Anti-Semitic incidents in Britain hit a record high earlier this year as Israeli forces invaded the Gaza Strip, a U.K. Jewish group said Friday.
The Community Security Trust said the number of anti-Semitic attacks, threats, abuse and acts of vandalism rose to 609 in the first half of 2009 _ more than double the number at the same time the year before.
The trust, which has been tracking anti-Semitism in Britain since 1984, said the figure was the highest it has ever recorded and broke a previous record set in 2006, the year Israel invaded Lebanon. It attributed the surge in anti-Semitic incidents to anger over the conflict in Gaza.
Israeli forces invaded the densely populated coastal strip in late 2008 in an effort to stem rocket attacks from the Hamas-ruled territory. The three-week assault claimed hundreds of Palestinian lives and fanned protests worldwide.
The trust said nearly 400 incidents were recorded in January and February of 2009 _ including hate mail, anti-Jewish graffiti and attacks on synagogues.
Trust spokesman Mark Gardner said the Gaza conflict "continued the pattern whereby Middle East events trigger outbreaks of anti-Semitism against British Jews."
"Furthermore, the phenomenon appears to be worsening each time it occurs," he said in a message posted to the trust's Web site. "It is vital, however, to maintain a sense of proportion. Anti-Semitism does not define the British Jewish experience and Britain is a good place to be Jewish."
The trust gathers incident reports from victims, volunteer security officers at synagogues and Jewish community groups and third-party witnesses.
Its figures are separate from those kept by British police, which have also shown a rise in anti-Semitic attacks. Police statistics show a six-fold rise in the number of anti-Semitic incidents in London from Dec. 27 to March 2, compared with the same period last year. However, police have cautioned that some of that increase comes from a change in the way the statistics are now kept.
Other European countries also reported a rise in anti-Semitic incidents in the wake of the Gaza conflict, according to the Vienna-based European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights.
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On the Net:
http://www.thecst.org.uk/
