“Brussels investigates the thousand denunciations of corruption in aid to the candidate countries” is the opening story in “ La Razón” ( 4/11). The Spanish daily notes that “the cases of corruption to the Community budget continue to increase”. According to Franz-Hermann Brüner, director of the European anti-corruption office (OLAF), the cases of the misappropriation of EU funds have already risen to 1184. The controversial survey conducted by the European Union, which considers Israel as a “threat” to peace occupies the front pages of another Spanish daily, “ El Periódico” ( 4/11): “Israel is the worst threat to peace in the world according to 59% of citizens of the European Union. The Spanish, for their part reports the paper , consider the USA the gravest threat to peace (61%), followed by Israel (56%) and Iraq (42%)”. In Germany, too, the controversy on anti-Semitism is raging, both in the light of the recent EU survey, and in view of the declaration of the Christian-Democrat MP Martin Hohmann, who on 3 October asserted the guilt of the Jewish people, also adducing in support of his view the fact that many exponents in the Soviet Politburo were Jews. In the view of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (4/11), the fact that “Israel has been losing the sympathy of Europe for several years” is “worrying”. “It would be going too far to explain the phenomenon as anti-Semitism”, the paper continues. “And it would be equally mistaken to judge many Europeans as factious or affirm that they justify terrorism. From a rational point of view, to regard Israel as the main danger to world peace can only be explained by bad faith. But the perception is, it has to be admitted, also a consequence of Israel’s policy”. “Probably the survey will be evaluated as a proof of European anti-Semitism, but this interpretation is mistaken“, writes Stefan Kornelius n the Süddeutsche Zeitung (5/11). “It is far more the expression of a unilateral European foreign policy”. On the Hohmann case, defended also by an open letter by Reinhard Günzel, brigade general of German special forces, immediately relieved of his post by the Minister of Defence Struck, a comment in the same paper declares: “The remarks of … Hohmann are stupid and infamous. Anyone who judges en bloc peoples or religious communities on the basis of the actions of single members, uses clichés which in extreme cases can lead and have led to genocide“. According to Die Welt (5/11), the conduct of Günzel and Hohmann is “modern anti-Semitism”. The weekly magazine Der Spiegel (3/11) also deals with the question, pointing out: “The anti-Semitic remarks of the CDU parlamentarian Hohmann are not just a gaffe. The ultra-conservative from Hesse has been propagating such views for years in right-wing circles”. “Why the USA cannot yet quit Iraq”: that’s the title of an article by David Brooks ( Herald Tribune, 6/11), in which the author comments on the situation of “post-war” Iraq, noting that “for the next six months, until Iraq is capable of its own defence, the Bush administration shall constantly remind us that Iraq is the Battle of the West in the war on terror, the crucial turning point where we shall either crush the spirit of the terrorists or be crushed by them”. According to Brooks, US President Bush “must remember that we are living in a world that has collapsed, and that we must undertake bold moral actions, if we want to defeat the assassins confronting us. It is our responsibility to recognise the dark reality of human nature, while at the same time preserving our idealistic faith in a better Middle East”. The situation in the Middle East is also analysed by a front-page article in Le Monde (5/11), in which André Fontaine points out that “we must not give way to discouragement in response to the dramatic deterioration of the situation”. On the contrary we must continue along the road of “international accords”, which should be promoted in the first place by Europe, with the objective of establishing peace between Israelis and Palestinians. “Society and transcendence” is the title of an editorial by Bruno Frappat ( La Croix, 5/11), in which the author reflects on “the plurality of religions just at a time when, paradoxically, France, in its sociological and cultural reality, is becoming ever less ‘religious'”. The “new Red Brigades”: that’s the subject of an editorial signed by Giorgio Ferrari in the Italian Catholic daily Avvenire, in which the author denounces the presumed “silence” of the political forces to cases of “solidarity” with the resurgent Italian terrorist movement. “Preoccupied with stigmatising terrorism comments Ferrari they risk failing in their own task: safeguarding democracy”. ———————————————————————————————————– Sir Europa (English) N.ro assoluto : 1246 N.ro relativo : 76 Data pubblicazione : 08/11/2003
