Wiesenthal releases ten worst outbreaks of antisemitic/anti-Israel cases
Simon Wiesenthal Center disclosed its annual top ten list of the worst outbreaks of antisemitic and anti-Israel incidents, including lethal Jew-hatred in the US and Germany.2019’s achievements in the battle against antisemitism
Wiesenthal announced that the now-defeated British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn was ranked number one for mainstream antisemitism in the UK. The Center wrote that it ”released its #1 choice for its Top Ten 2019 list five days before the UK election. Corbyn’s Labour was trounced by PM Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party in the December 12th elections. Some analysts say that antisemitism impacted the voters. Corbyn has resigned as leader of the Labour Party.”
In fact, Corbyn termed the antisemitic jihadi organizations Hezbollah and Hamas his “friends.”
The Center listed the lethal antisemitic attacks in Jersey City and in Halle, Germany as the next worst outbreaks of Jew-hatred. “In Jersey City, New Jersey, a kosher market was the target of domestic terrorists. David Anderson and Francine Graham were adherents of the Black Hebrew Israelites hate group. Anderson had expressed anti-police and antisemitic sentiments. The shooters first killed a police officer, then unleashed a barrage of gunfire killing three innocent people inside the kosher store. Only quick and heroic action taken by police prevented an even greater massacre, as an adjacent yeshiva [school] would have been their next target,” wrote the Center.
Wiesenthal wrote that “some 80 Jews praying in a German Synagogue on Yom Kippur – Judaism’s holiest day – miraculously escaped certain injury or death at the hands of a neo-Nazi when the attacker failed to break down a security door outside a synagogue in Halle, Germany. After failing to enter the synagogue, Stephan Balliet, 27, armed with a submachine gun and explosives killed 2 civilians nearby and injured 2 others. Balliet admitted that he was motivated by his hatred of Jews.”
The Center lambasted the German authorities for the lax security. “Despite surging antisemitic acts, German authorities failed to post any security outside the synagogue during Yom Kippur services.”
Expressions of antisemitism across the Western world continued to increase during 2019, but it is also important to note achievements in the battle against this hatred. Many of these can serve as examples to follow in similar fights elsewhere.Jonathan S. Tobin: The ugly truth about campus anti-Semitism and BDS
Systematically exposing and fighting antisemitism is the foundation for this battle. The successes in this combat should be analyzed by category. A few of the main ones are listed below. A precondition of systematically exposing and fighting antisemitism is how to define it. In 2016, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) – of which more than 30 Western countries are members – accepted a definition of antisemitism. This text also includes examples of incitement and discrimination against Israel. Although the IHRA definition is not a legal document, it has created a frequently used framework for identifying antisemitic behavior.
Currently, 21 countries have adopted the IHRA definition for internal use. In 2019, Canada, Greece, the Czech Republic, Moldova and Portugal accepted the definition. In addition, many institutions in various countries have also accepted the IHRA definition for their use. For instance, more than 150 institutions in the United Kingdom have done so.
Obtaining data on antisemitic incidents and information on attitudes of Jew-hatred and perceptions of it by Jews are a second category of importance in the combat against antisemitism. A number of new studies were published this year. One important report was a survey by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) conducted in 18 countries. It found, for instance, that Muslim acceptance of antisemitic stereotypes was almost three times as high as that of the national populations in six EU countries.
The first is his unpacking of the myth that BDS is rooted in nonviolence and an effort to work for peace. Those who rationalize BDS claim that its founder, Palestinian activist Omar Barghouti, had as his goal an effort to work for coexistence, rather than violence between Israelis and Palestinians. This is false. Barghouti’s goal has always been the elimination of the one Jewish state on the planet. Its purpose has never been merely to pressure Israel to withdraw from the West Bank or to change Israeli government policies. Despite the claims that BDS activists are working for human rights, those who support BDS are working for a goal that is a formula for endless war, not peace.
Second, the report also details the troubling overlap between Palestinian groups funding and supporting BDS, and those who also promote terrorism. It’s not just that American pro-BDS activists engage in anti-Semitic invective and work for an anti-Semitic goal, they have also aligned themselves with Palestinian groups that are both violent and themselves engaged in the spreading of Jew-hatred.
The third and equally sobering fact that Greendorfer brings to light is the way the BDS movement has found strange bedfellows on the far Right of the political spectrum. This is hardly surprising since left- and right-wing extremists have historically always found common ground when it comes to anti-Semitism. However, it’s more than a bit ironic in this case since those who disparage Trump’s efforts to counter campus anti-Semitism often claim that attention paid to left-wing anti-Semitism is a distraction from the threat coming from the far Rght. Yet the BDS movement is receiving strong support from right-wing hatemongers like David Duke, racist media sites such as Stormfront, and neo-Nazi groups in the United States and in Europe.
Far from representing resistance to right-wing hate, the BDS movement is merely providing it with talking points and bolstering its efforts to delegitimize Jews and Israel.
The New Anti-Semites should make for sobering reading for Jews and other Americans who may dislike Trump, yet still want to support the fight against anti-Semitism. There is no way to defend or rationalize the BDS movement without being compromised by its anti-Semitic purpose, discourse, and conduct. Those who oppose Trump’s order may claim they are defending the moral high ground and free speech, but they are actually rolling in the mud with the worst sort of anti-Semites and supporters of terrorism.