Military

DATE=10/18/00

TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT

TITLE=EUROPE / MIDEAST VIOLENCE

NUMBER=5-47185

BYLINE=LAURIE KASSMAN

DATELINE=LONDON

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: The violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories is being blamed for anti-Semitic attacks in Europe. Synagogues have been burned in France and a Jewish student has been stabbed on a bus in London. Correspondent Laurie Kassman in London looks at the repercussions of a faltering Mideast peace process.

TEXT: French police have detained half a dozen suspects in the burning of a synagogue in the city of Trappes. Several other synagogues, Jewish schools and businesses have been targeted in France since the outbreak of violence in Israel, Gaza and Arab cities throughout the Middle East.

After a Jewish student was stabbed on a London bus, Jewish groups in Britain stepped up their own security patrols.

A spokesman for the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Michael Whine, says the tensions in Europe today are similar to those following the Gulf War.

/// WHINE ACT ///

We've not seen anything like this since the Gulf War, when there was good reason to believe that the Iraqis and some Palestinian groups who had the infrastructure in Europe were planning attacks on Jewish communities.

/// END ACT ///

Mr. Whine believes the violence in the Middle East is to blame for the attacks on Jews in Europe.

/// WHINE ACT TWO ///

In this case, the violence was preceded by calls for the killing of Jews, all the way back to the middle of September, by people like (Saudi radical) Osama Bin Laden, to (Egyptian extremist) Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and the Mufti of Jerusalem calling for the killing of Zionists.

/// END ACT ///

Human rights advocates like Pierre Sane (Sahn ay) of Amnesty International say Arab feelings of injustice have a lot to do with the recent wave of Arab-Palestinian violence.

/// SANE ACT ///

It is our view that what has fueled the cycle of violence is a sentiment of injustice. When people are being killed in very disputed circumstances, the best way to defuse tensions is to establish the truth about the facts, identify and bring those responsible to justice, irrespective of which side they belong to.

/// END ACT ///

Middle East expert Rosemary Hollis of the Royal Institute of International Affairs says it is natural for Middle East hostilities to reverberate in Muslim communities elsewhere in the world.

/// HOLLIS ACT ///

You have large Muslim as well as Jewish populations in Europe and also in the United States and Canada too. And when tensions are played out within those communities it is a reinforcing of the reasons why the European powers and the United States must care about what happens in the Middle East.

/// END ACT ///

Mrs. Hollis says geographic divides blur when it comes to the deep-seated hostilities between Arabs and Israel and Arab perceptions of a U-S bias toward Israel in the peace process.

/// HOLLIS ACT TWO ///

I don't think you can draw distinct lines between the Arab world, on the one hand, and the West on the other. There are Arab-Muslim populations in the West who are citizens of Western countries who wish to lobby their governments to pay attention to developments in the Middle East in a different way.

/// END ACT ///

As long as Israeli-Palestinian hostilities continue, Mrs. Hollis says, the risk of that violence spreading beyond the Middle East cannot be underestimated. (Signed)

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