Since the beginning of 2014, there has been an unprecedented increase of 400 percent
in the number of antisemitic incidents in Europe and around the world, as compared with 2013.
The data showing the increase was collected as part of a special project by Israel’s NRG news website and the The Coordination Forum for Countering Antisemitism. The report, coming almost seventy years after the Holocaust and the end of World War II, shows that there is real concern for the future of world Jewry, and particularly European Jewry.
The report also said that in 2014, the lines and boundaries between anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist rhetoric and actions and antisemitism became increasingly blurred.
According to the report, the intensity and nature of the antisemitic wave that erupted in Europe last summer during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza indicated cooperation between networks of extreme leftists and immigrants from Arab countries that hold extreme Islamist views. In the United States, the main growth came in the form of anti-Israel activity on college campuses across the country which had antisemitic overtones.
Moreover, according to the report, the internet, social media and mobile applications have become favorite and effective tools to spread antisemitic messages and propaganda, like the infamous antisemitic screed “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”
The report’s conclusions dovetailed with the results of a survey conducted last year by the Anti-Defamation League across 102 countries and including more than 50,000 people, which found that one in four people holds antisemitic views or beliefs.
According to the ADL’s survey, the most commonly held antisemitic belief is that Jews are more loyal to Israel than to their countries of residence, a belief held by 41% of respondents. An additional 35% think Jews have too much power and influence in the business world.
The highest rates of antisemitism in the world were found in the Arab world, where 93% of the residents of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank had negative views of Jews. Similarly high results were found among respondents from Iraq, Yemen and Algeria.
When it came to Holocaust denial, the ADL’s survey revealed that two-thirds of the world’s population did not know about the Holocaust or flat out denied its occurrence. In Western Europe, however, only 6% of respondents denied the Holocaust or were not aware that it occurred.
