A group tracking antisemitism in Germany said Tuesday that it documented a drastic increase of antisemitic incidents in the country in the month after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7.
The RIAS group said it recorded 994 incidents, which is an average of 29 incidents per day and an increase of 320% compared to the same time period in 2022. The group looked at the time period from Oct. 7 to Nov. 9.
Among the 994 antisemitic incidents, there were three cases of extreme violence, 29 attacks, targeted damage to 72 properties, 32 threats, four mass mailings and 854 cases of offensive behavior.
Many Jews in Germany experienced antisemitic incidents in their everyday lives and even those who weren’t exposed to any antisemitic incidents reported feelings of insecurity and fear, said RIAS, which is an abbreviation in German for the Department for Research and Information on Antisemitism.
I’d argue that you’re missing the point: reflexively dismissing claims of antisemitism gives cover to Nazis to commit acts of antisemitism.
This article isn’t even about Israel. Only 21% of the incidents are even related to anti-Israel activism. Is there some valid criticism here I’m missing? Is blaming some random Jewish student for the actions of the Israeli government what passes for valid criticism these days? Even if you dismiss those incidents (and you shouldn’t), this is overwhelmingly about antisemitism. Chiming in to suggest that whatever occurred was either justified or imaginary isn’t helpful.
I’d also argue that you’re missing an opportunity to say that solidarity with Jews against antisemitism and solidarity with Palestinians aren’t mutually exclusive. We can do both.
I’m sorry, but while you seem to be an intelligent and thoughtful enough person, your arguments seem to be in bad faith.
The article is specifically framed as since the Hamas / Isreal conflict began. That’s specifically Isreal related. It’s in the title.
I never claimed, nor would I ever, that attacks on innocents because of their religion/ethnic background, is valid criticism. Nor did I chime in to justify it. You’re intelligent enough to understand my prior point, but you intentionally misrepresent it.
And my comment clearly made a distinction between jews and Isreal as a state. To me, that’s at least implying that I show solidarity with the Jewish people, because I do not lump the actions of the Isreal government, which I condemn, to be representative of the Jewish people. That was more subtext, so I’ll give you that one.
But, this all goes to reinforce my earlier assertion that “the boy who cried wolf” is in full effect here. This is all very exhausting to dive into the minutiae of stances in every comment thread related to Isreal or Palestine. And I can forgive anyone who glances at a topic related to either with antisemitism as the topic to approach it with skepticism.
I just want to point out there are multiple accounts replying in this chain. It’s easy to get confused, and people aren’t necessarily arguing in bad faith. Good points have been brought up by multiple accounts, and this is an understandably emotional/controversial topic.
I think there’s some confusion from the chain of replies and some from me not writing clearly enough.
I responded to someone and you responded in defense of OP. My response was partially explaining/justifying my initial comment. My statement about people “chiming in” was about people dismissing reports of antisemitism in every discussion regardless of context. I also probably should have said that “we” or “they” are missing an opportunity instead of “you.” Just to be clear: I don’t think that you make no distinction between Jewish people and the Israeli government. I’m not accusing you of racism or antisemitism. Sorry!