Anti-Semitism spikes in Britain Report shows incidents doubling in last decade
Posted: July 9, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com Anti-Semitism in Great Britain has turned in just a few years from a public nuisance into something of a crisis, according to a Jewish magazine.
The annual report of the Community Security Trust, which tracks anti-Semitic incidents in Britain, showed 2004 was the worst year of anti-Semitic violence, vandalism and harassment since the group began keeping statistics in 1996, according to Azure magazine.
The numbers include 83 physical assaults – up from 54 in 2003, or a 54-percent increase – and 365 acts of abusive or threatening behavior, up from 233 in 2003, or a 57-percent increase.
In all, the group recorded 532 serious anti-Semitic incidents in Britain in 2004 – more than double the 228 recorded in 1996, and a rise of over 40 percent from the previous year.
In absolute numbers, Great Britain is now second only to France in serious anti-Semitic incidents reported among European countries. Russia is a distant third.
In the Azure story, writer Robert S. Wistrich says Britain is unusual not simply in the frequency and severity of anti-Semitic incidents.
"While many European countries have come to associate anti-Semitism with the forces of either the extreme Right, radical Left, or the increasingly vocal Muslim minorities, in Britain anti-Semitic sentiment is a part of mainstream discourse, continually resurfacing among the academic, political and media elites," he writes.
WND columnist Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who formerly served as rabbi at Oxford University, wrote in May that "wholesale anti-Semitism has broken out in Britain over the last few years, the likes of which even I never witnessed in the 11 years that I lived there."
Boteach was writing about a decision by the British Association of University Teachers to boycott two Israeli universities.
"So why is Israel singled out for hatred and boycotts by the British, while brutal and oppressive Arab governments face no similar opposition?" he asked. "Simple. Israel is filled with Jews, the Arab countries are not."
Boteach said, "From the mayor of London, who called a Jewish reporter he didn't like a Nazi concentration camp guard, to the explosion of violent attacks on Jewish citizens and institutions, to this boycott outrage against Israeli universities, the latent anti-Semitism that has always existed in Britain is beginning to surface."
"Yours is a hatred that is really grasping to find a rational excuse...typical among the anti-British bigots on this board."
Oddly enough, Ivan, this description fits most of your anti-French posts !
So, if for that reason alone, I agree that the anti-UK sentiment as expressed here from time to time, as the anti-French sentiment also expressed here on a more frequent basis, have more to do with personal prejudice than with any real knowledge of the situation in any of our countries.