Monday, November 16, 2009
Elder of Ziyon
The California Attorney General's office says that more gay and Jewish people were the victims of hate crimes last year even though the overall number of bias-related crimes declined slightly.
A report released Friday showed that in 2008 there were 1,397 crimes motivated by racial, religious and other forms of bias, a 2% drop from a year earlier.
More than half were based on a victim's race or ethnicity and of these, the vast majority were directed against black people.
Hate crimes based on religious bias were the second most common.
In 2008, there were 184 assaults, threats, and other crimes directed at Jews, a 37% increase from the year before.
Here is a breakdown of the reported anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim hate crimes in California over the past four years based on the annual reports from California's Attorney General:
| Total anti-Religious | Anti-Jewish | Anti-Muslim | |
| 2005 | 205 | 141 | 12 |
| 2006 | 205 | 129 | 14 |
| 2007 | 203 | 134 | 13 |
| 2008 | 294 | 184 | 11 |
And graphically:
The ratio of anti-Jewish to anti-Muslim hate crimes increased from 10:1 to nearly 17:1 over the past year. While anti-Muslim hate crimes decreased by 15%, anti-semitic hate crime increased 37%.
And if you think that the reason that there are so few anti-Muslim hate crimes is because there are so many fewer Muslims, think again. There are about a million Muslims in California, and about 1.2 million Jews.
In other words, anti-semitism is increasing at alarming rates in what is regarded as the nation's most liberal state, and "Islamophobia" is virtually non-existent. Just like it is in New York.
