Haaretz: World Zionist Conference Concludes that Gaza War Legitimized Equating Jews with Nazis

Haaretz, January 26, 2009 - The operation in Gaza put an end to the European taboo on equating Jews to Nazis. That message was one of the conclusions of the first international panel discussion on anti-Semitism following the Gaza invasion, which was held in Jerusalem Monday on the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Speaking at the panel, which was part of the World Zionist Congress conference, Professor Dina Porat said, "the comparison has now become self-understood." She added this applied not only to Muslims in Europe, but among "leftist circles."

Porat, an international authority on anti-Semitism and head of Tel Aviv University's research body on this phenomenon, added that Operation Cast Lead has "left no doubt" that Muslims in Europe had, "prepared in advance a public campaign against Jews and Israel, which they see as one and the same."....

Anne Sender, head of the Jewish community of Oslo, spoke of an "explosion of violence" in anti-Jewish protests, which, according to her, the likes of which had never occurred in the past. She also mentioned the case of a Norwegian diplomat who, as reported by Haaretz, last week sent an e-mail saying that Jews, "learned from the Nazis."

Preliminary analyses by Jewish organizations estimate that during the Gaza operation, the volume of anti-Semitic attacks in Europe multiplied more than four-fold compared to the correlating time last year.