Fears of an anti-Muslim backlash

The media are always worried about "anti-Muslim backlashes" and are keen to try and prevent these when reporting the latest Jihadi atrocity, or attempted atrocity, in the UK. However they seem less worried about decoupling Jews from Israel and so it with little surprise that I read in The Independent that:

"The number of anti-Semitic attacks in the UK reached record highs last year as anger over Israel's assault on Gaza led to an explosion of race hatred targeted at Britain's Jewish community.

The Community Security Trust (CST), a charity which monitors attacks against Jews, said 924 anti-Semitic incidents were recorded last year – a 69 per cent increase on 2008 and the highest number since the charity began keeping records of anti-Semitism in 1984.

The charity said Israel's three-week invasion of Gaza in January last year led to an unprecedented outpouring of anger directed at Britain's Jews, with more anti-Semitism recorded in the first six months of 2009 than in any entire previous year. "

Of course the irony that it is The Independent one of the three UK news organisations that has done the most to unfairly vilify Israel in recent years is not lost on me.

The Independent's report continues:

"Of the 924 confirmed incidents, 124 were violent assaults, three of which involved what the CST classified as an "extreme threat to life". It was the highest number of physical assaults recorded against the Jewish community since records began and represents a 41 per cent increase on the previous year.

Physical assaults tended to be most common within areas where members of the Orthodox or Ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities are most visible, such as Salford and Bury in Greater Manchester and Hendon and Stamford Hill in north London.

Non-violent incidents included widespread graffiti; bacon being placed on the doors of a synagogue in Leeds and a postal worker writing the words "Jewland" on a parcel meant for a British man staying on a kibbutz in Israel."

I wonder how many attacks were, at least partially, caused by people having lived on a diet of anti-Israeli articles for some years now, the sort of articles published by The Independent, The Guardian and the BBC?

The Independent's article continues:

"The figures also suggested that anti-Semitism in Britain tended to spike when Israel conducted controversial military operations. Until this year's report, the last time anti-Semitism was at its highest was during 2006 when the Israel Defence Forces launched a one-month assault on Lebanon in retaliation at an attack by Hizbollah fighters. Almost a quarter (23 per cent) of all the incidents reported last year made some sort of direct reference to the military assault on Gaza or Israel's war against Hamas. "

The media are keen to explain that the misdeeds of a few Islamic Jihadi should not reflect on the UK's peaceable Muslim citizens, they seem less keen to try and decouple Israel from Jews and now you can see one of the results.