Head of human rights NGO, @KenRoth, blames antisemitism on Jews

Last week, Sam Sokol wrote in Haaretz:

British Jews experienced an “unprecedented number of antisemitic incidents” during and after this summer’s fighting between Israel and Hamas, the Jewish community’s watchdog organization announced on Thursday.

In a report, the Community Security Trust stated that 628 antisemitic incidents were recorded during the one-period between May 8 and June 7, a rise of 365 percent over April and “the highest number CST has ever recorded in any month-long period.”

“This was the most intense period of anti-Jewish hatred seen in the U.K. in recent years,” the group stated. “It saw record levels of antisemitic hate incidents, anti-Jewish chants and placards on public demonstrations, incitement from radical Islamist extremists in the U.K. and calls from jihadist terrorist groups for Jews to be killed.” The organization added that “the level of anger and hate that is directed at Israel always spills over into antisemitism at times of conflict,” with British Jews being “held responsible for events thousands of miles away, over which they have no control, simply because they are Jewish.”

According to the CST, 83 percent of incidents constituted abusive behavior, 7.5 percent of incidents involved threats and 5 percent involved assaults. Many involved Jewish people being singled out on the streets or in schools with screams and chants about the Palestinians.

In one case, a man stopped Jewish high school students in London and threatened to punch them if they did not say they supported the Palestinians. He then said: “Tell your fucking mum and dad they are murderers and killing babies.”

In another, a speaker at a Manchester demonstration accused Jews of controlling the media, declaring that “the main 13 executives that approve the content released by the BBC are actually in fact Jewish. So this means the information released by the mainstream media will be biased.”

On May 21, police arrested a man whom witnesses said broke into the car of an Orthodox Jew and began hitting the driver unprovoked. The incident happened outside the Kosher Kingdom store on Golders Green Road before noon. One witness told the Jewish News of London that the car had been targeted because it displayed an Israeli flag.

Ken Roth, who has a salary in excess of $600,000 for heading Human Rights Watch, ran this information through his twisted, Israel hating brain, and wrote this tweet:

Antisemitism is always wrong, and it long preceded the creation of Israel, but the surge in UK antisemitic incidents during the recent Gaza conflict gives the lie to those who pretend that the Israeli government's conduct doesn't affect antisemitism. 

There are at least three things that are outrageous about this tweet:

1. Anytime you say that something is wrong but....you are justifying it. Roth would never, ever formulate a tweet beginning with "Racism is wrong but" or "Asian bashing is wrong but..." Yet in this case he is making an excuse for a specific subset of antisemitic attacks.

2.  Roth is not blaming attacks on Jews on the attackers, but on Jews themselves. Specifically, his hate for Israel is so pathological that he says that Arabs attacking random Jews in the UK should be blamed on Israel.

3. He doesn't mention his own role in fomenting antisemitism. After all, years of telling the world that Israel is uniquely evil, and since April most of his tweets slandering Israel as being guilty of apartheid and racism, has a cumulative effect on people. When the leaders of human rights organizations demonize Jews, it can result in people justifying attacking Jews. 

Roth saw that his tweet was being ratioed with withering criticism, and he attempted to clarify it:

Interesting how many people pretend that this tweet justifies antisemitism (it doesn't and I don't under any circumstances) rather than address the correlation noted in the Haaretz article between recent Israeli government conduct in Gaza and the rise of UK antisemitic incidents.

Is that what the article says? Because its author doesn't think so!

If he would have said anything remotely similar about racism, or sexism, he would be forced out of his job within minutes of the tweet.

But antisemitism is an exception to the no tolerance policy for bigotry among those who travel in Roth's circles. 

This one episode exposes the hypocrisy of the "human rights" community, the lie that the Left stands in solidarity with Jews under attack, and the impunity that Roth and Human Rights Watch have to slander the Jewish state and its supporters.

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