The Community Security Trust has published its report on Anti-Semitic Incidents in 2007.
Here are the headline points:
– 547 antisemitic incidents were recorded by CST in 2007. This is the second-highest annual total since CST began recording antisemitic incidents in 1984.
– The total of 547 incidents is an eight per cent fall from the 2006 total of 594 incidents. However, this fall is not large enough to alter the long-term trend of rising antisemitic incidents in Britain since the late 1990s.
– The fall in the number of incidents in 2007 is due to the absence of ‘trigger events’ that can cause temporary increases in incidents. In 2006 there was a significant trigger event, the war between Israel and Hizbollah in Lebanon, which led to a large rise in antisemitic incidents in the UK.
– There were 114 violent antisemitic assaults in 2007, the highest ever recorded by CST. This included one incident that was classified as Extreme Violence, meaning that the victim’s life was endangered. Violent assaults were the only category of incident to increase in 2007 and make up an increasing proportion of antisemitic incidents in the UK, from 13 per cent of the total in 2002, up to 21 per cent in 2007.
Here is a selection of incidents from last year:
Three Jewish schoolgirls were on a London bus after leaving school when a group of boys from another school said: “It’s disgusting being on a bus with all these Jews”. They then kicked one of the schoolgirls and spat in the face of another.
A visibly Jewish man was leaving his synagogue in north Manchester when a group of white youths called him a “fucking Jew”, threw bricks at him and punched him in the head.
A visibly Jewish man was walking along a road in north London when a van containing four Asian men pulled up alongside. The occupants threw bottles at him and shouted: “Hitler should have finished you” before getting out of the van to punch and kick him.
A person left a message on the answerphone of a synagogue in Brighton and Hove which said: “Now listen up you Jewish bastards. We will kill you, we’re watching you. You will pay, pay for what you did to the white race.”
A white man wearing an Osama Bin Laden mask got out of a car outside a Jewish building in north Manchester and shouted: “Fucking Jews, gonna blow you up.”
A visibly Jewish student was walking through a park in Leeds when he was approached by two Asian men. One of them asked him if he was Jewish, and then said: “If I ever see you again in Hyde Park, I will blow you up.”
Two Asian students at a further education college in north London told a Jewish classmate that all problems were “the Jews’ fault”. When challenged, they said that their comments weren’t racist but were merely a different political view.
A Jewish organisation received an email that read: “You have in Israel a wonderful Nazi like killing machine (thousands of Palestinians have died or are incarcerated in camps, including Gaza and the West Bank) backed by the world’s richest Jews and America…we in the UK have had enough of Israel, we (the NUJ of which I am a member) have finally voted to boycott Israeli goods…shame on you, shame on all Jews, may your lives be cursed.”
An elderly Auschwitz survivor in north west London was given a parking fine. When he approached the parking attendant he was told that Israel is killing people.
An exhibit at a wildlife centre in London which contained birds from Israel was daubed with a swastika and the word “scum”.
Two white men drove past a synagogue in Hertfordshire and shouted “Long live Palestine” at the security officer.
A Jewish man was walking home from synagogue in Leeds when a white man drove past him and shouted “Go back to Israel” out of his car.
A Jewish student was handing out leaflets outside a student union debate at Manchester University when an Arab student called him “You Jewish bastard.” When challenged, the Arab student smiled and said: “Whoops, I mean you Israeli bastard” and walked off.
I wonder whether any of our resident “anti-imperialists” would like to tell us which of these incidents are best explained as an unfortunate and misguided, but understandable, manifestation of the struggle against Zionism.
