Antisemitism - is the genie now out of the bottle?
15 January 2015
What a moment to relaunch
the Academic Friends of Israel digest after a gap of three and a half years, so
much has changed with the murder of 17
people in Paris last week.
Jew hatred and
antisemitism are centre stage once again and this time it is front page news.
The genie was let out of the bottle last summer with Israel's military
operation 'Protective Edge' against Gaza last summer. The coming together of a series of
factors such as the
conflation of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel hatred, the increased use of social media
and an anti-Israeli narrative promoted by the media all combined to ensure an upsurge
in antisemitism which was the longest period of sustained antisemitsm in Europe
since the Second World War.
Last week it was Muslim
extremists targeting Jews for no other reason than that they were Jews. This
week in Britain the results of survey by
the 'grass roots activists' the Campaign
Against Antisemitism of the Jews and the wider population have been published.
The outcome has been headlines such 'Almost half of Britons hold antisemitic
view, poll suggests', 'Warning over rising tide of anti-Semitism in Britain
with one in eight people claiming that Jews talk about the Holocaust to get
sympathy'. The Jewish Chronicle has
carried out its own survey, their headline was '88% of British Jews have not
considered leaving UK'. This means 12%
or one in ten have considered making Aliyah. The message is the same,
that Anglo Jewry is worried and unless something is done by our leaders and
politicians it is only going to worse.
Sadly, the leaders of
the Anglo Jewry have once again been found wanting as they were last summer by
the grassroots activists who are dictating the agenda when it comes to
combating rising antisemitism and as a result gaining all the headlines.
I found recently some
very interesting data published by the Community Security Trust (CST). You
probably knew that between 2008 and 2012 there were an average 600 antisemitic
incidents in Britain each year, approximately 10 every week? But did you know
that there were only an average of 10 successful prosecutions each year, out of
the 600 reported incidents. This indicates to me something is not quite right,
although I have been told this is pretty good compared to other European
countries. Do our politicians and lawmakers have the will to do something
before it's too late, I hope so, because
we all know what is heading our way.
Was Benjamin Netanyahu
right when he made an impassioned
call for French Jews to immigrate to Israel, the killing of four Jews in a kosher supermarket in Paris? Some may disagree with me but I think he was
right, as Marc Goldberg wrote in his blog about Netanyahu's
presence in Paris;
"When they looked
up at the bimah, at the Jew, the former commando, the man who lost his own
brother to terrorists they saw a man they knew would put his own life
on the line to defend theirs. This is why it was the Prime Minister of
Israel who received the applause from the crowd upon arrival, this is why
it was the Prime Minister of Israel that they all wanted to hear speak.
This is the man from the country overseas whose doors will always be open to
them. The country where every man and woman of military age will fight against
the very same people who attacked them."
Do not forget that if you say he was
wrong then you are playing in to the hands of the current Palestinian
narrative that the Jews have no connection with the Land of Israel, even though
we have been there for 2000 years.
Ronnie Fraser
Director
The Academic Friends of Israel
You may now like to read some of the following articles:
Gideon
Falter, chairman of the Campaign Against Antisemitism: 'Britain’s tsunami of
anti-Semitism'
Gideon
Falter ‘Campaign Against Antisemitism is
the freedom litmus test’
The
Guardian – ‘Almost half of Britons hold antisemitic view, poll suggests’
The
Jewish Chronicle - 'JC poll reveals 88 per cent of British Jews have not
considered leaving UK'
Geoffrey
Alderman – ‘Here’s how politicians can convince British Jews that they have a
future in the UK’
Melanie
Phillips writes about writing about the endemic Jew-hatred within Islamic
religion and culture
The Paris terrorist attacks:
Marc
Goldberg - 'Prime Minister of the Jews?'
An
alternative take on Netanyahu's visit to Paris can be can be found here
President
Rivlin eulogizes victims of Paris attack
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