Anti-Arab racism up after Gaza war and election campaign, report says Survey by Coalition Against Racism also shows increase in racist comments by elected officials.
By Jack Khoury | Jul. 14, 2015 | Haaretz
▻http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel/.premium-1.666020
The summer Gaza war and winter election campaign increased the incidence of racism in Israel, including anti-Arab acts, the group the Coalition Against Racism said Tuesday.
The report was due to be presented at the Knesset at an event launching a parliamentary caucus against racism.
Facebook and the Internet in general have been a locus for racism, but the report discusses both physical and verbal incidents, including racism in Knesset bills and comments by elected officials.
Over the past year there have been 237 racist incidents, 160 of them during the war, the report states. It cites 192 anti-Arab incidents, compared with 113 in 2013. The report discusses both physical and verbal incidents.
“We are living in this country and are aware of the increase in racist violent incidents, but the report uses statistics to confirm the deep sense and danger,” said MK Aida Touma-Suliman (Joint Arab List), who with Michal Biran (Zionist Union) heads the new Knesset caucus.
“The report shows a disturbing increase in incidents of incitement and expressions of racism by elected officials and decision makers,” she said.
Meanwhile, the Religious Action Center of the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism has unveiled a report on incitement against Israeli Arabs on the web. According to the survey, conducted between July and October last year, 30 percent of racist incitement called for violence against Arabs or expressed support for such violence.
Forty percent of the cases called for a boycott of businesses employing Arabs, or for Jewish-only labor. Despite efforts during the war to act against people running racist Facebook pages, law-enforcement officials don’t appear to have taken a cohesive long-term position on how to curb incitement on the Internet, the report says.