The EU Racism and Xenophobia Network (RAXEN), an arm of the EUMC, has since 2002 adopted a special focus on antisemitism. It reported to the European Parliament in March 2004 with statistics on antisemitic incidents across the EU. Its report of December 2006 found an increase in antisemitic activity between 2001 and 2002 and again between 2003 and 2004. There was insufficient data to calculate the overall trend in the number of incidents between 2001 and 2005 but there had been increases in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany and the United Kingdom, and decreases only in the Netherlands and Sweden. Since 2004, there had been decreases in the Netherlands and the UK. The report drew the “speculative conclusion” that developments in the Middle East may have affected the Arab and Muslim communities in Europe, the far right and far left. Referring to the view that antisemitism since 2000 constituted new antisemitism, defined as "the vilification of Israel as 'the Jewish collective' and perpetrated primarily by members of Europe’s Muslim population," it found little evidence of a change in anti-Semitic stereotypes, although it said that public manifestations of antisemitism had indeed changed since 2000. [98]

In September 2004, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance, a part of the Council of Europe, called on its member nations to ensure that anti-racist criminal law covers antisemitism. In 2005, the EUMC offered a definition of antisemitism, [99] one that the British government was urged to adopt by a 2006 all-party parliamentary inquiry. Some contemporary examples included, but were not limited to:

Denying the Jewish people the right to self-determination, e.g. by claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavor;
Applying double standards by requiring of Israel a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation;
Using the symbols and images associated with classic anti-Semitism (e.g. claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis;
Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis;
Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the State of Israel. [100][98]
The EUMC added that criticism of Israel cannot be regarded as antisemitism so long as it is "similar to that leveled against any other country." [100]

In 2006, the European Jewish Congress released a report detailing a new wave of antisemitic incidents in most of Western Europe in the wake of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, in contrast to neutral or pro-Israel sentiment in the former Eastern bloc as well as Denmark. [101]

The report cited:

the first instances of antisemitism in Turkey since the change of regime in 2002;
83 instances of antisemitism in Austria from April through August 2006, compared to 50 in the same period of 2005;
61 instances of antisemitism in France from April through August 2006, compared to 34 in the same period of 2005;
normalization of antisemitic political and media rhetoric in Greece after the conflict.

France
In France, Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin commissioned a report on racism and anti-Semitism from Jean-Christophe Rufin, president of Action Against Hunger and former vice-president of Médecins Sans Frontières, in which Rufin challenges the perception that the new anti-Semitism in France comes exclusively from North African immigrant communities and the far right. [102][103] Reporting in October 2004, Rufin writes that "[t]he new anti-Semitism appears more heterogeneous," and identifies what he calls a new and "subtle" form of anti-Semitism in "radical anti-Zionism" as expressed by far-left and anti-globalization groups, in which criticism of Jews and Israel is used as a pretext to "legitimize the armed Palestinian conflict." [104][105] Rufin recommended that French law be changed to "make it possible to punish those who would make unfounded charges of racism against groups, institutions or States, or would make unjustified comparisons with apartheid or Nazism about them."[104][106][107] Norman Finkelstein described Rufin's recommendation as "truly terrifying", the "stigmatizing of dissent as a disease that must be wiped out by the state."[108]


United Kingdom

A 2006 British parliamentary inquiry states that "anti-Jewish themes and remarks are gaining acceptability in some quarters in public and private discourse in Britain ..." [109]The British All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Anti-Semitism in the UK published its report in September 2006. [110] Those who gave evidence included then-Home Secretary Charles Clarke; the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith; chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks; chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, Trevor Phillips; the former head of the Muslim Council of Britain, Sir Iqbal Sacranie; Prof Robert Wistrich of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Brian Klug of St Benet's Hall, Oxford; and Prof Gert Weisskirchen of the German Bundestag. [110]

The inquiry adopted the view of racism expressed by the MacPherson report after the murder of Stephen Lawrence, namely that a racist act is defined by its victim, and that it is the Jewish community that is in the best position to determine what is anti-Semitic. [111] The report states that left-wing activists and Muslim extremists are using criticism of Israel as a "pretext" for anti-Semitism, [83] and that the "most worrying discovery" is that anti-Semitism appears to be entering the mainstream. [112] The inquiry calls for the adoption of a clearer definition of anti-Semitism that reflects its "complex and multi-faceted" nature. [112] It argues that anti-Zionism may become anti-Semitic when it adopts a view of Zionism as a "global force of unlimited power and malevolence throughout history," a definition that "bears no relation to the understanding that most Jews have of the concept: that is, a movement of Jewish national liberation ..." Having re-defined Zionism, the report states, traditional anti-Semitic motifs of Jewish "conspiratorial power, manipulation and subversion" are often transferred from Jews onto Zionism. The report notes that this is "at the core of the 'New Anti-Semitism', on which so much has been written," adding that many of those who gave evidence called anti-Zionism "the lingua franca of antisemitic movements," but also clarifying that "It is not the role of this inquiry to take sides in this major debate, but we cannot avoid raising it. In doing so, we would wish to emphasise that our concern lies with the effects of anti-Jewish prejudice and hostility.."[113]

Lord Janner of Braunstone gave evidence regarding anti-Semitic remarks made to him in Parliament. After the arrest of Saddam Hussein, for example, another peer approached him and said: "We've got rid of Saddam Hussein now. Your lot are next." When asked what she meant by "your lot," she replied: "Yes, you cannot go on killing Palestinians forever, you know." [114] Oona King, former MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, gave evidence that many of her former constituents told her they could not vote for her because she was funded by the Israeli Secret Service.[114]

Labour MP Denis MacShane, who chaired the commission said: "The most worrying discovery of this inquiry is that anti-Jewish sentiment is entering the mainstream, appearing in the everyday conversations of people who consider themselves neither racist nor prejudiced" [2].