Here's a potential minefield of a topic for you.

Anti-semitism's been in the news a lot recently, what with all the fuss over a couple of election posters and now the Mayor of London accusing a Jewish journalist of being equivalent to a Nazi war criminal and a concentration camp guard.

Then, I noticed in the paper the other day a report that the number of anti-semitic attacks in the country rose again last year. An EU-wide reoprt from about a year ago had reported similar trends from across Europe. So what's the reason for the rise? Is it popular dissatisfaction with Israel spilling over into anti-semitism - a conclusion tentatively supported by the fact that the biggest wave of attacks immediately followed the assassination of Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi - or is there another reason? And what can we do to stop it?

*ponder*
Anti-semitism has always been a bit of a mystery to me, because being from a foreign country where the Jewish population is negligible, I can't tell if someone's Jewish unless they tell me they are. Or they're wearing a yarmulke. I can't imagine why in this day and age, people still discriminate against them. It's about as wack as Europeans beating up Anglicans because they don't like the English government's foreign policies.

To me, it just all goes to show how absurd prejudice can get.

This is kind of a messy topic because there are so many reasons and ways to exploit this for personal and political gain...it's kind of tough to find someone even trying to discuss it in an objective way.

My personal guess is that since Israel has been making something of an ass of itself in European eyes for a while now; the resulting anti-Zionism is feeding into a latent anti-semitism in certain communities. To that must be added the very new population of first generation muslim immigrants; whos anti-Zionism (and/or anti-semitism) isn't exactly latent...they wouldn't need much by way of an excuse before some of their less civil members started acting on these feelings.

Of course, then there's the whole related mine-field topic of dual loyalties...but I think I'll let that one lie for a bit.

It's always curious to me when Muslims (especially Palestinians, but any Arab counts, really) are accused of Anti-Semitism; the Jews are not the only Semites. I've always wondered how they managed to co-opt the term to mean Jews specifically. When Israelis speak against Palestinians and other Muslims, why isn't that Anti-Semitism? What isn't it anti-somethingism at least, either?

Not all Jews are Semites, and not all Semites are Jews. It's illogical to call hatred of Jews "anti-Semitism" for that reason. However, when has bigotry ever been logical?

There is several things going on.

One is that now that Israel got a bad image after the end of the Oslo peace process, antisemits saw that as a reason to get out of the closet, hoping to manage to hijack the bad press for Israel.

An other is that comunism as common foe of the western civilisation has disapeared and some people are looking for a convenient foe. Also quite some antisemits do hold the opinion that communism is part of the jewish conspiracy and had before droped of the radar since they had simply posed as anti communists since that was more politcally acceptable. Now they pop up again.

During 80s and 90s it became quite fashionable (in austria and AFAIK at least also in Germany) to teach kids in school lots about the nazi time and make many projects. In return both existing antisemites became more vocal for fearing to be cornered, rather then part of mainstream society and you got more teenagerish protest fascists.

I wonder if the increasing trend is the same for the states, or if it is specific to europe?
I have personally never seen any anti-semitism here. The only time i ever hear of it is with regards to totally marginalized groups like the kkk, and they are usually much more into harassing black people than jews.

PS, lets not get off on the tangent of who is a semite. Yes, the meaning of the word has been altered. In this context, and the typical context, it refers to jews only.

Anti-Zionism is certainly gaining ground in the States, especially on the political left (while the neo-con right jumps into bed with the Likud; and for the same reasons); but I haven't seen much expansion of anti-semitism. The `apartheid state' crowd doesn't seem to want to attack Jews; just Israel.

I don't 'see' much anti-semitism in Europe (discounting my morbid fascination with neo-nazi websites and publications), but that's probably because I'm not Jewish and don't particularly zoom in on a newspaper report of a synagogue being firebombed. Studies still seem to suggest it's on the rise, however. Whilst some of the incidents reported by Jewish Councils and their like are often a bit iffy and take a great stretch of mind to be classed as anti-semitic, I read the EU report, and even ignoring the questionable cases there's still a significant rise.

Edit: I have no idea what the situation is in the States, though.

Anti semites do have something in common with people who had done plastic surgery. There is evidence that there are quite a lot around but you practically never meet some in person. I am not a jew and i can't remember to have ever encountered someone who was declaring himself an antisemite. Some jewish friends who don't give the impression of suffering from paranoia do report however that after having declared themself jews that they often are treated way worse then before other people knew. Not something direct antisemite just many people stop liking them once they learn that they are jews. So it's hard to really know how much antisemitism is there.

I wonder if this isn't part of a larger trend. I notice reports of increasing anti-Semitism came at the same time as anti-Arabs became vocal in the US, and anti-Americanism started growing elsewhere. Maybe it's just that hate has become fashionable again, though I couldn't say why exactly.

It's 'cause being a hippie and/or a new-age nut is falling out of fashion. No longer can people who protested during the sixties and who took a lot of LSD in the seventies and who bought into quasi-Taoism in the eighties and who kept being bought into quasi-Taosim in the nineties continue their ways without looking like fools.

'Least, that's what I think.

Granted, this time around the United States seems to be a net importer of hatred. It's hard to say in the first half of the twentieth century - hate production levels were high all over the world back then.

I think that it's more of a problem on the continent, rather than in Britain. I don't know whether it's more of a neo-Nazi thing or a fundamentalist Islam thing. From the people I've talked to in Britain, though, it sounds like all that Blood and Honor is good at is being a bunch of closet homosexuals and crashing their cars into trees.

The article which prompted me to write this was about a rise of attacks specifically in the UK, and the UK section pf the EU report, whilst it said we were nowhere near as bad as France, still listed several problems.

You underestimate how organised and active the neo-nazi movement is over here. The BNP, a nazi party, is successfully passing itself off as respectable to xome people - they came 6th in the European elections if I remember rightly, while the party that came third, UKIP, contains several former senior members of the National Front. I have several friends who've been subjected to a campaign of death threats thanks to the National Front's 'Redwatch' project; an attempt to gather and disseminate personal information on 'race traitors and communists' for the use of racist extremists.

And as for the Islamic extremists, we're about the only country in the world where Al-Muhajiroun is legal, and as a result we're it's organisational base - so there's a problem from that quarter, too.

LeoChopper - on 'anti-Americanism' - the world has been burning US flags since WWII at least. The current problem is a particularly virulent detestation of your current administration but, whilst the view is shared by almost every non-American I know, it hasn't harmed our relationships with our American friends at all. Hell, every American I know (except one) hates the current administration, too.

So now being an irrational ***hole is in fashion? Man, humanity's fickle. I'm going to start a new fad for Basic Human Decency.