Big rise in antisemitic incidents in UK – charity

8 comments

1. I just don’t get why people do this and never will.

   British Jews are not responsible for Israel’s actions.

   British Muslims are not responsible for Hamas’s actions.

2. [deleted]

3. > Conservative shadow home secretary James Cleverly said: “We must root out antisemitism wherever it occurs.

   Does this mean they’ll start expelling Tories who promote the antisemitic “Cultural Marxism” conspiracy theory, or sit down with openly antisemitic conspiracy theorists such as Elon Musk, or the Trump Campaign? 

4. I suppose this will all be Jeremy Corbyns fault again.

5. Hello – I’m a British Jew and I’ve lived all my life in the UK. There is a bit of antisemitism but in my experience really not very much. At school there was name-calling and you get occasional comments but we are not discriminated against when it comes to jobs and housing and so on.

   None of it is anything like the scale of what we have seen recently in the riots. Our places of worship are only very rarely menaced and nothing like the abuse that Muslims have been getting over the last seven days

   I have little doubt that there has indeed been a certain increase in antisemitic incidents since October. I don’t think that is especially surprising. Plenty of people sadly cannot distinguish between the actions of the state of Israel and the Jewish people as a whole, and when Israel is behaving so appallingly some crticism is unjustifiably directed against us. None of that is helped by the fact that the prime minister of the state of Israel takes every possible opportunity to identify his actions with the Jewish people as a whole – something which in my view he has no right to do

   The trouble is that supporters of Israel in the Jewish community in Britain have been reporting some incidents as antisemitic when they are merely demonstrations of support for the Palestinians. I know this because on the marches for Palestine in London at least there have been large Jewish blocks with banners and flags making it absolutely explicit that they are Jews. And they have been greeted warmly by the marchers. I accompanied a Syrian friend on one of the marches in London and I wore one of the badges being handed out by the Jewish block indicating that I was Jewish and received absolutely no abuse at all – quite contrary.

   But I also know from members of my family who take a different view from me and who support the state of Israel that they have reported various incidents which I would not regard us being antisemitic. Like people waving Palestinian flags or people chanting “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free “, which I have to say I struggle to understand as anything other than a statement for an end to the historic oppression of the Palestinians rather than anything else.

   So yes I’m sure there is an increase in anti-Semitism but I’m also pretty confident it is not as sharp as is being self-reported.

6. Al Aqsa mosque is built on the grounds that are the former Temple of Solomon.

   Control of that site is the core reason Muslims care about this war and not the ones in Yemen, Syria, Sudan, Mayanmar or Ethopia.

   Its a relgious war where some refence to ancients wars by Muhammed against Jews are referenced

   [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khaybar#Modern_usage_in_the_Arab%E2%80%93Israeli_conflict](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khaybar#Modern_usage_in_the_Arab%E2%80%93Israeli_conflict)

7. When will the British government condemn the Israeli government for conflating Jewishness with the actions of Israel? Don’t they see how dangerous this kind of far-right rhetoric is?

8. Have there really?

   > The report relies on figures from incidents that are self-reported.

   Anyone remember “The Lobby”? Having seen video of an interaction that was reported as anti-Semitism but was nothing of the sort, I can’t help but take these “self-reported” figures with a massive pinch of salt.