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[igotthisguitar]

"New" Anti-Semitism On Rise Globally (State Department)
By Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Anti-Semitism, including government-promoted hatred toward Jews and prejudice couched as criticism of Israel, has risen globally over the last decade, the State Department said on Thursday.



"Today, more than 60 years after the Holocaust, anti-Semitism is not just a fact of history, it is a current event," it said in a report to Congress.

U.S. embassies have noted an increase in attacks on Jewish people, property, institutions, and religious facilities in the last decade, the report said.

The report, titled "Contemporary Global Anti-Semitism," did not give comprehensive statistics, and said that in any case such statistics were skewed against Western democratic countries more likely to report the incidents. But it said other governments and institutions had documented similar trends.

For example, Tel Aviv University's Stephen Roth Institute listed 593 cases of major anti-Semitic incidents in 2006, the highest number since 2000, the report said. Of these, 277 were physical attacks on Jews; 105 synagogues were damaged. Over half the incidents took place in Western Europe.

One attack in 2006 took the life of a young French Jew, Ilan Halimi. The 23-year-old was found naked, handcuffed and covered with burns near railway tracks outside Paris in February 2006, and died of his injuries soon afterward.

While traditional anti-Jewish prejudice, a centuries-old phenomenon, persists, new forms have evolved, the report said.

"The distinguishing feature of the new anti-Semitism is criticism of Zionism or Israeli policy that -- whether intentionally or unintentionally -- has the effect of promoting prejudice against all Jews by demonizing Israel and Israelis and attributing Israel's perceived faults to its Jewish character," it said.

This was common throughout the Middle East and in Muslim communities in Europe, but was even encouraged by some activity at the United Nations, the report said.

Various U.N. agencies are asked each year to investigate what are often "sensationalized reports of alleged atrocities and other violations of human rights by Israel," the document said.

Such unremitting criticism of Israel "intentionally or not encourages anti-Semitism." This hostility can translate into physical violence, as in the surge in anti-Semitic incidents worldwide during the 2006 war between Israel and the Shi'ite Muslim group Hezbollah, the report said.

The report, released by the State Department's Office of the Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism, follows up on a 2005 document. It was dedicated to the memory of U.S. Rep. Tom Lantos of California, the only Holocaust survivor to have served in Congress. The Hungarian-born Lantos died last month of cancer at age 80.

The State Department document also listed examples of some governments and leaders it said "fan the flames of anti-Semitic hatred within their own societies and even beyond their borders."

It cited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has questioned whether the murder of millions of Jews by the Nazis took place, and Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez, who the State Department said had "publicly demonized" Israel.

Syria's government "routinely demonizes Jews through public statements and official propaganda," while in Belarus, "state enterprises freely produce and distribute anti-Semitic material."

State-sponsored media were vehicles for anti-Semitic discourse in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. There were also blatantly anti-Semitic private media venues such as the conservative Catholic radio station Radio Maryja in Poland, the report said.

Traditional anti-Semitism remained a problem in Central and Eastern European countries such as Russia and Ukraine. Anti-Semitic violence was a significant concern in France, Germany and the United Kingdom, and the report noted increases in anti-Semitic incidents in Argentina, Australia, Canada, and South Africa.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/080314/world/international_usa_antisemitism_dc

[ernie]

the following are NOT examples of anti-semitism:

1. criticism of israel (israel is a place, not a person)
2. criticism of israelis (i.e. not ALL semitic people)
3. criticism of zionism (a philosophy, not a person)

while i agree that true anti-semitism (i.e. discrimination against all semitic PEOPLE because of their race) remains a problem in the world today, not understanding what anti-semitism means is a problem as well...

also, i don't think criticizing someone means you are 'anti-them' - i criticize george w bush but i certainly don't HATE him! so i will (reluctantly) add:

4. criticism of (i.e. NOT hated of) all semitic peoples

[Safron]

I've always heard that there is a rise in anti-Semitic behavior before wars. I think this is a sign of thing to come.

[igotthisguitar]

QUESTION:

Are all semites "jews"?

Are all jews "semites"?

[ernie]

i'm not sure but does 'jewish' refer to religion and 'semitic' to race?

[Ya-ta Boy]

While the criticism part can be discussed for its accuracy/inaccuracy, the key sentence in the report was this one: U.S. embassies have noted an increase in attacks on Jewish people, property, institutions, and religious facilities in the last decade...

That is the disturbing part.

[Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee]

[nicholas_chiasson]

Ethopians are also semites. the label is used for a branch of afro-asiatic non-indo european languages, and their speakers.

[Ya-ta Boy]

It also has a specialized narrow sense of bigotry. And aren't Ethiopians Nilotics?

[Adventurer]

[igotthisguitar]

[Adventurer]

Igotthisguitar, you are misrepresenting European Jewish history. The Khazars were not Muslims as a group. Some were Christians, some were Muslims, some were Shamanistic, but in the end, many became Jews. They were allegedly Turkic. You must remember there was a time when Turkic tribes had a religion that was non-Abrahamic. Also, stating that 90% of the Jews in Europe were Khazar is a stretch. We don't really know that. Many of the Jews in Western Europe lived there since Roman times and were Semites and these Jews mixed with the Eastern European Jews. Also, many Jews from Persia and Greece fled and joined the Khazars and mixed with them, so you have a Turkic-Semitic hybrid, truth be told, when referring to European Jews, but you are using an anti-Jewish slant to misrepresent European Jews instead of really putting the facts out there. It is not objective at all. I can understand you having problems with Israel, but it doesn't mean you should misrepresent history when it comes to the Jewish people. Are European Jews pure Semites?
No, they are not, but who is?

[igotthisguitar]

[arjuna]

Arjuna endorses no religion and no race.
But as far as they go, these rabbis are correctly aligned.

Rabbis against the existence of Israel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1y6rh79OKVQ

Jewish Rabbis united with Muslims against Zionist racism!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuSlsiW9hT8

[Ya-ta Boy]