings in Washington, where one congressman said the "escalation of brutality is particularly alarming in light of Europe's troubling past."

	"Jews and Jewish interests are being attacked because they are Jewish. But once you face that terrible fact, you have to ask: Why them? Why now?" — French justice official

While anti-Semitism is an old and shameful part of Europe's history, there may be less to the inflammatory rhetoric than meets the eye. Yes, there has been a worrying upturn in the number of anti-Semitic attacks in France. In April alone, 400 acts of violence took place against Jews, compared to 200 for all of 2001. "Jews and Jewish interests are being attacked because they are Jewish. That much is clear," says a French justice official. "But once you face that terrible fact, you have to start asking yourself: Why them? Why now? What's changed? My view is that these attacks arise from other kinds of anger and frustration."

One source of that anger and frustration can be found in the country's impoverished and crime-ridden banlieues, where most of France's roughly 5 million Muslims live and most of the anti-Semitic incidents occurred. But rather than some fresh outburst of virulent anti-Semitism, these acts — which have been widely condemned — are part of a much broader trend of increasing lawlessness and incivility across the whole of French society. These mostly first-generation French citizens find themselves unemployed and shipwrecked between the Arab culture of their parents and a French society that does not accept them. Violence — anti-Semitic and otherwise — is their way of lashing out.

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