Jew "Preferential Treatment" indicator launced by US

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Jewish organizations have hailed final congressional approval of a bill that compels the State Department to create a special office to monitor anti-Semitic abuses around the world and compile annual reports rating countries on their treatment of Jews.

The bill, known as the Global Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, was introduced by Democratic Representative Tom Lantos (news, bio, voting record), the only Holocaust survivor in the US Congress, in response to recent acts of anti-Semitism in Europe and the Middle East.

The measure quietly cleared both the Senate and the House of Representatives by agreement and voice vote late last week -- over objections by the State Department.

The department has opposed the bill because it felt it would be seen as giving preferential treatment to Jews over other religious or ethnic groups in human rights reporting.

But last month, it received an angry letter from more than 100 prominent Americans, including former Republican vice presidential nominee Jack Kemp and ex-UN ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, saying that US diplomats were "wrong."

"It is the anti-Semites who are singling out Jews, and that is why the fight against anti-Semitism deserves specific, focused attention," the letter said.

Under the legislation, the State Department will have to produce an annual report on anti-Semitism around the world and publish it as part of its annual review of human rights.

Moreover, the bill creates a specific office within the department that would document anti-Semitic abuses and design strategies to combat them. It would be headed by a special envoy to spearhead the worldwide fight against anti-Semitism.

"Considering that anti-Semitism plagues all regions of the world, this special office will ensure that the United States resolutely denounces acts of anti-Semitism across the board, including state-sponsored anti-Semitism in Syria and elsewhere," said Republican Congressman Chris Smith, a co-sponsor of the legislation.

Rafael Medoff, director of the Pennsylvania-based David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, praised members of Congress on Monday for their "vision, courage and determination in overcoming the State Department's obstacles and achieving this crucial step in the battle against anti-Semitism."

Joel Schindler, president of the National Council of Soviet Jewry, said Congress "has now provided new avenues" for combating anti-Semitism around the world.

Barbara Balser, national chairwoman of the Anti-Defamation League, and Abraham Foxman, its national director, said acts of anti-Semitism witnessed over the last two years have underscored the need for greater monitoring of such crimes.

"As more governments take on this responsibility, strong US reporting on anti-Semitism as a human rights and religious freedom issue is vitally important," Balser and Foxman said.

The measure, which is largely expected to be signed by President George W. Bush (news - web sites), requires that the State Department document acts of physical violence against Jews, their property, cemeteries and places of worship abroad, as well as local governments' responses to them.

The report will also take note of instances of anti-Jewish propaganda and governments' readiness to promote unbiased school curricula emphasizing tolerance.

Among the attacks that prompted passage of the bill, the sponsors mentioned the burning of a Jewish synagogue in Toulon, France, last March, the desecration of about 50 Jewish gravestones in St. Petersburg, Russia, in February, and the recent claim by former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad that Jews "rule the world by proxy."