Alarming increase in anti-Semitism, hate crimes increase in Britain after Hamas attacks
New Delhi: Scotland Yard has said there has been a sharp increase in hate crimes, mainly anti-Semitic incidents, since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7. There were 218 anti-Semitic incidents in London between October 1-18, up from 15 in the same period last year, the BBC reports.
The number of Islamophobic incidents increased to 101 from 42 last year. The figures were released on the eve of a major pro-Palestine demonstration in London. Police chiefs have banned any protesters from gathering outside the Israeli embassy.
The Metropolitan Police said it is receiving reports of hate crimes both in person and online and so far these have been a mix of racially and religiously motivated incidents. So far, 21 people have been arrested and authorities are investigating 1,400 reports of potentially illegal content online, the BBC reports.
In France, home to Europe’s largest Jewish community, police recorded more than 320 physical acts of anti-Semitism and made more than 180 arrests in the first 10 days of the war, The Guardian reported. According to the Education Minister’s report, the anti-Semitic acts under investigation included threats by gathering in front of synagogues, incidents of verbal abuse, threatening letters, graffiti such as the words “Killing Jews is a crime” outside a stadium in Carcassonne in the south-west. duty” are included. A Nazi swastika was scrawled on a blackboard at a school, and a Jewish high-school student’s clothes were torn and anti-Semitic comments were made when he came out of the school toilet, reports said.
Security has been stepped up at Jewish sites in towns and cities across Europe, from synagogues to schools and community centres. But Jewish communities in France, Germany and Italy said they were still on alert. In Sarcelles, orders for home delivery of food also dropped, as people said they were hesitant to approach the door of someone they did not know, The Guardian reports.
Police in Dearborn, Michigan, a city with a population that is about 42 percent Arab, arrested a man after he made online threats of violence against Palestinian American residents, CNN reported. “Palestinian Americans and Muslim Americans feel like they are experiencing the level of hatred and Islamophobia that we had after 9/11 and during the Iraq War,” Aber Kawas, a member of the American Campaign for Palestinian Rights, told CNN. “Some people say it’s worse.”
Abed Ayoub, director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said that in places like the United States, the perspectives of Palestinian and Muslim communities have been largely absent from coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict and that this has increased the climate of bigotry. He said, “There is no identity of our existence. “That’s what’s allowing it to bubble.”
“And that’s why a 6-year-old Palestinian boy was stabbed to death in his own home.” Ayoub said the Arab and Palestinian communities are diverse and nuanced. “Labeling everyone as Hamas to justify attacks is dangerous and we are seeing it,” he said of the bombings in Gaza.
Last weekend, as Israel continued bombing Gaza in response to the October 7 Hamas attack, activists held pro-Palestinian rallies in New York City’s Times Square and in cities across the country.
Many Muslim or Arab leaders say they feel compelled to speak out against the climate of Islamophobia to prevent further violence. “The CAIR NJ office has not received so many calls for help since the Muslim ban in 2017,” Seladin Maksut, executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations of New Jersey, said at a news conference on Monday. “Concern and fear run high,” CNN reported.
