BBC reports increased attacks against Jewish people, interests.
The number of attacks against Jews and Jewish institutions spikes at a time of violence in the Middle East, as people sympathetic to the Arab cause often take out their anger at Israel on Jews closer to home.
Jews in Europe typically bear the brunt of attacks far more than U.S. Jews. After the Palestinian intifada began in September 2000, anti-Semitic incidents in Europe skyrocketed.
Britain in particular has seen a spike in anti-Semitic incidents following the start of the war in Lebanon. The Community Security Trust, which monitors the security of British Jewry, has recorded at least 90 such incidents during July, says Mark Gardner, the group’s spokesman.
In an average month, when tensions in the Middle East are not running high, Gardner says the Trust records 20-40 anti-Semitic incidents. During the 1990s, before the intifada, those figures were substantially lower, some 15-25 per month.
In Britain, anti-Israel sentiment has become conflated with anti-Semitism, he says. This results in Jews becoming scapegoats for Israeli policy, and increases their chances of coming under attack.
The incidents are primarily nonviolent and tend to involve abusive rhetoric, threats, e-mails and graffiti.
There’s “a range of things being said,” Gardner says, “most commonly, sympathy for Hezbollah and calling Israel ‘Nazis,’ and at the same time saying Hitler should have finished off the Jews.” ...
Gardner calls conflicts in the Middle East “trigger events.” When accusations against Israel intensify — some in Britain have accused Israel recently of propagating a massacre in Lebanon — people “take their hatred out on any Jew they can find,” Gardner says.
Related OpEd in Sunday Times of London:
"In last week’s paper we covered the desecration of Berlin’s Holocaust memorial, the vandalism of Jewish shops and synagogues from Sydney to Rome, and Mel Gibson’s outburst about Jews being “responsible for all the wars in the world”. We also reported on growing evidence of anti-semitic attacks in Britain including the swastikas and phrase “Kill all Jews” daubed onto a Jewish doctor’s home in Hampstead Garden Suburb.
That, in essence, is why what unites British Jews matters more at a time like this than what divides us. Because, as a rabbi reminded me last week, when a Lebanese-born Hezbollah suicide bomber killed 85 Jews in Argentina 12 years ago, he didn’t stop to inquire where they each stood on the war. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-2300377,00.html
Related Jihad repercussions on global anti-Semitism resource: http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp455.htm
According to exclusive reports reaching DEBKAfile’s sources, the Iranian government believes that Israel and the United States are preparing a military operation for the coming October and November to strike Iran’s nuclear installations. It is therefore vital to keep the two armies fully occupied with other pursuits...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=1201
"UK Jews say anti-Semitism is major factor in aliya"
ReplyDeleteSeveral Jews coming from the UK said the terror threat hadn't dissuaded them from traveling and that other recent developments, notably the response in Britain to Israel's actions against Hizbullah, had increased their desire to leave.
"I believe there is no future for Jews outside Israel," said Yossi Vardakis, 19, while en route from London to Israel, where he plans to study rather than face hostility at a British university. "You don't feel really welcomed being Jewish [in England]. You're attacked for supporting Israel... You see this hatred coming out."
Since hostilities erupted between Israel and Hizbullah, British Jews have experienced a doubling in the rate of anti-Semitic incidents - most in the form of vandalism and threats - according to the Community Security Trust. Many members of the Jewish community have also accused the British media of incendiary coverage of the conflict.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154525888113&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter