Antisemitism in London surges by 93% in 12 months as UK Business Secretary issues stark warning

Figures released by the Metropolitan Police Service showed that antisemitic incidents in London surged by 93% over the past 12 months. The figures are also broken down by borough.

Meanwhile Greater Manchester Police continues to hunt three suspects after four Jewish boys were brutally attacked at a tram station by three men. A 17-year-old boy was knocked unconscious in the attack and remains in hospital with suspected bleeding to the brain. He came out of a coma this morning. The three other boys with him, aged 18, 18 and 20, were also injured.

The new figures came as Business Secretary Sajid Javid MP delivered a speech entitled: “It can happen again: the danger of rising antisemitism”. Javid used the speech to issue a stark warning over social indifference and complacency as levels of antisemitism continue to climb year after year, saying:

“But we also need to tackle the root of the problem, the often violent extremism that is on the rise around the world. And I’m not just talking about the butchers of ISIL or Al Qaeda, thousands of miles away in foreign lands. There’s plenty of intolerance much closer to home, intolerance that is disproportionately directed at the Jewish community. Some is explicit. The hate preachers, the extremist mosques, the far-Right groups.
Some is more oblique. A search on Google produces more than half a million hits for ‘Holocaust Hoax’. Thousands more pages will tell you that a greedy Otto Frank forged his daughter’s diary in a cunning scheme to make money. Then there are the ‘dinner party anti-Semites’. Respectable, middle-class people who would recoil in horror if you accused them of racism, but are quite happy to repeat modern takes on age-old myths and slanders about Jews. Who can’t condemn the murder of Jewish children in France without a caveat criticising the Israeli government. Who demand that a Jewish American artist sign a declaration of support for Palestine if he wants to perform at a festival in Spain.

I can’t remember the last time I spoke to a Jewish friend or colleague who hasn’t, at some point, found themselves sitting awkwardly at a dinner party while a fellow guest railed against the international ‘Kosher Conspiracy’.

Together, these attitudes create a climate in which anti-Semitism is seen as ‘less bad’ than other forms of discrimination. And in that climate, the most violent extremism can take root and it can thrive. It happened, therefore it can happen again.”

Separately, figures released by football anti-racism campaign Kick It Out revealed that most of the racist incidents they recorded were antisemitic in nature. According to the figures, antisemitic incidents in football rose 14% over the past year.