Anti-Semitism
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What are the causes of anti-Semitism?
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- "The total number of incidents in Britain rose to 304 from 163 a year earlier when verbal assaults, damage to property and swastikas daubing were taken into account. The report has been relased as Israel focuses on anti-semitism to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
- Mr Sharansky attributed the British figures to "years of hostile reporting and commentary about Israel in the British press now spilling into the streets".
- His officials singled out the Guardian and the BBC, accusing them of "likening Israel to a Nazi state". The Independent was also criticised.
- David Weinberg, coordinator of the forum and an adviser to Mr Sharansky, said the report found that most acts of anti-semitism in Britain were carried out by Arabs or Muslims, but press coverage of Israel, and the actions of some politicians created a climate that encouraged such attacks.
- "Among west European countries there is a red flag flying over Britain and it's particularly disturbing because Britain is a country friendly to Israel and the British government takes anti-semitism seriously."
- He added: "Sharansky believes you have to look at the intellectual environment that has developed toward Israel in Britain and the effect that has on the broader public."
- He singled out the coverage of the Israeli army assault on Jenin refugee camp in 2002, in which 58 Palestinians were killed, mostly armed men.
- The attack was characterised as a "massacre" by some of the media. He said this was demonisation of Israel and anti-semitism.
- Tehila Nahalon, an adviser to Mr Sharansky on anti-semitism, said: "You can't brainwash people for four years that Israel is an illegitimate country and that Israelis are like the Nazis and that Israelis are monsters and expect that nothing will happen to Jews."
- The Board of Deputies of British Jews, which is publishing its own statistics next month, supported the report's conclusions. Its spokesman, Jason Pearlman, accused the BBC of "unrelenting anti-Israel bias".
- "The British media has portrayed Israel in a very unfair light," he said. "It's what's not said as much as what's said: the fact that most Palestinian attacks on Israel are not reported in the British press, and the fact that almost all the attacks on the Palestinians are reported."
- "Not only do I admire the Guardian, I also find it fun to read, which in a way is more of a compliment. But if there is one issue that has made me feel less loyal to my newspaper over the past year, it has been what I, as a non-Jew, perceive to be a quite striking bias against the state of Israel. Which, for all its faults, is the only country in that barren region that you or I, or any feminist, atheist, homosexual or trade unionist, could bear to live under.
- I find this hard to accept because, crucially, I don't swallow the modern liberal line that anti-Zionism is entirely different from anti-semitism;..."
