Pandemic, Israel-Gaza war fuelled spike in antisemitism: researchers

— The coronavrius pandemic and Israel’s overwhelming force during the Gaza war helped fuel a worldwide spike in antisemitism last year, Israeli researchers reported Wednesday.

The prominence of political extremism and the reach of social media also may have intensified the ancient phenomenon of scapegoating Jews in recent years, the report said.

Antisemitic events notably increased in 2021 in many countries with major Jewish populations, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Australia, the report said. The study compiled data from 22 countries.

French authorities, for instance, reported a 36% jump in antisemitic incidents involving physical violence, from

44 to 60. The United Kingdom saw a 78% jump in incidents of assault, from 97 to 173. The number of antisemitic incidents in Canada rose 54%, from 173 to 266, the report said.

Extremist and violent ideas have always been out there, but “you really had to make an effort decades ago to be exposed to them,” said Uriya Shavit, head of the Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry at Tel Aviv University, which produced the report. “Today, it’s so easy to access them.”

Released as much of the world emerges from a two-year pandemic, the report comes after a year of change in Israel. The relatively wealthy Mideast nation was among the world’s leaders in its vaccination program early last year. Then in May came its 11-day war against Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers, in which more than 260 Palestinians and 14 people in Israel were killed. Intense Israeli airstrikes caused heavy damage in Gaza and drew international concern and condemnation.

It all fed into a rise of antisemitism despite years of education, new laws and money directed at fighting anti-Jewish bigotry, the authors wrote.

“The struggle is failing,” said the report, which analyzes studies, news reports and other sources of information.

Released ahead of Israel’s Holocaust Memorial Day, the report says that several countries with large Jewish minorities have experienced sharp rises in anti-Jewish attacks since the pandemic began in 2020.

Other nations, such as Italy and Argentina, saw decreases in antisemitism during the pandemic, according to the report. Pandemic restrictions may have played a role as white supremacists and state sponsors like Iran and Belarus spread conspiracy theories to a waiting audience of millions of locked-down people “glued to their screens,” the report said.