The Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Paris denounced the upcoming organization in Dublin of a book launch "sadly reminiscent of financial scapegoating of the 1930's."
In a letter to Irish Prime Minister, Brian Cowen, the centre's director for international relations, Shimon Samuels, writes: "In the midst of Ireland's greatest post-war crisis, a poster illustrating an atomized Europe around a Star of David, invites the public on 3 December to an Ireland-Palestine solidarity campaign book launch."
"The centre was struck by the timing of this event in the Irish capital, sadly reminiscent of financial scapegoating of the 1930's."
The book, titled "Europe's Alliance with Israel: Aiding the Occupation" by journalist David Cronin, says the EU’s 27 governments "have been engaged in a long process of accommodating Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories."
The author says that "rather than using this relationship to encourage Israeli restraint, the EU has legitimized actions such as the ill-treatment of prisoners and the Gaza invasion."
The book presents the EU as encouraging "the Apartheid State of Israel" and "calls for a continuation and deepening of international activism and protest to halt the EU's slide into complicity". The book explores "the complex political ties that have prevented European countries from holdingIsrael to account".
Samuels stressed that "the poster, and book cover it features, “arguably fit the 2004 ‘working definition of Anti-Semitism’ of the European Union Fundamental Rights Agency, to which Ireland is, ipso facto, party".
He explained that in the late 1980's, he had "led a mixed caucus of Irish-American and Jewish-American United States Senators and Congressmen to Jerusalem and Dublin, co-organized by the Irish Development Authority.
The declared purpose of the hosts was, to adapt from the empathy of American Jewry for the Jewish State, a programme to enhance the affinity of Americans of Irish origin to the economy and land of their roots - then enjoying an economic boom".
Samuels stressed that "anti-Semitic scapegoating has too often served to deflect attention from economic suffering. In the 1930's, this led democracies into the abyss".
The Centre urged the Prime Minister "to publicly condemn the timing of this poster and the book cover's subliminal message".
"In wishing Ireland a speedy recovery, we are confident that the people of Ireland will never allow the circumstances of the meltdown -reportedly extortionate bank fees, obscene bonuses and mismanagement - to be camouflaged by anti-Semitism", Samuels added.