The UK suffered its worst ever outbreak of antisemitic fervor in a one month period from May to June this year since records began in 1984, with a massive increase in antisemitism during this period coming against the background of the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
According to a new Community Security Trust (CST) report, an organization which tracks antisemitism in the UK, a total of 628 antisemitic hate incidents took place between May 8 and June 7, more than four times the number of incidents during the same period in 2020 and the month prior to May 8 2021.
The actual rise in percentage terms from the month before the conflict to the May 8 – June 7 period was an incredible 365%.
CST CEO Mark Gardner said that British Jews suffered a campaign of racist hatred, abuse and intimidation, and alleged that anti-racism campaigners ignored or even excused anti-Jewish hate.
Over the period in question, speakers at pro-Palestinian rallies talked of Jewish control of the media; antisemitic prayers and slogans were recited at demonstrations; and Israel was compared to Nazi Germany.
A rabbi was violently assaulted and hospitalized in London in a religiously motivated attack, and a Jewish woman driving her four-year old son who wore a yarmulke was rammed by two cars flying Palestinian flags in the neighborhood of Hendon, which has a large Jewish population.
And in another notorious incident, a convoy of cars drove through Manchester and London flying Palestinian flags and declaring on loudspeakers “F**k the Jews”, “F**k their daughters,” “F**k their mothers,” and “Rape their daughters.”
Of the total 628 incidents in the period in question, 585 involved language, imagery or behavior linked to the conflict in Israel and Gaza, and 112 incidents were of individuals targeting random Jewish people or Jewish neighborhoods with shouts of “Free Palestine,” Palestinian flags or both, including explicitly abusive or threatening language or gestures intended to offend and intimidate.
CST said it does not treat slogans such as “Free Palestine” or “Free Gaza” as antisemitic in an of themselves, unless they are used to deliberately target the Jewish community in an abusive way, such as addressing them specifically to Jews or spray-painting such words on a synagogue.
And 154 of the antisemitic incidents took place in schools and universities, almost the same number of incidents as for the entire 2019 calendar year, the last year in which schools and universities were fully open.
Of the 61 incidents which took place in universities, eight included threats, two of which were death threats to Jewish students.
In one incident, a pupil at a mainstream school in northwest England circulated a petition about Israel and Palestine and told other students “the Jews are killing Muslims” and “the Jews are bad.”
In another attack, a Jewish high-school pupil was called a “c*nt” and was told “go back to the concentration camps” and “why didn’t Germany gas the lot of you?”
And in another incident, a group of Jewish schoolgirls were heading home by bus in northwest London, when a non-Jewish schoolgirl from a different school got onto the bus and started shouting towards the group: “Free Palestine and f**k Israel” as well as “stupid Jews.”
Pro-Palestinian demonstrations were also the venue for numerous antisemitic incidents.
At a rally in Manchester, one speaker alleged Jewish control of the media when he claimed that “the main 13 executives that approve the content released by the BBC are actually in fact Jewish. So this means the information released by the mainstream media will be biased.”
And a speaker at a demonstration in Bradford recited an explicitly anti-Jewish prayer in Arabic that depicted Jews and Muslims as enemies, saying: “God, purify al-Aqsa from impure people! God, make the earth quake under their feet! God, lift the curse of the Jews off the Muslims in Palestine! God, support Muslim youth to protect al-Aqsa! God, support them with your soldiers! God, we ask you to make the Jews lose! God, make Islam win!”
Placards comparing Israel with Nazi Germany were commonplace on pro-Palestinian demonstrations around the country, something which the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance defines as antisemitic.
And at several rallies, the chant “Khaybar, Khaybar ya yahud, jaish Muhammad Sauf Ya’ud”, meaning “Khaybar Khaybar oh Jews, the army of Mohammed is returning,” a reference to a battle mentioned in the Koran between Muslims and Jews in which the Jews were defeated.
CST says the chant “constitutes a threat that Muslims will once again kill Jews in the present day or near future” and that singing it at anti-Israel rallies indicates its antisemitic intent, “given that the historical battle long predated Zionism and the existence of the State of Israel and the chant is specifically directed at “Jews.”
The chant was heard at a massive rally in London attended by an estimated 150,000 people where Israeli flags were burnt, as well as numerous other pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
And in another disturbing incident following a pro-Israel solidarity rally in London, an individual who had been part of a small counter demonstration said: “We’ll find some Jews there. We want the Zionists. We want their blood.”
The individual was not arrested, but the Metropolitan Police confirmed to CST that they are investigating the incident as a possible offence of stirring up racial hatred.
CST’s report notes that the identity of the perpetrators of antisemitic incidents during the May to June time period was markedly different than that perpetrators in the 2020 calendar year.
In 2020, 63% of antisemitic attacks in which the perpetrator’s identity was described were committed by people described as “White – North European,” 17% by “Black” offenders, 11% by Arab or North Africans, and 6% by South Asians.
But from May 8 to June 7, in 241 of the 628 antisemitic incidents reported in which the identity of the perpetrator was described, 46% were described as Arab or North African, 22% as South Asian, 20% as white – North European and 8% as black.
“CST’s report details the racist hatred, abuse and intimidation that British Jews suffered over a monthlong period,” said CST’s Gardner upon release of the report last week.
“This anti-Jewish rage was fueled by extremists and directed against everyone from schoolchildren to rabbis, coming as violence and intimidation in schools, streets and shopping centers,” he said.
“We need firmer action against the perpetrators, and an end to the selective anti-racism from those who passionately oppose most racism but uniquely ignore, misrepresent or make excuses for this type of anti-Jewish hate.”