Anti-Semitic incidents worldwide rose slightly in 1998, reversing a trend seen in the past few years, Israeli researchers said Monday.
In the past “three to four years, there was a decrease. Now in the last year there was an increase,” said Rabbi David Rosen, head of the Israel office of the Anti-Defamation League, which co-sponsors the annual report.
According to the report, violent anti-Semitic attacks involving weapons dropped from 38 in 1997 to 36 in 1998. By contrast, major unarmed anti-Semitic incidents rose from 116 to 121.
During the past year there were anti-Semitic incidents in countries where they had not been reported in recent years, such as Russia, Argentina and Britain, the report said.
It said Russia’s financial crisis, as well as the decision by two Swiss banks to reach a $1.25 billion settlement of Holocaust-era claims, had motivated some of the anti-Semitism.
Researcher Roni Stauber of Tel Aviv University, which was also involved in the report, also cited the deadlock in the Middle East peace process as a factor.
Groups sympathetic to the Palestinian cause “feel the Israelis, the Jews, are doing injury to the Palestinians. This is translated into acts against Jewish communities in the world,” Stauber told a news conference Monday.
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