According to plan
Antisemitic incidents in the UK have more than quadrupled since Hamas’s attack on Israel, says a charity which helps Jewish people in the UK. The Community Security Trust (CST) recorded 89 “anti-Jewish hate” incidents from 7 to 10 October. That marked a more than four-fold rise on the 21 antisemitic incidents recorded in the same period last year.
Security Minister Tom Tugendhat said he was “very concerned” at reports of an increase in antisemitism.
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Mr Tugendhat said he took the rise in antisemitism in the UK “extremely seriously” and urged a crackdown on the spread of hate. He compared the ideology of Hamas to that of the Nazis in the 1930s and 40s. “What the Nazis were doing is exactly what Hamas is doing today,” he told Sky News. “It is preaching a blood libel, preaching a hatred for Jews and preaching a hatred that extends around the world.”
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The Met Police’s deputy commissioner Dame Lynne Owens has written an open letter to London’s Jewish community to reassure them that the force will “do all that we can to make sure you feel safe and protected here at home”.
All they can do turns out to be not very much.
We need to be very careful we don’t overinflate reactions outside the ME to this crisis.
Where is the proof that “Antisemitic incidents in the UK have more than quadrupled …”? Do we just accept a group with an agenda’s statement as fact?
As security minister, Tom should have evidence, and be able to point to it.
Casual inflammation of an already fraught situation helps no one. There are angry people, both Jews and Muslims, Israelis and Palestinians, and they both have a right to be angry. But their, and our, anger should not lead to more draconian laws, more fighting, and ultimately, more death.
“From the River to the Sea” is an expression of Palestinian territory, most of which has been lost to Israel. Is the Palestinian longing to return to their homeland any less of value than that of the Jewish diaspora? Is the wandering Jew now the wandering Palestinian, destined to be homeless forever unless the ancient enmities of the past are cast aside and a free Palestine is created?
How can you say that when they’ve had so much experience dismantling unexploded stickers, and seizing large calibre, semi-automatic limericks?
‘Antisemitism on Regent street’? It’s not that simple. If you watch the video carefully, you will see the banner of ‘Jews for Justice for Palestinians’ go past.
I am not Jewish, but one of my friends, a person I deeply respect, has signed up to their founding statement: