h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The Telegraph reports:

"Jewish people are four times more likely to be attacked because of their religion than Muslims, according to figures compiled by the police."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/17/nislam117.xml

Did anyone else find this surprising? What are the consequences of this for Jews, Muslims, and for people concerned about religious discrimination?

Sounds like entire codswallop to me... I'd Imagine (as a UK centric thing), that White lower middle class people are more likely to be attacked than any other creed, religion or any other way you care to split em cept for maybe by gender

Hmm- Jews have always been persecuted, and have always seen themselves as persecuted. Makes sense, given their history.
I would expect that people who are racist are racist, and Jews are more likely to report it as religion motivated simply because antisemitism is a more normal thought for them.

Perhaps I'm going down the wrong thought road?

2Legs has hit the nail on the head. This is about how the media report stats. I remember years ago that the Daily (Hate)Mail published a headline that screamed 'White Youths more likely to be attacked than Blacks'.

Given the racial make up of the population (92% of us are still white in this country, bet that'll shocjk some of you), it's hardly news at all.

And of course disguised entirely the fact that Asian youths were the most likely to be assaulted of all.

I think VIP may have a point as well. The Jewish population of the UK tends to be well educated and middle class, and thus much more likley to report this stuff to the Police. I suspect on the streets of Bradford and Manchester Asain youths have a slightly more...'pro-active' way of dealing with these problems that tends to bypass the police altogether.

I wonder when they might start taking note of the religion/ethnicity of the attackers.

Well I think you'll find most violence will be white males fighting white males after a night worshipping at the altar of drunkeness.

Agreed, but that's hardly likely to be reported as a religious crime.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article303510.ece

The idea that Asians are less likely to report crime is risible.

Perhaps my reading skills are not what they once were but I didnt see how that article linked into the liklehood or otherwise of Asians reporting crimes.

Besides SWL I tohught it was Muslims and Not Asians you objected to?

Just had a look at the comparable statistics in the US where they've been recording this sort of information for years. My calculations - which please note might well be mistaken, just using Windows calculator here and a quick glance at a couple of websites - based on

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/hc2005/victims.htm

and the 2004 census data about the Muslim and Jewish population of the US suggests that Jews are 2.5 times more likely to be a victim of religious hate crime than Muslims. The surprising thing was that the total proportions seemed to be much lower there - one in 4100 Jews compared to one in 10400 Muslims; over here according to that Telegraph article the rates are one in 400 and one in 1700 respectively. This is possibly an artefact of the way the information is collected (details about methodology available on the FBI site linked to above, but not in the Telegraph article as far as I can tell).

2legs and Blues - not sure what the point of all that is - these statistics are only about comparable rates of violence against Jews and Muslims based on their religion.

I think Vip and Blues quite possible have a point about Jewish people being more likely to report it. There is also the point that both the UK and US governments are probably seen to be more anti-Muslim than anti-Semitic (please note I'm only talking about the perception here), which might put some Muslims off reporting things to them. It's very difficult to quantify.

Finally, the UK stats are only based on data collected over a few months, amounting to a couple of hundred total offences, so there's certainly room for error in them. Still worth thinking about them as some sort of indicator though.

SWL, you might be able to find that information on the FBI site that I linked to - they do collect data about offenders.

"Increasing evidence has emerged of a backlash against Muslims and members of ethnic minorities "

I presume the evidence has come from reporting?

We've been down this road before. Figures and studies are selective, leading to a blurring of Asian/Muslim in reports. You know my stance by now.

Getting back to the point made in the initial post, maybe this will help explain why one group is attacked more than the other.

http://canadiancoalition.com/forum/messages/15481.shtml

Interesting article.

One line jumped out at me:

"The deteriorating climate has led thousands of French Jews to move to Israel in the past five years, including about 3,300 last year, a 35-year high."

Um... good?

Isn't it?

I mean - shoot me down in flames, but wasn't the whole point of evicting the indigenous Palestinians from their ancestral home and handing their land over to the very well armed and well supported Jews done specifically to provide them (the Jews) with a homeland? Was not the entire point that throughout history they have been a persecuted minority, and that for once there would exist a place where THEY could do the persecuting? (slight sarcasm, but only slight).

Specifically - why is Jews going to Israel being held up as in some way negative? Isn't that what Israel is FOR? Because if it's not for that, just what the **** IS it for?

SoRB

The most wonderfully, deliberately provacotive post you've managed since dropping the Hoo name.

Well done!

Ay theng yo.

SoRB

I take it you're not actually after a serious response to that?

It's one way of looking at it.

I'm absolutely after a serious response to that. Completely, 100% straight faced.

The Holocaust happened in part because there was no Jewish homeland - wherever they went they were a minority. The cry went up "Never again", and the Palestinians were unceremoniously turfed off their homes. Now there's a country specifically set aside for Jews, something there has never, ever been before in the whole of their history. The Western world, and particular the US, spends a great deal of taxpayers' money propping up the state of Israel.

So, now we find Jewish people are going there? Like I said - isn't that good? Isn't that something we can and should all be enormously proud of? Why would anyone think it's something negative?

SoRB

Well, for starters, I don't think the Holocaust happened *because* there was no Jewish homeland. Jews were leaving Germany throughout the 30s with Palestine being but one of many destinations. The slight increase in border controls after Sep 39 kinda made foreign travel a bit more fractious.

I think it's important to realise that Nazism didn't arise out of a vacuum. Virtually any of the European countries with the exception of the UK and Denmark could have birthed a Hitler. Witness how many occupied countries willingly helped the Germans round up the Jews. (Even that phrase, "the Jews" is significant. In the US they talk of Jews and Jewish people, in Europe it's "the Jews"). So, despite widespread anti-Semitism, Jews were spread throughout Europe in history.

But, for the same reason that Muslims come to the West, many Jews prefer Western Society to Israel. Can you blame someone for *not* wanting to move to a country where their kids will be conscripted, public transport blows up more often than London Underground goes on strike, random rockets are liable to fall out of the sky and you're surrounded by people who want to cut your head off? Yet despite all these attractions not mentioned in the El Al brochure, more and more Jews prefer such a lifestyle to living in Europe.

I'll bite, then....

It's difficult to know how accurate that article is, given that the American media don't have the best record for accurate reporting of European issues. And given the responses posted below, I don't think we're dealing with a particularly neutral website anyway.

It's a bad thing if people feel forced to move from their homes through fear. That's the case whether they're moving to another part of town, another part of the country, or another part of the world. Although French Jews are Jewish, they're also French too - presumably French is their first language and their first culture. Moving to Israel would be a huge upheaval socially, culturally, educationally, and in many other ways. Just as it would be for me to move to Australia, America, or Canada.

But we don't know that it's true that people are leaving for Israel through fear. If it's true, as the article states, that there are 600k Jews in France and 3300 left for Israel, that's actually a tiny number. Also, if the article is correct in saying that it's the *poor* recent immigrant Jews who are feeling the brunt of anti-semitism, it's hard to see where they could find the money to emigrate. Nor, if the money was readily available, why many more haven't done so, given that they're recent arrivals and presumably not as settled.

There may be all kinds of reasons why French Jews are leaving for Israel. And if it's not through fear, then it's not a problem.