World
Global rise in antisemitism leaves Jewish community isolated, rabbi says world at 'a tipping point'
The escalation of antisemitism in the wake of the Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 terror massacre in Israel has paved the way for attacks on Jewish communities around the world. For the duration of the past year, schools, community centers and houses of worship have faced threats, intimidation and physical violence.
Rabbi Moshe Hauer, the executive vice president of the Orthodox Union, told Fox News Digital that throughout 2024, the “level of presumed security” the American Jewish community has lived with has shifted. “That’s difficult, when you have a place that you call home, and suddenly you don’t feel so at home.” With the environment of “rolling antisemitism” in the U.S. becoming “an accepted part of daily life,” Hauer said the issue “is still looked at as a problem for Jewish people as opposed to a stain on society.”
The suddenness of the shift has been striking, Hauer said. “It was like we were a source of darkness,” he explained. “All those who we stood shoulder-to-shoulder with to fight for their needs and to fight for their rights suddenly don’t recognize us, so that’s jarring.”
CALLS FOR US TO DO MORE AS ANTISEMITIC ACTS SKYROCKET IN EUROPE: ‘ENORMOUSLY PAINFUL’
Antisemitic hate on display at an anti-Israel protest in London. Antisemitism in the U.K. has hit record levels since the Hamas terror attacks on Oct. 7. (Campaign Against Antisemitism on X)
The Anti-Defamation League tallied over 10,000 antisemitic incidents between Oct. 7, 2023 and Oct. 6, 2024, up from 3,325 during the prior year and representing the highest annual total the group has counted. They include over 8,000 incidents of harassment, 150 physical assaults and 1,840 acts of vandalism. Combined, more than half of these incidents took place at anti-Israel rallies (over 3,000) or at Jewish institutions (over 2,000).
Some politicians and the United Nations (U.N.) have stoked domestic anti-Israel hate. In January, the Chicago City Council passed a resolution calling for a cease-fire in Gaza without also calling for the disarmament of Hamas, drawing wide condemnation from Jewish community leaders.
Despite multiple U.S. officials and the State Department condemning her spread of antisemitism, U.N. special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese visited numerous U.S. campuses in October while presenting her latest report before the U.N. General Assembly. During a stop at Barnard College, Albanese “described Israel’s war in Gaza as a ‘genocide,’ justified the October 7 attack, and questioned Israel’s right to exist,” the Times of Israel reported.
The victim, described by the Jewish United Fund as a “Jewish community member,” was shot in the shoulder in Chicago in an antisemitic hate crime. (Fox 32 Chicago)
Hatred that had been percolating on university campuses took new shape when anti-Israel encampments sprung up at learning institutions countrywide during the spring. During some encampment protests, Jewish students were excluded from their own campus spaces.
Terror flags have been flown on U.S. streets and campuses during anti-Israel protests. School administrators and business leaders who have angered anti-Israel protesters have had their homes and institutions tagged with the inverted red triangle that Hamas uses to denote military targets. In July, protesters replaced the American flag with the Palestinian flag in Washington, D.C., and wrote “Hamas is coming” on a statue of Christopher Columbus.
In September, an ISIS-inspired attack on the Jewish community was thwarted by Canadian and U.S. authorities. On Oct. 26, a Mauritanian national who entered the country illegally in March 2023 shot a Jewish worshipper in Chicago before engaging in a shootout with responding police and paramedics. Chicago leaders waited five days before confirming the religious identity of the suspect’s target and noting that the shooter had intentionally targeted the Jewish community.
CHICAGO HATE CRIME SHOOTING SUSPECT RESEARCHED JEWISH TARGETS, HAD PRO-HAMAS MATERIAL ON HIS PHONE: PROSECUTOR
Jewish students at El Camino Real Charter High School walkout to protest antisemitic incidents at the Woodland Hills, California, school on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024 in Los Angeles. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images)
Brooke Goldstein, a human rights attorney and founder of The Lawfare Project, addressed the impetus for the atmosphere of intolerance, telling Fox News Digital that “President Biden and the largely Democratic leaders of large cities around the country have failed to act to curtail Jew-hatred because it is politically inconvenient for them to enforce the civil rights of Jewish Americans and ensure public safety.”
She said that “for years, the progressive left has ignored Jew-hatred coming from within their own ranks, choosing to ignore the reality that the Jewish people are a minority people still very much needing their legal protections upheld in the face of Marxist-oriented and Islamist-inspired attacks on their identity, indigenous right to their ancestral homeland, and their ability to enjoy equal protection under the law. Their politicians downplay Jewish identity to avoid being called out for their hypocrisy given their support for social justice for all people – other than Jews – and even to avoid prosecuting attacks against Jews as hate crimes, especially when the attackers are members of other minority communities.”
An anti-Israel sign with the phrase “from the river to the sea Palestine will be free” at a protest near Tulane University in New Orleans. The phrase has been criticized as calling for the destruction of Israel. (Credit: Ryan Zamos)
Hatred Around the World
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean and global social action director for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told Fox News Digital that he feels the world is “at a tipping point” where antisemitic intolerance is concerned. With popular social media influencers “normalizing” hatred of Israel, national leaders around the world escalating anti-Israel rhetoric and extremists not “feeling they’re going to be held accountable” when they target the Jewish community, Rabbi Cooper explained that it is “a perfect storm.”
In Europe, incidents of antisemitic hate have risen as much as the 800% seen in Sweden between 2022 and 2023. Jews across Europe have reported that they no longer wear items that might identify their religion and have sometimes changed their names to avoid being targeted. In France, there has been a 430% increase in Jews applying to immigrate to Israel from 2022 to 2023.
Though Ireland has a small Jewish population, it has seen an uptick in antisemitic hatred and Jewish self-censorship. In December, Israel announced that it would close its embassy in the country, citing Irish leaders’ “deligitimization and demonization of the Jewish state.”
The United Kingdom has also seen a large increase in antisemitic hate, with the Community Security Trust reporting a record 1,978 antisemitic incidents in the first half of 2024. This included a 246% increase in “damage and desecration to Jewish property” between the first six months of 2023 and the first six months of 2024. The Israeli minister for Diaspora affairs and combating antisemitism said in March that due to its pro-Hamas atmosphere, London had become the world’s “most antisemitic city.”
In late November, a bus carrying Jewish school children was attacked with rocks after protesters harassed those aboard. Days earlier, a man threw bottles at a group of Jewish teens, hitting and hospitalizing one of his targets.
Headlines about hate for the Jewish community overseas have been gruesome. In June, a 12-year-old Jewish girl in France was raped by two teens on account of her religion. In November, the body of Chabad Rabbi Zvi Kogan was found dead in the United Arab Emirates after he disappeared from his Abu Dhabi home.
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At York University in Canada, antisemitic graffiti was scrawled in a classroom on Oct. 26, 2023. (Courtesy of Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus)
More than nine synagogues worldwide have been the targets of arson since Oct. 7, according to a social media post from Hen Mazzig, a senior fellow at the Tel Aviv Institute. The latest attack occurred on Dec. 18 in Montreal at a synagogue which was also targeted in November 2023, the New York Post reported. Just two days later, shots were fired overnight at a Jewish elementary school in Toronto. It was the third shooting at the school since May, according to the Times of Israel.
Another recent arson attack took place at a synagogue in Melbourne, Australia, on Dec. 6. The Simon Wiesenthal Center responded to the incident by issuing a travel advisory for Australia, explaining that the country’s leaders had failed to stand up against “persistent demonization, harassment, and violence against Jews and Jewish institutions.”
A member of the Jewish community recovers an item from the Adass Israel Synagogue on Dec. 6, 2024 in Melbourne, Australia. An arson attack on the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne forced congregants to flee as flames engulfed the building early on Friday morning. (Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images)
Just a month earlier, the Simon Wiesenthal Center issued a similar advisory for the Netherlands after a soccer match led to a “Jew Hunt,” in which Jewish fans were tracked down and assaulted in the city. The incident sparked another attempted “Jew Hunt” in Antwerp and attacks on a Berlin youth soccer team.
When Cooper’s group placed the travel advisory on the Netherlands, he told Fox News Digital that “theoretically, you could slap a travel advisory on almost every place in Western Europe.”
Anti-Israel protesters hold a banner and chant at a protest in London on Dec. 9, 2023. (Photo by Andy Soloman/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
In the U.S., with anti-Jewish intolerance infiltrating elite universities, workplaces, the medical community, and the entertainment industry, Rabbi Cooper summarized that “the challenges ahead are going to be quite daunting.” He also noted that he has hope on account of the resiliency of the Jewish community and the safety provided by American democracy.
Cooper said that many appointees from President Trump’s incoming administration, including incoming U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Rep. Elise Stefanik, are “defenders of our community.” When they begin implementing new policies, he said that he believes that “a lot of good things can happen very, very quickly.”
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Senior Iranian clerics would have been left “exposed” after an Israeli airstrike hit a meeting place where they were supposed to be convening Tuesday — days after a strike leveled the Tehran compound of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a defense analyst has claimed.
The clerics, members of the Assembly of Experts, had reportedly planned to meet at the location in Qom to deliberate succession plans for Khamenei, who was killed in the strikes, according to The Times of Israel.
“This second strike would be another embarrassment to what has been left of the regime,” Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies and the Misgav Institute, told Fox News Digital.
“It indicates intelligence dominance and superiority because any movement is detected, meaning they would feel exposed,” Michael added.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in an Israeli airstrike Saturday. (Getty Images)
“As of now, the leadership would feel insecure and hunted, with all of their plans collapsing one after another.”
“They would feel totally isolated and understand that the biggest risk might come from home — from a potential uprising next,” he added.
Israel Defense Forces spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin confirmed that the Israeli Air Force struck the building where senior clerics had planned to assemble, The Times of Israel reported.
KHAMENEI’S DEATH OPENS UNCERTAIN CHAPTER FOR IRAN’S ENTRENCHED THEOCRACY
A general view of Tehran with smoke visible in the distance after explosions were reported in the city, Monday, in Iran. (Contributor/Getty Images)
It remains unclear how many of the 88 members were present at the time of the strike, according to an Israeli defense source cited by the outlet. The second strike on Iran’s leadership comes amid a broader military campaign.
As previously reported by Fox News Digital, U.S. forces have struck more than 1,700 targets across Iran in the first 72 hours of Operation Epic Fury, according to a U.S. Central Command fact sheet.
The campaign is aimed at dismantling Iran’s security apparatus and neutralizing what officials describe as imminent threats.
According to U.S. Central Command, targets have included command-and-control centers, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Joint Headquarters, the IRGC Aerospace Forces headquarters, integrated air defense systems and ballistic missile sites.
FIREBRAND ANTI-AMERICAN CLERIC ALIREZA ARAFI SEEN AS CONTENDER TO REPLACE IRAN’S KHAMENEI
The USS Thomas Hudner fires a Tomahawk land attack missile in support of Operation Epic Fury, Sunday, while at sea. (U.S. Navy/via Getty Images)
“We need strategic patience and determination, and in several weeks most of the job will be accomplished,” Michael added. “Even if the regime does not collapse, Iran will not be like we used to know.
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“I assume that the U.S. and Israel will establish a very robust monitoring mechanism that will enable them to react whenever the regime tries to reconstitute its military capacities again.”
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Hungary’s last-minute veto on the €90 billion loan to Ukraine highlights the need for the European Union to move away from unanimity, Rob Jetten, the new prime minister of the Netherlands, said on his first trip to Brussels since taking office.
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“The new Dutch goverment is in favour of less and less decision-making by unanimity on the European level,” Jetten told a group of media, including Euronews, on Tuesday.
“This is a clear example of why that is important because we cannot explain to our constituents that Europe is sometimes way too level in reacting to great issues that affect us all,” he added.
Jetten called on his Hungarian counterpart, Viktor Orbán, to abide by the delicate deal that the 27 EU leaders reached in December after fraught negotiations. The compromise saw Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic promising the necessary unanimity to amend the EU budget rules in exchange for being exempted from the joint borrowing.
Officials and diplomats in Brussels believe that by vetoing a critical piece of the loan at the last stage of the legislative process, Orbán has breached the principle of sincere cooperation that binds the bloc’s decision-making.
“If you reach political agreement on the Council level, we expect every member state to uphold that agreement. And if not, it’s a big task for the European Commission take action,” Jetten said.
In the new coalition programme, the Netherlands calls for the “simplification” of the Article 7 procedure that can deprive member states of voting rights when they commit grave violations of the rule of law. Hungary has been under Article 7 for years, but there has never been sufficient political momentum to move to the harder enforcement phase.
“It is absolutely necessary that we support Ukraine in the months to come to make sure they can continue their fight against Russian aggression,” Jetten went on.
“With less and less American support for the Ukrainians in terms of money and weapons, it is up to the Europeans to deliver.”
Orbán’s veto centres on the interruption of Russian oil supplies through the Druzhba pipeline, which Kyiv says was attacked by Russian drones on 27 January and has remained non-operational since then.
But Orbán says Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has deliberately shut down the pipeline for “political reasons” to influence the results of the upcoming Hungarian elections. Orbán trails in opinion polls by double digits.
Caught between the two rival camps, the European Commission has asked Zelenskyy to repair Druzhba and Orbán to lift his veto. Meanwhile, Hungary and Slovakia have proposed a fact-finding mission to inspect the damaged section of the pipeline.
“We expect the European Commission to solve this issue,” Jetten said. “If it’s helpful to have any fact-finding missions on the pipeline to fix this issue, I’m open to it. But everything begins with: a political agreement at the Council level is a political agreement.”
‘Too early’ for a date on Ukraine’s accession
Among the first debates facing Jetten as premier is the future of enlargement, a topic on which the Netherlands has expressed well-known reservations in the past.
Zelenskyy is advocating for a specific date for Ukraine’s accession to be enshrined in a prospective peace deal, something that could offset the pain of territorial concessions. Last week, he openly suggested 2027 as an aspirational benchmark.
The Commission says it cannot commit to a clear-cut date but is working on legal avenues to revamp the notoriously complex process and ensure the Ukrainian people have greater certainty in their path to membership.
Asked about the potential reform, Jetten said enlargement should be reconsidered from a “geopolitical perspective” but urged the bloc to be “careful” with next steps, warning that the essence of the European project risks being undermined.
“We are very open-minded to look into broader support for these (candidate) countries, but moving too fast is not the way to move forward,” the premier said.
“I think, at the moment, it’s not possible to set a date for enlargement with Ukraine, but it is possible to talk with them, and I will do that with President Zelenskyy, (about) how Europeans can support Ukraine in the important reforms that they have undertaken. But at this moment, it is too early to set the date.”
Jetten also touched upon the US-Iranian strikes on Iran, which have pushed the Middle East into uncharted territory. Wholesale gas prices have soared in reaction to the war, prompting fears that Europe might soon face a prohibitive bill to refill its underground reserves, which are running low after the heating season.
“Obviously, the Iran war can have a big impact on strategic reserves, not only in Europe but also in Asia. So we have to prepare ourselves for any case that this war will continue for many more weeks and impact the strategic reserves in the Netherlands and abroad,” he said, noting extra measures would be taken “if necessary”.
“I think the broader concern is what this war and everything that’s going on in the Strait of Hormuz is going to affect in terms of pricing.”
‘The Netherlands is back’
Jetten’s D66 party has formed a minority goverment with the liberal VVD and the conservative CDA, all of which support European integration. His tenure puts an end to the fractious four-party coalition headed by the right-wing, Eurosceptic Party for Freedom (VVD) of Geert Wilders, which was marked by constant disagreements.
Among the priorities, his executive has pledged to ramp up defence spending, simplify regulation, promote new technologies and expand renewable energy.
“As a founding (member) and the fifth (largest) economy within the EU, the Netherlands is back at the table to work closely together with everyone here in Brussels and our allies within the EU,” Jetten said.
“We see a lot of opportunities to strengthen the European economy and competitiveness, and also to make sure that we do our job with a lot of tax-based money to invest in the European defence and the European defence industry.”
Jetten and the other 26 leaders are heading for a no-holds-barred fight on the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), the bloc’s seven-year budget. Brussels has proposed a €2-trillion template that some capitals consider politically unpalatable.
Where to cut spending will be a major fracture line. Germany, the Nordics and the Baltics want a greater focus on strategic priorities, while Spain, Italy and Eastern Europe want to preserve the prominence of agriculture and cohesion funds.
The Dutch premier made it clear that the next budget should focus on the big transitions shaping the continent’s future: defence, technology and climate.
“A modern MFF doesn’t mean an exploded MFF in terms of numbers,” he said.
“The Netherlands will look into the numbers very closely, and we will have a lot of debate on this topic in the months to come.”
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