MEPs have urged the EU to fire its antisemitism tsar over her controversial views on Gaza, which also "disturbed" fellow EU officials.
"We believe that Ms von Schnurbein's reputation has been so gravely compromised by these revelations that we must call for her immediate replacement. We do not make this call lightly," said the 26 MEPs in a letter to the EU Commission, dated 16 July and seen by EUobserver.
Katharina von Schnurbein, a German aristocrat, has been the commission's "coordinator on combating antisemitism" for the past 10 years.
The 26 MEPs came from the centre-left Socialist & Democrats group, the liberal Renew faction, the Greens, and the Left group.
The "revelations" referred to an EU diplomatic cable, leaked by EUobserver, about von Schnurbein's briefing to EU ambassadors in Tel Aviv on 29 May, in which she denigrated EU and UN reports on Israeli war crimes in order to quash talk of sanctions.
Von Schnurbein also attacked EU staff who held charity events for Gaza for creating "ambient antisemitism".
The MEPs said: "We believe these statements severely harm the EU's fight against antisemitism, and have the potential to damage the reputation of the Commission as a whole as a credible actor in this fight, in case no decisive action is taken".
"Insinuating that facts established by these institutions [the EU foreign service and the UN] about Israel's actions could be 'rumours about Jews' is wrong, dangerous, and unacceptable", they said.
"Framing of EU staff expressions of humanity and solidarity as fuelling antisemitism is smearing dedicated EU officials and empties the term antisemitism of meaning, undermining the fight against it," the MEPs said.
Another one of von Schnurbein's Tel Aviv claims - that Palestinian militant group Hamas had clandestinely organised pro-Palestinian protests in Europe - was also "insulting to the hundreds of thousands of peacefully protesting European citizens, and is in no way factually substantiated," the MEPs added.
And the MEPs noted that von Schnurbein had retweeted an "abhorrent" X post on 10 June, which described Swedish human rights activist Greta Thunberg as a Holocaust denier - indicating a wider pattern of inappropriate behaviour.
A group of EU officials, called EU staff for peace, were also "very disturbed" by von Schnurbein's activities, they said in an internal statement circulated in the EU Commission this week and also seen by EUobserver.
EU staff for peace have organised bake sales to raise money for the Irish Red Cross, a charity working in Gaza via its sister organisation, the Palestine Red Crescent Society.
And von Schnurbein's assertion, made in Tel Aviv, that they were stoking antisemitism, was not just "false, baseless", but also "very detrimental to organisers' reputation within the institutions and beyond," they said.
"We hope that ... von Schnurbein will swiftly issue a firm denial of the EUobserver report," the EU officials added.
The group also complained that some "managers" in the EU institutions had created "deliberate obstacles" and levelled "criticism" against their charity work, which indicated that von Schnurbein's views had gained traction in the EU hierarchy.
"Stay tuned for other upcoming cake sales - starting with one at EEAS [EU External Action Service] this 17th July," they said, in a note of defiance.
(The symbolic funds the bake sales have raised are, in any case, being put aside for the future, due to Israel's aid blockade on Gaza).
Meanwhile, the EU Parliament has also seen internal clashes over gestures of solidarity with Palestinian civilians being killed by Israel.
On Tuesday, a young female technician in the interpreters' room in the committee on foreign affairs in Brussels was verbally confronted by a senior Spanish centre-right MEP, Antonio López-Istúriz White, for wearing a keffiyeh — a traditional Palestinian scarf.
The incident, which caused the meeting to be interrupted, happened during a public hearing with researchers on how international court decisions affected the EU's role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"Civil servants are not here to make ideology," López-Istúriz White said during the meeting, threatening to file a formal complaint with parliament bosses.
In the previous legislature, from 2019 to 2024, López-Istúriz White was the chairman of the parliament’s delegation for relations with Israel.
He is also the former secretary general of the centre-right European People's Party group.
Another centre-right MEP, Bulgaria's Andrey Kovachev, joined the attack, saying: "This [the keffiyeh] is not acceptable".
But a leftwing Belgian MEP, Marc Botenga, jumped to the young woman's defence, pointing out that EU staff who had worn Ukrainian flags or symbols in the past had never been reprimanded, in what was a double standard.
"This is authoritarianism, we are in the house of democracy," Botenga told López-Istúriz White.
The EU staff for peace group noted that its previous gestures of solidarity with Ukrainian victims had also been welcomed by superiors, in stark contrast to their Gaza initiatives.
The EU Commission and von Schnurbein declined to comment.
The commission previously told EU staff who were unhappy about the bloc's support for Israel not to protest or speak to press, but to keep their grievances quiet.
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Andrew Rettman is EUobserver's foreign editor, writing about foreign and security issues since 2005. He is Polish, but grew up in the UK, and lives in Brussels. He has also written for The Guardian, The Times of London, and Intelligence Online.
Andrew Rettman is EUobserver's foreign editor, writing about foreign and security issues since 2005. He is Polish, but grew up in the UK, and lives in Brussels. He has also written for The Guardian, The Times of London, and Intelligence Online.