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Antisemitic Hate Incidents in US Soar 140 Percent, ADL Reports in Shocking Audit
A pro-Hamas demonstrator takes the street during a massive rally in Los Angeles on Saturday, Oct. 14, 2023. Photo: Jacob Lee Green/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Antisemitism in the US surged to catastrophic and unprecedented levels in 2023, rising a harrowing 140 percent, according to the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) annual audit of hate incidents that targeted the Jewish community.
The ADL recorded 8,873 incidents last year — an average of 24 every day — across the US, amounting to a year unlike any experienced by the American Jewish community since the organization began tracking such data on antisemitic outrages in 1979. Incidents of harassment, vandalism, and assault all spiked by double and triple digits, with California, New York, New Jersey, Florida, and Massachusetts accounting for nearly half, or 48 percent, of all that occurred.
“Antisemitism is nothing short of a national emergency, a five-alarm fire that is still raging across the country and in our local communities and campuses,” ADL chief executive officer Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement on Tuesday. “Jewish Americans are being targeted for who they are at school, at work, on the street, in Jewish institutions, and even at home.”
He added, “This crisis demands immediate action from every sector of society and every state in the union. We need every governor to develop and put in place a comprehensive strategy to fight antisemitism, just as the administration has at the national level.”
Breaking down the numbers, the ADL found a dramatic rise in the targeting of Jewish institutions such as synagogues, community centers, and schools, with 1,987 such incidents taking place in 2023 — a 237 percent increase which included over a thousand fake bomb threats, also known as “swattings.”
Other figures were equally staggering, with assaults and vandalism rising by 45 percent and 69 percent, respectively, while harassment soaring by 184 percent. Antisemitic incidents on college campuses, which The Algemeiner has continued to cover extensively, rose 321 percent, disrupting the studies of Jewish students and leaving them uncertain about the fate of the American Jewish community.
“The massive volume of incidents we documented in 2023 took many forms, including bomb threats and swatting campaigns, all aimed at terrorizing the community by disrupting services and activities and synagogues and other Jewish institutions across the country,” said Oren Segal, vice president of ADL’s Center on Extremism. “Our tracking of a swatting network enabled ADL to offer crucial intelligence to law enforcement, ensuring accountability for perpetrators while also preemptively alerting targeted communities and mitigating potential harm.”
The last quarter of the year proved the most injurious, the ADL noted, explaining that after Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, 5,204 antisemitic incidents rocked the Jewish community. Across the political spectrum, from white supremacists on the far right to ostensibly left-wing Ivy League universities, antisemites emerged to express solidarity with the Hamas terror group, spread antisemitic tropes and blood libels, and openly call for a genocide of the Jewish people in Israel.
Such incidents occurred throughout the US. In California, an elderly Jewish man was killed when an anti-Zionist professor employed by a local community college allegedly pushed him during an argument. At Cornell University in upstate New York, a student threatened to rape and kill Jewish female students and “shoot up” the campus’ Hillel center. In a suburb outside Cleveland, Ohio, a group of vandals desecrated graves at a Jewish cemetery. At Harvard University, America’s oldest and, arguably, most prestigious university, a faculty group shared an antisemitic cartoon depicting a left-hand tattooed with a Star of David dangling two men of color from a noose.
Other outrages were expressive but subtle. In November, large numbers of people traveling to attend the “March for Israel” in Washington, DC either could not show up or were forced to scramble last second and final alternative transportation because numerous bus drivers allegedly refused to transport them there. Hundreds of American Jews from Detroit, for example, were left stranded at Dulles Airport, according to multiple reports. At Yale University, a campus newspaper came under fire for removing from a student’s column what it called “unsubstantiated claims” of Hamas raping Israeli women, marking a rare occasion in which the publication openly doubted reports of sexual assault.
“Despite these unprecedented challenges, American Jews must not give in to fear,” Greenblatt added in Tuesday’s statement. “Even while we fight the scourge of antisemitism, we should be proud of our Jewish identities and confident of our place in American society. It may not feel so right now, but we have many more allies than enemies. And we call on all people of good will to stand with their Jewish friends and neighbors. We need your support and your allyship.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Antisemitic Hate Incidents in US Soar 140 Percent, ADL Reports in Shocking Audit first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Netanyahu Says Israel Will Make Own Decisions on Self-Defense After Meeting With Allies to Discuss Iran Attack
Israel’s military displays what they say is an Iranian ballistic missile which they retrieved from the Dead Sea after Iran launched drones and missiles towards Israel, at Julis military base, in southern Israel, April 16, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Wednesday that Israel will make its own decisions about how to defend itself after meeting with the British and German foreign ministers to discuss how the Jewish state plans to respond to a recent direct attack by Iran.
“During the meetings, Prime Minister Netanyahu insisted that Israel preserve the right to self-defense,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement. “The Prime Minister thanked the Foreign Minister of Great Britain and the Foreign Minister of Germany for their unequivocal support and for the countries’ standing in an unprecedented defense against Iran’s attack on the State of Israel.”
Netanyahu echoed that message in a subsequent meeting of the Israeli cabinet. The premier said that while he appreciated the “suggestions and advice” from David Cameron of the UK and Annalena Baerbock of Germany, Israel would “make our own decisions, and the State of Israel will do everything necessary to defend itself.”
The top British and German diplomats traveled to Israel to meet with Netanyahu as part of a coordinated effort to prevent confrontation between Iran and Israel from escalating into a regional conflict.
Iran launched an unprecedented direct attack against the Israeli homeland on Saturday. Israel, with the help of allies including the US and Britain, repelled the massive Iranian drone and missile salvo.
World leaders, especially in the US and Europe, have been urging Israel to show restraint in its response and to de-escalate tensions. The US, European Union, and G7 group of industrialized nations all announced plans to consider additional sanctions on Iran.
From his meetings, however, Cameron said it was “clear that Israel has decided to respond to the Iranian attack. We hope that Jerusalem will act in a way that will cause as little escalation as possible.”
Baerbock argued that escalation “would serve no one, not Israel’s security, not the many dozens of hostages still in the hands of Hamas, not the suffering population of Gaza, not the many people in Iran who are themselves suffering under the regime.” She also told Israel officials that “we won’t tell you how to act, but think about the future of the region. Act wisely.”
Leading up to Saturday’s attack, Iranian officials had promised revenge for an airstrike on Iran’s consulate in Damascus, Syria last week that Iran has attributed to Israel. The strike killed seven members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), a US-designated terrorist organization, including two senior commanders. One of the commanders allegedly helped plan the Hamas terrorist group’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement in the incident.
The escalating tensions between Iran and Israel risk spreading an already explosive situation in the Middle East amid the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Iran has been Hamas’ chief international sponsor, providing the Palestinian terror group with weapons, funding, and training.
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UN Security Council to Vote Friday on Palestinian UN Membership
PA President Mahmoud Abbas gestures during a meeting in Ramallah, in the West Bank August 18, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman/Pool
The United Nations Security Council is scheduled to vote Friday on a Palestinian request for full UN membership, said diplomats, a move that Israel’s ally the United States is expected to block because it would effectively recognize a Palestinian state.
The 15-member council is due to vote at 3 pm (1900 GMT) Friday on a draft resolution that recommends to the 193-member UN General Assembly that “the State of Palestine be admitted to membership of the United Nations,” diplomats said.
A council resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the US, Britain, France, Russia, or China to pass. Diplomats say the measure could have the support of up to 13 council members, which would force the US to use its veto.
Council member Algeria, which put forward the draft resolution, had requested a vote for Thursday afternoon to coincide with a Security Council meeting on the Middle East, which is due to be attended by several ministers.
The United States has said that establishing an independent Palestinian state should happen through direct negotiations between the parties and not at the United Nations.
“We do not see that doing a resolution in the Security Council will necessarily get us to a place where we can find … a two-state solution moving forward,” US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said on Wednesday.
The Palestinians are currently a non-member observer state, a recognition that was granted by the 193-member UN General Assembly in 2012. But an application to become a full UN member needs to be approved by the Security Council and then at least two-thirds of the General Assembly.
The Palestinian push for full UN membership comes six months into a war between Israel and Palestinian Hamas terrorists in Gaza, and as Israel is expanding settlements in the West Bank.
Israel‘s UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan said earlier this month that “whoever supports recognizing a Palestinian state at such a time not only gives a prize to terror, but also backs unilateral steps which are contradictory to the agreed-upon principle of direct negotiations.”
A Security Council committee on the admission of new members — made up of all 15 council members — met twice last week to discuss the Palestinian application and agreed to a report on the issue on Tuesday.
“Regarding the issue of whether the application met all the criteria for membership … the committee was unable to make a unanimous recommendation to the Security Council,” the report said, adding that “differing views were expressed.”
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Hezbollah Attack Hits Community Center in Northern Israel, Injuring 18
An Israeli soldier looks on at a scene, after it was reported that people were injured, amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, near Arab al-Aramashe in northern Israel, April 17, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Avi Ohayon
Fourteen Israeli soldiers and four civilians were injured on Wednesday when Hezbollah fired drones and missiles at northern Israel, escalating tensions along the border between the Jewish state and the Iran-backed terrorist group in Lebanon.
Some of the military projectiles hit a community center in the Bedouin town of Arab al-Aramshe near the Israel-Lebanon border. Soldiers may have been using the building as a gathering space.
The victims were taken to Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya. According to the hospital, one was listed in critical condition and four others were seriously wounded, while the remaining victims were moderately and lightly hurt. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that all five victims who were in critical and serious condition were soldiers.
Hezbollah claimed responsibility for firing anti-tank guided missiles and explosive-laden drones from Lebanese territory toward northern Israel, saying the attack was in response to the killing of three of its members, including two commanders, in Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon a day earlier.
Video posted to social media showed what are called “suicide drones,” which go directly toward the target and blow up as opposed to dropping a payload — hitting the community center. A nearby car was also struck.
Israel said it responded by targeting the launch sites of the attack.
Tensions have been escalating between Israel and Hezbollah for months, fueling concerns that the war in Gaza — the Palestinian enclave ruled by Hamas, another Iran-backed terror group, to Israel’s south — could escalate into a regional conflict.
Tens of thousands of Israelis have been forced to flee their homes in northern Israel due to constant Hezbollah attacks.
Israeli leaders have said that while they do not seek war with Hezbollah and hope for a diplomatic resolution to the escalating tensions, they are prepared to use significant military force to combat the terror group and allow evacuees to return to their homes in northern Israel.
The post Hezbollah Attack Hits Community Center in Northern Israel, Injuring 18 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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