EJC calls on European Parliament to take action against MEP who compared Israelis to “a rash”

European Jewish Congress (EJC) President Dr. Moshe Kantor has called on European Parliament President Martin Schulz to take action against MEP Martina Anderson, who said Israeli lobbyists were “all over this place like a rash” during a parliament meeting on Wednesday.

“Once again we hear deeply offensive statements about Jews from a European public figure and we demand action,” Dr. Kantor said. “The comparison of Israelis, or more precisely Jews, to a disease is incitement and has its roots in neo-Nazi and far-Right discourse.”

“Thus demonstrating once again that the far-Left and the far-Right too frequently speak the same language and use the same terminology when referring to Jews or the Jewish State.”

Anderson is a British MEP representing Northern Ireland in the European Parliament for the Sinn Féin party, known for its anti-Israeli position. She is a former convicted terrorist with the IRA, dubbed the “beauty queen bomber.” She served part of a life sentence after being convicted in taking part in a bombing of a hotel in Brighton, England in 1984 and planning mass bombing attacks on 12 English resort towns.

“Anderson’s views are rooted in a bloody ideology that was shaped when the IRA and the PLO were partners in terrorism and bloodshed,” Dr. Kantor continued. “She still uses terminology which invents a malevolent Jewish presence in the portals of power which are legally lobbied by 22 Arab and 57 Islamic states, so it is obviously not a realistic or factual approach she is taking by making these comments.”

“These views and statements should be condemned and we call on the European authorities to take a stand as strongly as if they were made by a member of the far-Right.”

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