@kdw

THanks.

...and the BBC can't help but justify and normalize it, even in this article.

"driven partly by the conflict in the Middle East."

"It was sparked when gunmen from Hamas and other Palestinian groups attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage on 7 October last year.

Israel's retaliatory attacks have since killed 38,295 people in Gaza, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry."

This is what Dana Horn calls "conextualizing antisemitism", which is a subtle way to justify it,

@serge that’s a point, particularly as the report was compiled before October 7 (as the article does acknowledge).

there’s a fine line between trying to get ahead of what the obvious next step argument to dismiss such findings is going to be, and falling into the same trap.

You’re probably already familiar with it but I’ve now found and read the actual EU report. The numbers on antisemitism encountered online are mind blowingly shocking

https://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra_uploads/fra-2024-experiences-perceptions-antisemitism-survey_en.pdf

@serge agreed on all counts. What the data really help with (for me) is that they start to provide a window into the fact that there are many different streams converging to create that increase. It’s not just a single group or a single thing.

@kdw

Yes. One of the challenges Jews encounter is that if we talk about antisemitism, someone will come out and say it's due to [group they hate]. So it's due to the right wing, or it's due to the Muslims or it's due to Corbyn.

In the UK this often goes one step further and the label of "weaponized antisemitism" is employed very freely, with people saying that if someone complains of antisemitism, they must be anti-Labour, or Islamophobic, or whatever

@serge exactly this!

along with the flip side: a self-righteous inability to acknowledge problems when they involve one’s own side.