Attacks On Jews Increasing

Attacks on Jews in Britain have soared since the war in Lebanon, triple the average since record keeping began. The British government is calling for immediate intervention.

BRITISH Jews are facing a wave of anti-Semitic attacks prompted by Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Synagogues have been daubed with graffiti, Jewish leaders have had hate-mail and ordinary people have been subjected to insults and vandalism.

On Thursday an all-party parliamentary inquiry will state that anti-Semitic violence has become endemic in Britain, both on the streets and university campuses. The report will call for urgent action from the Government, the police and educational establishments.

Mark Gardner, of the Community Security Trust, said: “In July, when the conflict in Lebanon began, we received reports of 92 incidents, which was the third-worst month since records began in 1984.” In 2000 the monthly average was between 10 and 30 incidents.

The former minister Denis MacShane, who chaired the parliamentary inquiry, said: “These figures confirm the evidence given to us that anti-Semitic attacks are a very real problem.”

The Board of Deputies of British Jews submitted evidence to the inquiry that anti-Semitism in Britain was at its worst level.

The July incidents “were more dispersed than usual”, Mr Gardner said. “It is usually a small number responsible for a large number of attacks, but these were very widespread across the country and included graffiti attacks on synagogues in Edinburgh and Glasgow.”

The attackers, when visible, are from across society, he said. “When it’s verbal abuse, it’s just ordinary people in the street, from middle-class women to working-class men. All colours and backgrounds. We hardly ever see incidents involving the classic neo-Nazi skinhead. Muslims are over-represented.”

In hate-mail to senior Jewish figures, ordinary Jewish people were being blamed for the deaths of Lebanese civilians. “There are also references to the Holocaust, saying that Hitler should have wiped out the Jews.”

This is reprehensible. It is, I think, highly regrettable that Muslim leaders have been making dire warnings both here and abroad about how worried they are about backlash against Muslims. There has been very little of that at all. But casting themselves as victims makes it more likely that these kinds of attacks will occur against Jews. US statistics show that attacks against Jews are much, much higher than attacks against Muslims. I suspect the result is the same in Britain.

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  By ck, Saturday, 2 September , 2006 @ 12:38 pm

  Everytime we have an anti-muslim hate crime around here, it ends up being an insurance scam perpetrated by the offended muslim.

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1. The Debate Link — Saturday, 2 September , 2006 @ 1:28 pm