(AFP) Europe’s Jewish community is facing a “rising tide of anti-Semitism,” with the conflict in the Middle East “eroding” progress made in the fight against it, a European Union rights watchdog said Thursday.
“The spillover effect of the conflict in the Middle East is eroding hard-fought-for progress” in tackling anti-Jewish hate, Fundamental Rights Agency director Sirpa Rautio said.
This was jeopardising the success of the EU’s first-ever strategy on combatting the issue adopted in 2021, she added.
“Jews are more frightened than ever before,” she warned, as the rights body published a report on anti-Semitism in Europe.
Even before Hamas’s October 7 attack which triggered the war in Gaza, the study found that 96 percent of European Jews said they had encountered anti-Semitism in the previous year.
