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Opinion

New CST Report: The Depth of Antisemitism

February 10, 2011 14:42
2 min read

When it comes to media reporting, the news that broke last week with the publication of
Antisemitic Incidents Report 2010 offered a complex and disturbing picture.

Most news outlets, from the Jewish ones such as the JC and the Jerusalem Post reported in 2010 constituted a 31 percent drop from 2009’s record high of 926 – caused by reactions to the Gaza conflict in January of that year – the baseline figure is still the second highest since CST began recording its annual figures more than 20 years ago.

Outlets like the Daily Express simply went for the ‘good news’ component. It’s headline read, “Attacks on Jewish groups fall by 300”. What, then, was the essential message?

For years, CST has used the term ‘trigger events’ – such as the Gaza incursion – to explain why antisemitism seems to ‘spike’ in response to what happens in the news. This phenomenon is disturbing enough all by itself: to think that an event that an individual sees on the BBC or is reported by any of the mainstream outlets would provoke them to paint a swastika, hurl a verbal abuse or otherwise lash out violently against someone would suggests an underlying animosity ready to boil over.