Brussels: The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, has told Israel that Ireland is not anti-Semitic and has promised to take an even-handed approach to the Middle East conflict during Ireland's EU Presidency next year.
Mr Cowen secured the agreement of other EU foreign ministers in Brussels yesterday to co-sponsor a United Nations resolution condemning anti-Semitism.
During a meeting with the Israeli foreign minister, Mr Silvan Shalom, Mr Cowen said that Ireland would pursue EU policies in the region and would not attempt to set its own agenda.
Mr Shalom invited Mr Cowen to visit Israel in January but Government officials said that the Minister offered no assurance that he would not meet the Palestinian leader, Mr Yasser Arafat, in the future. Israeli ministers have refused to meet EU officials who continue to visit Mr Arafat, but Mr Shalom agreed yesterday to co-operate with the EU's envoy, Mr Marc Otte, and to view other EU visits on a case-by-case basis.
Mr Shalom said at a press conference that Israel would meet Mr Otte because he was not "a political figure", but he was immediately contradicted by the EU foreign policy chief, Mr Javier Solana.
"Otte is a political figure. I don't agree with what you are saying. We cannot allow Israel to dictate who are the political figures that we can see," Mr Solana said.
The Government's draft UN resolution follows a complaint by the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center about the failure to mention anti-Semitism in an Irish-sponsored UN resolution on religious intolerance. In a letter to the President, Mrs McAleese, the centre - which campaigns against anti-Semitism throughout the world - called for a change in the resolution.
"The exclusion of anti-Semitism from the typology of religious intolerance would be tantamount to an act of anti-Semitism," the letter said.
Writing to other EU foreign ministers yesterday, Mr Cowen said that the resolution on religious intolerance, which Ireland has sponsored for 20 years, is traditionally adopted by consensus.
"Over the years, we have received many demands to include a reference to specific instances of religious intolerance. We have resisted such requests on the grounds that once we accepted one such reference, we could not, in logic, refuse others," he said.
Mr Cowen said, however, that recent incidents of anti-Semitism around the world highlighted the need to give adequate expression to the UN's opposition to "a particular phenomenon combining elements of both racism and religious intolerance".
The resolution, which will be moved in the UN's Third Committee today, recognises "with deep concern" the rise in instances of intolerance against many religious communities, including cases motivated by anti-Semitism. The resolution condemns "all intolerance, incitement, harassment or violence against persons or communities based on ethnic origin or religious belief; condemns without reserve all manifestations of anti-Semitism wherever they occur". It also condemns attacks on synagogues and other religious places, and calls on states to ensure that such places are properly protected.
The draft resolution ends with a call on all states to take "appropriate measures to promote respect and tolerance for Judaism and other religious faiths, for the members of the communities that profess these faiths and for their holy places including places of worship".
Mr Shalom said, after his meeting with EU foreign ministers, that recent attacks on synagogues were symptoms of a deep and growing anti-Semitism.
"I call today on Europe to join together with Israel and redouble its efforts to stem the spread of this danger to our shared way of life. Europe has a moral, political and historic obligation to ensure that the evil of anti-Semitism is stamped out.
"We must stand firm together in the fight against anti-Semitism, racism and terrorism," he said.