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.
Im just way more skeptical everytime i see the word “antisemitic” with how much its being used for criticism of Israel or support of palestinians.
Jewish people are attacked on the streets, synagogues are being attacked and smeared with swastikas etc.
You can condemn that and still think Israel is making a mistake in Gaza.
This is absolutely true. Antisemitism is on the rise in many places. At the same time some organizations (like the ADL) mark everything anti zionist as antisemitist. This muddies the water and takes away from the actual stuff some people have to go through with antisemitism. Their stories deserve to be heard and not getting drowned out by claims that have nothing to do with antisemitism.
I don’t think the OP you’re replying to means to say that antisemitism isn’t on the rise, it’s just hard to know how much is actual antisemitism and how much is marked as antisemitism when it’s just criticism of Zionism and/or the state of Israel.
The ADL has been calling the demonstrations by Jewish Voice for Peace anti-Semitic. I don’t doubt there’s a rise of incidents, but it’s always a good idea to look at who’s providing the numbers and what they consider an incident.
how do u differentiate antizionism and antisemitism? jews have the right to live buuuut… not in Israel? please enlighten me
Zionism isnt “jews have the right to live”. Its “jews have a divine right to land where people were already living so they kill and exile them”
The “kill and exile” part is not necessarily part of it (see e.g. Labour Zionism, Rabin was one of them) but granted the right-wing nutjobs have pretty much appropriated that label outside of Israel itself.
Oh speaking about divine right: There’s also religious Antizionism, those people equate anything Zionist to trying to force the prophecy of the third temple and therefore as heretical.
oh I’ve seen a lot about labor zionism learning about the history of zionism in general. The kibbutzim, the jewish land funds, the buying up of land from colonial land owners and eviction of Palestinians, long before Israeli statehood. Look at the occupation in the West Bank for what Labor Zionism looks like. And what the kibbutzim at the Gaza border are waiting to do to Gaza.
Going in and helping in all kinds of humanitarian ways? At least that’s what they did before Hamas slaughtered them all, it’s a very lefty region.
Imagine Rabin not getting assassinated and the Oslo accords going into force. That’s what Labor Zionism could’ve looked like.
And don’t get me wrong I won’t defend everything every Labour Zionist has ever done, either. My position is actually quite simple: Fascists on both sides are fucking it up for everyone. And no matter your gripes with any particular Labour Zionist thing, fascists they are fucking not.
do you think the humanitarian situation in Gaza was good? International Humanitarian organizations were pleading with Israel to let them do humanitarian work in the open air prison that is Gaza. I think Israel has been lying to you about how they’ve been handling Gaza, it has not been humanitarian in any way.
Was Rabin the one assassinated by a Zionist who was so close to making a good treaty? If so, we need more of those.
By a religious Zionist, yes. And guess who back then variously called for, didn’t push back against calls for, etc, his assassination: The current prime minister as well as the minister of national security.
As to more of those: You know the type of Jews living close to the west bank going in helping Palestinians with the olive harvest so that they’re less likely to get shot at by settlers (because hurting Israelis would get them in trouble)? Many of those types also lived near the Gaza border, helping as they can, it’s a region full of old hippie kibbutzim. And then Hamas came. Which gives yet another spin on why the Israeli government isn’t terribly worried about the hostages: Most of them are leftists.
Generally speaking the average Israeli is left of centre, in its core it’s a socdem country. After the failure of the Oslo accords a lot, a lot a lot of them bought the right-wing promise for safety, the “antagonise until they give up” path, but otherwise stayed centre left. As I think the Haaretz put it: “Yigal Amir [the assassin] has won”. But then with the right wing now having proved that they can’t provide safety their days in government are absolutely numbered, Netanyahu is not popular in Israel right now. They won’t go for naive hippie kumba-ya, either, but a Realpolitik “keep the checkpoints, get rid of the settlements, stop antagonising and put the fucking Kahanites in padded cells” policy is currently definitely a vote-winner.
Considering the “settler” violence in the West Bank (backed by the Israeli military), it sure seems like they’ve appropriated it inside of Israel itself, too.
They’ve cornered state power by having found a willing stirrup holder (Netanyahu) whose only interest nowadays is staying in power to avoid going to prison for corruption and therefore able to form a coalition with the right-wingest of right-wing fascist fucks (people like Ben Gvir, who didn’t get drafted as the IDF ruled him to be too extremist to serve). But label-wise, no, they don’t equate Zionism with Kahanites and general ilk. Roughly like other countries don’t equate patriotism with fascism.
Some Israelis - not all. The current government is absolutely zionist and there is a decent portion of the population that is aligned with that… but, to my knowledge, the majority of Israelis don’t demand a one state solution. And it’s absolutely true that the majority of jews don’t advocate for that.
They were already living there as well. You do realise that, yes?
from the beginnings of Zionism? No, no they largely came from Europe, when Britain colonized the area after World War I. It’s pretty fucked up, Britain promised Arab independence in Palestine if they revolted against the Ottoman colonizers during WWI, but then issued the Balfour Declaration promising a Jewish state there instead.
That’s such an incredibly reduced “summary” that you can as well call it false. But in your eyes good and evil are strictly defined. Must be nice (for you). Sadly, that’s neither helpful, nor good, nor a solution.
Whats false is the idea that they were already there. Its kind of a weird thing to believe, i feel like you’d be pretty well aware of the famous Jewish diaspora. Theres a reason over 700 thousand palestinians were killed or exiled and it wasnt to make room for people already living there.
If that gives them a right to exile Palestinians it gives hamas the right to fight back because so were Palestinians.
Than if Palestinians now want to exile Israelis that also gives them the right to fight back.
Yea, so let’s not kick out anyone and learn to coexist.
I can also define words however I want and change facts to make my bias sound not crazy
feel free to bring in any definitions for zionism you can find that just call it a right to live. Heck, look up why it’s called Zionism. It’s about Jews establishing a nation around Jerusalem. Palestinians were and still are living there already during this movement. hundreds of thousands have been killed or exiled.
so there were 0 jews in palestine before that?
No, “palestinian” doesn’t mean muslim… there were plenty of palestinian jews.
The difference is that palestinian jews were allowed to integrate into Israel while palestinian muslims were not.
I do still want you to go find definitions for zionism. And look into the history while you’re at it. There was no notable amount of jews in Palestine at the time, it was a long established largely islamic arabic people. Jews were famously a diaspora, which means not living in that area. Zionists largely moved in from Europe.
Jews are people, Israel is a colonial entity. The abolishment of Israel as a state does not mean the death of its inhabitants.
So you people actually want Israel to be gone? Where shall all the Israelis go, in your opinion? And why do the Israelis have less of a right for a country than the Palestinians?
Well first generation settlers should definitely move back to their homes, wherever they have citizenship and it’s feasible (not refugees etc).
But as for the rest I never said expel everyone in Israeli occupied territory. I said abolish the state. They can still live there, but not under a genocidal ethnostate in which you have higher status for being a member of one faith.
Land will have to be redistributed, and reparations paid as well.
Who is supposed to pay those reparations if Israel doesn’t exist anymore and there are no Israelis?
How are the Jews supposed to protect themselves from the people who want them out of the country or dead (which is the reason why Israel came into existence in the first place)?
What kind of state do you think Palestine would be? Or is it okay to have a Muslim ethnostate but not a Jewish one?
Never said all the people currently there had to leave
Maybe when they’re not stealing Palestinian land and genociding Palestinians, there wouldn’t be so much animosity.
One representative of those that live there, a mix.
I am curious, how would genocide of non-muslims and LGBT individuals along with religious oppression of women be prevented in your suggested scenario where the state of Israel is abolished?
It is possibly the most diverse nation on planet Earth, and a beacon of personal liberties, stability and democracy when compared to other MENA countries (if you disagree here, please do give a counter-example!)
so threw all jews out of Israel got it.
You are the problem highlighted by this thread.
I think brainwashed circlejerkimg is the problem highlighted in this thread, but to each his own
I think they mean they just share the land with the Palestinians, the people who they threw out when they got there.
If the US can manage it with African Americans or Native Americans, or South Africa can manage it post apartheid, or the UK can manage it after the Troubles, I think it’s possible. It won’t be easy, but it’s worth the work to stop the violence.
People are really uneducated about how Israel came into existence. This is a country from a group of people who already lived there. It wasn’t external conquerers who came to the land.
It was external settlers generally, especially starting around the Law of Return being a thing. Wikipedia and other sources says about 50% come from Europe and Russia, and the other generally from the surrounding Middle Eastern countries once Israel became a thing and started calling people towards it. Even today, lots of people immigrate there from Europe or the US.
Are you talking from thousands of years ago? That’s a strange justification to kick people out of their houses in the last 70 years, but I am down to read other sources if you’ve got them. I am admittedly still pretty new to this whole subject.
u sound reasonable enough, may I ask what in your honest opinion Israel should do instesd in gaza?
It’s really damn complicated. There is so much history to this conflict. I honestly don’t know what Israel’s best move would be.
I just think there has to be a way to have less civilian casualties. People are suffering greatly in Gaza and it somehow needs to stop.
On the other hand I understand that the Israeli government has to react to the Hamas attacks. Hundreds of innocents were slaughtered and Israel is surrounded by enemies. Constantly in danger. They need to make sure nobody else dares to attack.
In a perfect world they would (or rather: could) treat Gaza like the US treated Germany after WWII. But I’m afraid even with massive humanitarian and economic help there would still be terror and violence from Hamas. This conflict is too old and too dogmatic to be solved in a matter of weeks or even years.
Look around in this thread - even people who don’t have any personal stakes in the conflict have such radical options about it. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to be a Palestinian or Israeli who has lost family members to this.
the most honest and down to earth answer I’ve seen tbh.
I think most people in this and every other thread on the conflict have no stakes in it, and not enough knowledge on the issue and that’s the problem having such strong opinions on it.
Considering how well the temporary ceasefire is going, extending that to permanent would be a great first step. Then maybe begin real negotiations on how to move forward without Israel continuing to control the region and deciding who deserves to live and where. Sure dealing with terrorism is complicated but realizing that you’re increasing the recruitment rates with every bombing is pretty basic.
everything u said was already tried and failed.
Let’s try it again because it’s the right thing to do.
What is supposed to be done about the rockets shot at Israel and about the terrorist attacks?
Admonish and forgive. If you require a proportional response to every action you’ll inevitably exist in a state of perpetual war.
No, I don’t mean those in the past. But those happening right now.
Someone firebombed a synagogue.
I’m pretty sure that’s “genuine” antisemitism.
That’s definitely a genuine piece of antisemitism and people doing shit like that need to be arrested pronto… but I’m still uncertain like the OP. Though maybe the uncertainty is just being jaded by American organizations like the AJC.
how come ur so uncertain when it comes to jews suffering, but never doubt when it comes to other groups?
I’m quite sympathetic to any people suffering, but broad statistics like these are very easy to interpret in a wide array of manners and, as I mentioned, organizations like the AJC and similar have really eroded my trust.
who didn’t erode your unbiased trust then? BBC? aljazeera?
Your statement isn’t clear, and I don’t understand your question, but news outlets generally do have biases which makes it important to sample different sources. Al Jazeera is a very good source to balance against western ones but they’re also heavily biased… but the AJC I had mentioned earlier isn’t a news outlet, it’s just a proganda think tank that declared themselves the authority on what’s antisemitic in America… and they’re not representative of jewish-americans. This might be new england bias but most jews I’ve met are antizionist.
Probably has something to do with being called antisemitic because we think zionism is poison. I’ve never been called Islamophobic for calling out Islamic extremists, why am I antisemitic for calling out Jewish extremists?
no, u didn’t “called out” Jewish extremists, u literally said every zionist is poison
Read my words again. I didn’t say anything about people I said the belief is poison. If you continue to put words into people’s mouths you’re going to continue to view the world the way you want and not the way it is.
When the fuck did he (or anybody in this thread) say that? Why are you making shit up in order to ascribe invented bias to people?
No ones saying theres no genuine antisemitism going on. Even in the 854 incidents of “offensive behavior” im sure is plenty of nazi ideology eugenics wanting jews killed. But im skeptical of the totality of this number being antisemitism.
I’m not sure how important it is that every one of these 854 incidents be slurs versus miscounted anti-Zionist remarks, violent attacks and assaults on Jews minding their own business in grocery stores is alarming and deplorable. Jews in Germany aren’t, like, participating in Israeli politics. The IDF doesn’t poll Jews across the globe asking who they should shoot. Jews shouldn’t be concerned about hiding their Judaism to avoid being the target of hate.
The number of incidents is the whole thing being discussed, a notable rise in antisemitic incidents. Jews shouldnt face any hate crimes, but neither should any group that also regularly faces them.
So you basically don’t want the news or anyone to talk about it because it’s a non-issue?
Im talking about it
You are talking about how every group can be discriminated against and how you aren’t even sure if it really is antisemitism and how anti-semitism is often just misunderstood totally valid Israeli criticism.
Hmmm… Sounds to me like you don’t want to see the issue here.
no, valid israeli criticism is misunderstood to be anti-semitism
So at least 10% of this number are actual violence.
Gonna need a firm definition of “offensive behavior” to call this one though. The word “offensive” is already overloaded with all sorts of meaning.
That’s why I just disregarded it, focusing only on actual violence/destruction
Way too vague a term for me
Wtf Germany, no, we got America to worry about rn
Someone will say something similar any time antisemitism is discussed in any context. Whatever your intention, it has the effect of minimizing and normalizing antisemitism. The article is clear that only a fifth of incidents are even tangentially related to Israel at all. Attacking or threatening German Jews or destroying their property isn’t criticism of Israel. Marking Jewish homes with a Star of David or firebombing synagogues isn’t supporting Palestinians.
‘Criticism of Israel’ shouldn’t mean giving cover to Nazis.
While I agree that’s true, it’s also the case that Israel has both conflated itself with Jewish people globally to claim criticism of itself as antisemitism, as well as committed actual atrocities against non-Israeli Jewish people as a means of propaganda to promote the idea that nowhere is safe for Jewish people except Israel. This muddies the water and makes it difficult to accurately discuss and criticize actual antisemitism, to the benefit of Israel and to the detriment of Jewish people.
Even if that’s true, Jewish people are not collectively responsible for the actions of the Israeli government. In that case, you’d have an argument for not trusting the Israeli government. You can’t extend that to German Jews (in this case) or groups that monitor antisemitism in Germany without it also being an implicit argument about why you can’t trust Jews.
It’s more of a “boy who cried wolf” scenario. Many have become numb to accusations of antisemitism, because the term is frequently used incorrectly. Israel, along with Pro-Israel groups in Europe and the US (who may or may not themselves be Jewish) are frequently guilty of misusing the term. This article even states that 21% of counted incidents were anti-Israel, and a further 5% were anti-imperialist. Including those in the overall count is just incorrect unless they are also antisemitic in some other way, and because of that people are right to be skeptical of claims like in this headline. It’s not skepticism of Jewish people, it’s skepticism of people who seem motivated to call anti-Israeli acts antisemitic.
The solution here also isn’t to stop reporting on antisemitism. Doing so is important and should be recorded and reported correctly. The solution is that anti-Israeli acts cannot be included in those statistics, and people with a specific motivation to do so shouldn’t be the ones reporting.
Saying ‘the boy who cried wolf’ when Nazis and state actors are both active in this space just isn’t good enough. It isn’t that hard to say that criticism of Israel isn’t inherently antisemitic and say that antisemitism is vile. Reflexively dismissing claims of antisemitism gives cover to Nazis to commit antisemitic acts. People aren’t jumping into every discussion of antisemitism to say, “Golly, I sure hope they aren’t including valid criticism of Israel in these numbers!” They’re saying (or at least implying) that the actions described were either justifiable or ought to be dismissed.
It’s wrong to say that criticism of Israel is inherently antisemitic. It’s also wrong to say that it’s impossible to be antisemitic as long as you’re criticizing Israel. Every Nazi in the world is critical of Israel. They’d be overjoyed to attack Jews in the name of Palestine so long as they get to attack Jews. Protesters chanting “Death to Jews” is antisemitism, even if it occurs at a pro-Palestinian rally. To use an example from the article, harassing a Jewish student in Germany for the actions of the Israeli government isn’t valid criticism of Israel, regardless of the criticism; the idea that Jews are collectively responsible for those actions is racist. That’s not remotely the same thing as criticism or opposition to Israeli settlements in the West Bank, for example. They don’t deserve a blanket defense. Regarding the two examples of antisemitism above, we should be furious that racist dipshits are smuggling that bullshit into Palestinian solidarity movements, not offering them protection.
And whenever groups criticize israel or support palestinians someone will call it anti-semitism, minimizing and normalizing the genocide of palestinians.
whataboutwhataboutwhataboutwhataboutwhatabout
You don’t have to be a useful idiot for Nazis. That’s what you’re doing when you pop into a discussion about antisemitism to say that sometimes it’s valid or maybe not happening at all. Opposition to antisemitism has absolutely nothing to say about Palestinians at all.
You’re missing the point. The overuse of accusing others of antisemitism for simple, honest criticisms of Isreals actions and/or expressing support for the people they are committing genocide on, is why the word is being devalued.
You are correct that the article makes it clear that actual antisemitism is on the rise. But it doesn’t change the fact that “antisemitism” accusations are being overused, and that people are naturally suspicious at every claim.
The boy who cried wolf.
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!
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Propaganda is a double edged sword.
Right, what Susan Serandon said in a less than ideal way is equated with firebombing.
there is a difference between criticizing Israel and refusing to accept their right to exist
Me too. Having a blue octopus cuddly toy is antisemitic according to the crazies.