Here's what's happening in London:
London police said on Friday they had recorded a 1,353% increase in antisemitic offences this month compared to the same period last year, while Islamophobic offences were up 140% in the wake of the attack by Hamas on Israel.
....Police in the British capital ramped up patrols amid growing tensions, but said there had been 218 antisemitic offences between Oct. 1 and 18, compared to 15 in the same period in 2022. Islamophobic offences were up to 101, from 42.
And Berlin:
Modern Germany is an advanced liberal democracy: tolerant, decent, and generous. The German state is a friend to Israel and a vigilant protector of its Jewish citizens. And yet it is dangerous to wear Jewish symbols in many parts of Berlin. https://t.co/1UGigQRK4q pic.twitter.com/wSUiZMF31y
— David Frum (@davidfrum) October 22, 2023
An unprecedented 1,200% escalation in online calls for violence against Israel, Zionists, and Jews in the chilling aftermath of the IDF Swords of Iron operation against Hamas was seen in a new report. The statistics were collected between October 7-10, 2023....This period saw 157,000 recorded antisemitic posts, indicating a 450% increase from the prior four days.
...A geographical dive into the data reveals Paris as the most active hub for the dissemination of antisemitic hate speech from October 7-10. Following Paris, cities like New York, Buenos Aires, Santiago, and Los Angeles also show significant activity in this regard.
The world is awash in hatred and tribalism. I don't think anyone can consider this surprising, but neither is it something we can ignore.
Every person intrinsically has the potential to hate and righteousness is the foundation of violence.
"The well-known president of a Michigan synagogue was found stabbed to death outside of her home on Saturday, amid heightened concerns that the unfolding Israel-Gaza war could lead to violence in the United States and elsewhere.
Detroit police said that they did not have a motive in the killing of Samantha Woll, 40, who led the board of Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue in Detroit, and urged the public to be patient while the investigation continued."
The bleak sad hope here is that it's your normal lowlife robbery gone wrong, instead of a harbinger of antisemitic attacks to come.
I wonder of most of these are just angry Muslims. Certainly there are lots of them all over the US, EU, and even NYC. What did we think would happen? It’s what religious fanatics do. This is just human nature. We try to be good people, but the whackos out there make it nearly impossible.
Just a note: one does not have to be religious to do these kinds of things. If you dropped the word "religious" from your post, I would agree with every word.
In (virtually?) any other context, such increases from very small stating points would yield a response other than “awash in hatred and tribalism.”
Not every Jew supports Israel. And not every Arab supports Hamas.
But good luck getting the "unthinking brute" segment of society to understand that.
Attended the bat mitzvah of a friend's daughter yesterday. We were cautioned not to be alarmed about the police officer patrolling the parking lot, it was just a standard policy given today's political environment. Thank you Fox News, Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump!
Fox, Gingrich, and Trump are proponents of from the river to the sea?
@ J. Frank Parnell: Sorry, but if we’re talking about tribalism, I must admit that your comment is stunning. Vitriol against Jews is getting worked up into a frenzy by the LEFT. This fact has been in the news nonstop for the last 7-10 days. There were the Leftist students at Harvard who saw fit to publish their obscene letter blaming the victims in Israel for the massacre that was inflicted upon them, there have been numerous Democratic lawmakers (the infamous squad) deliberately spreading falsehoods about supposed Israeli war crimes even after those falsehoods were debunked, there have been ostensibly Liberal media outlets (NY times) printing similar falsehoods and then failing to issue official apologies or corrections, and then of course there have been the infamous university professors and administrators openly reveling in and promoting antisemitism. It’s been quite a sight to see. And quite the revelation about the modern left. Or so I thought. Apparently, despite all this evidence of Leftist Jew hatred, some on the Left will continue to reflexively blame right wing media outlets. The really amazing irony here is that conservatives have, in the last few days, been some of the sanest and least antisemitic voices. And the Fox News channel you blame for the situation has in fact been one of the most reliable outlets I know of for calling out the hatred and the antisemitic lies spread by the Democratic squad. Sorry, but the Left has gone so tragically and dangerously off the rails in this case, that they have achieved the admittedly stunning and genuinely unexpected feat of making Fox News look good by comparison. And who knew that was even possible?
I agree that it is probably not the right wingers. A few lefty folks have embraced the palestian cause, but most of the anti-Israel crowd are muslim and not necessarily left wing.
WRONG. It was the Foxified neighbor of mine who vandalized the nearby Jewish Community Center, a Synagogue and three churches with banners in support of gay rights and Black Lives Matter.
Congratulations! Another religious fanatic initiated into the gang. Hopefully this kid grows up to reject it in a few years.
Media, particularly visual media, is everything. After the 9/11 attacks (with endlessly repeated images of the towers collapsing), attacks against Muslims skyrocketed. I don't know for sure, but I would assume anti-Jewish attacks did not. But now, following a short-duration Hamas attack where the images were too horrific to be broadcast, followed by longer-duration bombing of targets in Gaza -- not to mention successful mischaracterization of the Al-Ahli hospital explosion as an Israeli air strike by Hamas and their allies -- have provoked more hatred against Jews due to the 24-hour broadcasting of mourning in the streets of Gaza.
It's all about what people see, not facts or complexity.
Hitler and Trump both showed us that 40% of every population is not comfortable living in a liberal democracy. That 40% want and need to be told what to think, along with having an outsized portion of hatred for, and resentment of, others.
Tell them that there is a target, and it's a good thing to hate that target, and that's all they need.
Personally, I think that's because that 40% are too stupid to understand nuance, or to think for themselves, or to work harder to improve their own lives. It is much easier to hate, and to blame your failed life on others, rather than face the fact that you are just unwilling to put in the effort needed to improve.
Unfortunately, I think these guys will always be with us.
Something I didn't get to in an earlier comment touching on this is that in addition to the pre-installed antisemitism of ordinary social conservatives there's an element of a received elite opinion of antisemitism that disguises as a pro-Palestinian anti-Israeli opinion and which trickles down from leftist social conservatives in Ivory Tower cocktail parties, the one economic niche they can exploit as a group. Seemingly with a 'transgressive' vibe it seems edgy for those who don't care to waste their time reading much but want to seem like they already have.
About the Frum tweet: Frau Balci is the integration commissioner for the Neukölln district of Berlin. She specifically calls out a nucleus of about 100 members of a Palestinian group, but also states that expressions of sympathy for terrorists are more widespread among the Arabic-speaking population. Incidentally, Frau Balci is German-born, of Turkish extraction.
One would like to think that future generations of Arab-Germans would acquire more liberal European values — should those prevail. But I note with dismay that in the two recent state elections in Germany, the anti-immigrant, nativist AfD has made its best showing yet.
Schwarzenegger's message to those involved in hate groups,
https://old.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/17dra25/arnold_schwarzenegger_has_a_powerful_message_for/
People are now planting bombs in the tramways of Algiers. My mother might be on one of those tramways. If that is justice, then I prefer my mother.
True then, true today. Stop attacking mothers.
A pox on all their houses. No one is innocent except maybe the victims in what can only be called the inevitable anarchy of religious fundamentalism. Killings become justified under the guise of “true” religious extremes. And i include here Jewish, Islamic and Christian true believers.
To use the vernacular, it’s a shit show. No one comes out of this looking good.
While I don't discount a rise in antisemitic offences, I would be curious what is treated as an "antisemitic offence".
Sure there are obvious ones, but does a criticism of the Israeli Govt constitute an antisemitic offence? If someone were to call Netanyahu a monster, does that count as antisemetic?
The London item included this:
"Officers have made 21 arrests for hate crime offences, including a man detained for defacing posters of missing Israelis and another over Islamophobic graffiti on bus stops."
So one wonders what percentage of the "hate crime offenses" is merely defacement of property, especially since posters of missing Israelis did not exist prior to the current situation and so created a new opportunity for people to commit "hate crimes."