A report released by Israeli researchers says violent attacks on Jews dropped for a second straight year in 2016, while other forms of anti-Semitism are on the rise worldwide, particularly on US campuses.
Researchers at Tel Aviv University said Sunday that assaults specifically targeting Jews, vandalism and other violent incidents fell 12 percent past year.
In the year 2016 the number of anti-Semitic violent incidents dropped by 12 percent, from 410 incidents in 2015 to 361 in 2016.
The Community Security Trust, the British-Jewish charity that compiles the report in Britain, said in February it could not attribute the increase to any single trigger, citing instead a “combination of events and factors”, including an unprecedented public debate about anti-Semitism within the Labour Party, terrorist attacks in Western countries and the June referendum in which a majority of voters supported a British exit from the European Union.
The decrease in the number of all types of anti-Semitic incidents put together, as monitored by communities and governmental agencies, is most evident in France, where the Interior Minister announced a 61% decrease in all forms of antisemitism as well as in Belgium which witnessed a 60% decline.
In the United States, “there was an alarming rise of 45 percent in anti-Semitic incidents on university campuses, where Jewish students are facing increasing hate and intolerance”, Moshe Kantor, president of the European Jewish Congress, said in a statement about the report. If you would like to discuss another topic, look for a relevant article.
“Anti-Semitic incidents and manifestations in 2016 reflect two parallel yet contradicting trends”, the report said. Even in the European countries where there was an increase in the number of refugees, there was not an increase in the number of anti-Semitic incidents.
Possibly these measures have resulted in decreased use of weapons (10 cases in 2016, 24 in 2015), arson (1, and 10 in 2015) and fewer attacks on Jewish private and public property, while cemeteries and memorials, that do not enjoy such security, continue to be targeted. The report attributed the decrease to the deployment of troops around Jewish institutions. “This shows that the motivation hasn’t declined and the sense of insecurity in the Jewish communities is being felt”, he added.
Instead, the study noted that the rise of the far Right in Europe as well as to some extent in the U.S. has turned its focus onto immigration issues, mainly targeting the Muslim refugees, with many of these leaders differentiating and denouncing antisemitic statements.
Internet discourse is more threatening, cruel and violent, escalating the on-the-ground situation and inflating it a hundred times in no time, the report underscored. Despite this, the report noted, antisemitic activity is still popular among these parties’ supporters. “Indeed, some who describe themselves as liberal and progressive, are in league with the most regressive movements, ideologies and regimes”.