An American organisation which monitors antisemitism has said that the Nazi swastika will no longer automatically be considered a hate symbol.
The Anti-Defamation League said the swastika, until now inextricably linked with the Holocaust and the murder of six million Jews, has for some people “lost its meaning as the primary symbol of Nazism and instead become a more generalised symbol of hate.”
The ADL released its annual audit of antisemitic incidents last week and said that numbers had fallen from 1,352 in 2008 to 1,211 the following year.
But the national director, Abraham Foxman, said that the drop owed more to changes in how antisemitic incidents were recorded than an overall reduction in cases of harassment, vandalism or threats against Jews.