The lobby in Europe and the dodgy definition

I can't quite gather my thoughts on this one but someone has emailed me with a suggestion for a post on the baleful influence of the Israel lobby, in this instance, the European Jewish Congress (EJC), on the European Union.  This has a bearing on the bogus working definition of antisemitism which seems to be developing a life of its with a little help from various hasbaraniks.

This is from the EJC's "about us" page:

1997 At the initiative of the EJC, the European Union (EU) establishes the European Union Monitoring Center (EUMC), an institute in charge of providing clear and objective data on racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic incidents in Europe.

A few years down the line and the EUMC (now Fundamental Rights Agency) would hang the bogus working definition of antisemitism on its website without any comment as to what its status is or ought to be.

The EJC lobbies openly, not against racism but actually in favour of racist rule. See this from 2009:

“The European Jewish Congress (EJC) and the 42 affiliated Jewish communities that it represents recognize the State of Israel as a sovereign, democratic state, with the city of Jerusalem as its historic capital.

In this regard, the European Jewish Congress reaffirms the commitment of European Jewry to the centrality of the city of Jerusalem to the Jewish people, in its historic, religious and cultural dimensions and reiterates that the city of Jerusalem should remain unique, indivisible and unified.

The peace negotiations that concern the State of Israel should reaffirm the centrality of the city of Jerusalem to the Jewish people and consider its universal nature for the other monotheistic faiths, in particular Christianity as well as Islam.”

So we have a group that takes credit for an EU organisation supposedly charged with monitoring and presumably preventing racism actively promoting a state, the State of Israel, whose existence is predicated on colonial settlement, ethnic cleansing and segregationist laws and in its expanded form to include occupied Jerusalem. Supporting the State of Israel is bad enough, but to openly support it in its expanded form whilst bragging of the influence of its key supporters over an EU group supposedly opposed to racism is an absurdity.