Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Ireland: Racism watchdog group adds antisemitism to racist crimes list



ENAR Ireland is a racism watchdog group, part of the ENAR, the European Network Against Racism.

They now published their quarterly report (here in PDF, h/t glykosymoritis) for October-December.  I reviewed it, to see what antisemitic incidents they report.  Answer: none.  While they see 'Muslim' as a separate ethnic identity, ENAR Ireland did not think acts against Jews deserve their own category.  It was therefore impossible to say whether they even count such incidents.

Notice that their 'word cloud' above does not mention the word 'Jew' at all, not to mention 'Zionist' or 'Israeli'.  Such things don't exist in Ireland.

Anyway.. I prepared a scathing article on the topic.   But, as it happened, that very same day, an Irish Twitter user attacked me and other Jews/Israelis on Twitter with antisemitic tweets.  So I went to ENAR Ireland's site, and filled out their racist incident form.  They did not have "Jew" as an option under victim, so I filled it in under "Other" and pointed out that it's racist to ignore antisemitism.

I was immediately contacted by ENAR Ireland's director, Shane OCurry, who said the issue had been under discussion and the form will soon be rectified.

Indeed, I'm happy to say that within a few days the form was updated to add "Jewish" as possible victim.

So, I learned an invaluable lesson from this:

It's extremely important to log antisemitic incidents by the proper authorities.

I prepared a list on my blog of organizations dedicated to fighting antisemitism and racism in Europe, and their hotlines for reporting such incidents.  Even if you're 'just' attacked on Twitter or Facebook - don't hesitate and file a report.

There are barely 2,000 Jews in Ireland, which I suppose makes antisemitism against actual Jews very rare.  But you don't need a Jew in front of you to be antisemitic, and given the reach of the internet, Irish antisemites have immense reach.

Now such incidents can be properly cataloged (as long as they are reported..)

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