- Spinners come to party as England defeat Bangladesh at T20 World Cup
- Search continues for missing in deadly Bosnia floods
- Man City sink Fulham to get title bid back on track
- France's Auradou whistled on Pau return in Perpignan loss amid ongoing rape case
- A 'forgotten' valley in storm-hit North Carolina, desperate for help
- Arsenal hit back in style after Southampton scare
- Hezbollah heir apparent Safieddine out of contact after strikes
- Liverpool stay top of Premier League as Arsenal, Man City win
- In dank Tour of Emilia, Pogacar shines in rainbow jersey
- DR Congo launches mpox vaccination drive, hoping to curb outbreak
- Trump returns to site of failed assassination
- Careless Leverkusen held to Bundesliga draw
- O'Brien's 'superstar' Kyprios posts landmark win on Arc weekend
- Liverpool suffer Alisson injury blow
- Habosi helps Racing beat Vannes before Auradou's playing return
- Thousands march in London in support of Palestinians, 1 year after Oct 7
- Israel readying response to Iran missile attack
- Schutt, Mooney help Australia beat Sri Lanka in Women's T20 World Cup
- Liverpool extend Premier League lead with win at Palace
- Djokovic 'shakes rust off' to make third round of Shanghai Masters
- 'Imperfect' PSG fighting on all fronts - Luis Enrique
- Struggling Pakistan look to thwart adaptable England
- Child 'trampled to death' in asylum seekers' Channel crossing: minister
- Gauff fights back to set up Beijing final against Muchova
- Guardiola claims Premier League won't delay season for Man City
- Israel to mark October 7 attack as Gaza war spreads
- Gauff fights back to reach China Open final
- Recovering Stokes ruled out of first Pakistan Test
- Hezbollah battles troops on border as Israel pounds Lebanon
- Alcaraz, Sinner breeze into third round of Shanghai Masters
- Bagnaia wins Japan MotoGP sprint to cut Martin's lead
- Alcaraz breezes into third round of Shanghai Masters
- Gaza cultural heritage brought to light in Geneva
- 'Bullet for democracy': Trump returns to site of rally shooting
- Italy targets climate activists in 'anti-Gandhi' demo clampdown
- South Korean cult-horror series 'Hellbound' returns at BIFF
- Nepalis fear more floods as climate change melts glaciers
- Honduras arrests environmentalist's alleged murderer
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- Supreme Court lets stand rules to curb mercury, methane emissions
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- Chagos diaspora angry at lack of input on islands' fate
- Biden says 'not confident' of peaceful US election
- US trade chief defends tariff hikes when paired with investment
- Lukaku stars as Napoli beat Como to hold Serie A top spot
- Ohtani set for MLB playoff debut as Dodgers face Padres
- Pogba's drug ban cut to 18 months from four years
- Devine leads New Zealand to big win over India in Women's T20 World Cup
- Bosnia floods kill 16 people
- EU court blocks French ban on vegetable 'steak' labelling
'Tsunami of anti-Semitism' stirs fears of dark days for Jews
Surging anti-Semitism since Hamas's October 7 attack sparked the war in Gaza recalls the run-up to World War II, with fear spreading through Jewish communities worldwide, top European and US envoys warned this week.
"We have seen a tsunami of anti-Semitism really rolling across Europe and the globe," said Katharina von Schnurbein, the European Commission's coordinator on combating anti-Semitism and fostering Jewish life.
"We are seeing a situation that we had hoped we would never see again," she told AFP in Geneva after a closed-door workshop at the United Nations on Wednesday on how to address the threat.
She pointed to the firebombing of synagogues, Stars of David spray-painted onto houses where Jews live and Jewish students attacked on university campuses.
"I think we are now in a situation that really reminds us of the darkest days of Europe."
During Wednesday's event, hosted by the United States, speakers highlighted a dramatic surge in anti-Semitic attacks since October 7 last year.
In France, statistics show the number of anti-Semitic incidents exploded four-fold last year to 1,676.
And in Denmark, 121 anti-Semitic incidents were registered in 2023 -- up 1,244 percent from the nine incidents recorded a year earlier.
- 'Spikes everywhere' -
"We see these spikes everywhere," von Schnurbein said.
Hamas's October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians including some hostages killed in captivity, according to official Israeli figures.
Israel's retaliatory offensive in Gaza has so far killed at least 40,878 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
Amid the devastating war, protests have roiled a long line of university campuses in the US and elsewhere, with demonstrators in some cases accused of anti-Semitism and intimidating Jewish students.
Last week, Columbia University in New York published a report warning of a "surge in violent anti-Semitic and xenophobic rhetoric" and urging better training and reporting to prevent the victimisation of Jewish students.
Protesters -- many who were themselves Jewish -- have meanwhile said anti-Israel views were being conflated with anti-Semitism and that individual allegations of hate incidents were being used to distract from calls for a ceasefire in Gaza.
The US envoy against anti-Semitism Deborah Lipstadt, who also took part in Wednesday's workshop, stressed that "criticism of Israeli policies (or) the Israeli government... is not anti-Semitism".
"If it were anti-Semitism, the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who've been in the streets would be anti-Semites. Of course that's ridiculous and not true," she told AFP.
But she said that the conflation was happening on both sides.
She highlighted the case of an Anne Frank statue in Amsterdam being defaced with "Free Gaza" slogans, and protesters who had chased Jewish students but claimed they were only being criticised because of their views on Israel.
"You can't conflate it on one side and then be judicious about conflation on the other side."
- 'Scourge' -
Lipstadt said she was deeply concerned to see "the normalisation of anti-Semitism", sparking "a degree of fear that has permeated the Jewish community".
Jewish students, she said, are now picking universities "depending on the degree of hostility they may encounter", while men who wear yarmulkes are covering them with baseball caps.
Michele Taylor, the US ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, voiced particular alarm at "the vitriol that we're seeing online", especially threats of rape targeting Jewish women.
The case in France in June, where "a 12-year-old girl was brutally gang-raped simply because she was Jewish" was particularly horrifying, she said.
Wednesday's workshop promoted a set of global guidelines for countering anti-Semitism, including calling on governments and political leaders to swiftly and unequivocally denounce anti-Semitism whenever it occurs, and demanding the issue not be politicised.
"Anti-Semitism is a scourge on our collective humanity," UN rights chief Volker Turk told Wednesday's event in a video message.
"We all have a duty to eliminate it."
G.M.Castelo--PC