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Friday March 2, 2007

U.K. anti-Semitism either up, down, or way down

by jonny paul
jta

london | Anti-Semitic incidents either soared in Great Britain last year, dipped a bit or dropped significantly — it depends whom you ask.

A report published mid-February by a Jewish organization said there were 594 incidents, the most since records started being kept in 1984. That represents a 31 percent increase over the prior year, according to the annual report by the Community Security Trust.

That’s in sharp contrast to the London Mayor’s Office, which says that anti-Semitic attacks decreased sharply in the past year.

Then the Israel-based Global Forum against Anti-Semitism, chaired by the Foreign Affairs Ministry, cliamed that anti-Semitic incidents had fallen 3 percent, to 312 in 2006 from 321 in 2005.

The Jewish Chronicle, the U.K.’s national weekly newspaper, reported in February that the Community Security Trust “rebuked” Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni for “grossly” underestimating the level of anti-Semitism in the United Kingdom. A letter sent to Livni said the Israeli figures were “a grossly inaccurate portrayal of the situation in the United Kingdom.”

The trust’s report concentrated on six areas: extreme violence; assaults; damage and desecration of Jewish communal property; threats; abusive behavior; and mass-produced anti-Semitic literature — the only area not to record a major increase.

The trust used figures of incidents recorded via Jewish organizations as well as people reporting to trust offices and representatives throughout the United Kingdom.

Thirteen people were convicted of offenses relating to anti-Semitic incidents from 2005 and 2006. Cases from 2006 await trial.

Among the anti-Semitic incidents recorded in the trust report, 108 were called assaults, described as a physical attack that did not pose a threat to one’s life. That was a 37 percent increase from 2005, which had 82 assaults.

The trust report showed that attacks escalated during Israel’s war with Lebanon last summer. That rise helped account for the fact that 59 percent of anti-Semitic incidents occurred during the second half of 2006.

There were four incidents of extreme violence, described as an attack that could cause loss of life, compared to two in 2005. This included the stabbing of a “visibly Jewish” man in an unprovoked attack on a London street and an assault on two Jewish students by Middle Eastern men who shouted anti-Semitic rhetoric.

Victims were mostly individuals and organizations chosen at random. There were 79 incidents of Jewish events being targeted.

Seventy incidents of “damage and desecration” of Jewish communal property were reported, a rise of 46 percent.

The report noted some incidents of anti-Semitism on college campuses, including graffiti at the Leeds University library on three occasions. Drawings of swastikas and Jews with long noses were daubed on desks there.

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