Report: Global anti-Semitism declined in 2008
Annual report published by TA university institute finds 2008 saw 11% decline in violence against Jews worldwide, compared to 2007. However, sharp rise in anti-Semitism – sparked by Gaza op - was recorded in January 2009. Authors say recurring motif in racial expressions: Equating Jews to Nazis
While Operation Cast Lead in Gaza prompted a sharp rise in global anti-Semitism in January 2009, it in fact followed a significant decline in anti-Semitism across the world, a new report published by the Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism at Tel Aviv University revealed Monday.
An overall decrease of 11% in violent incidents against Jews was recorded in 2008, compared to 2007.
According to the report, 2008 witnessed a continuation of the trend of relative stability in numbers of anti-Semitic violence. A decline was recorded especially in Britain, Canada and Australia, but Belgium, the US, Hungary, Italy, and Lithuania reported an increase.
The economic crisis which began in the summer triggered anti-Jewish reactions, most notably in Eastern Europe and the Arab world, but not violent activities.
Some 560 violent cases occurred in 2008 world wide, compared to 632 in 2007. The use of weapons declined, perhaps as a result of anti-terrorist measures in many states, while other forms of violence, such as arson, remained at the same level.
The report's authors noted that though hard to quantify, threats, insults, graffiti, and slogans were on the rise, evidence of the general anti-Semitic atmosphere.
There were fewer attacks on persons (about 170 cases compared to 255 in 2007), yet figures for vandalizing of schools, synagogues, cemeteries, community centers, monuments, and private property remained relatively unchanged.
January 2009 – an exceptional month
The launching of Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip in late December 2008 changed everything, as a wave of anti-Semitic manifestations swept the world. These included both violent incidents (arson attacks on synagogues, assaults on Jewish individuals, desecration of cemeteries, and vandalizing of Jewish property and Holocaust monuments) and verbal and visual expressions (insults, threats, gruesome caricatures, and stormy demonstrations)."Although most of these activities featured traditional anti-Semitic motifs," the report states, "their use was more extreme, intensive, and vociferous than was hitherto known.
"Muslim activists and organizations worldwide… were the moving force behind the demonstrations, together with leftist and human rights activists, and to a lesser extent extreme right circles. Jews and former Israelis also took part in some of the rallies, mostly in the US," they added.
While the authors said that it is not yet possible to determine exact numbers of violent incidents during the first month of 2009, but Jewish communities and monitoring organizations have pointed to a sharp rise in all types of anti-Semitic activities. According to the CST in the UK, for instance, 250 incidents of all types were counted in January, compared to 35 during the same month in 2008.
"From the data we have received to date, we estimate that there were close to 1000 manifestations of anti-Semitism of all types in January worldwide. The violent cases (including use of arms, assaults on persons, and desecrations) numbered close to 90, three times that of January 2008," the authors wrote.
Abuse of the Holocaust
February and March witnessed a sharp decline in violent incidents, reaching figures that were in fact lower than the equivalent months of 2008, "but the virulent verbal and visual expressions and the atmosphere of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel rage have not yet subsided," the report noted.
According to the report, the leitmotif of anti-Semitic expressions evident at the beginning of 2009 was not classic stereotyping of the Jews and Israelis as Jews, but abuse of the Holocaust, first and foremost, as a political tool against Israel, with the analogy of Israelis/Zionists/Jewish supporters of Israel with Nazis becoming almost an axiom.
"This outright equation − Magen David=swastika," said the authors, "is intended to underline that if Nazism, the monster of the modern era, has no right to exist, then the Jewish state and its supporters, too, should be eliminated."
