- OCCUPIED JERUSALEM -- Anti-Semitic
attacks carried out by Jewish skinheads mainly of Russian origin are on
the rise at the heart of Israel, which prides itself of being a safe haven
for Jews from all over the world.
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- "Nowadays it has become a phenomenon," Zalman
Gilichenski, the chief of the Dmir Centre, which monitors and assists victims
of the anti-Semitic attacks, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) Friday, April
20.
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- "There is a group of several dozens anti-Semites
in almost every Israeli city.
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- "All in all, there are several hundreds neo-Nazis
in Israel," added the 40-year-old ultra-Orthodox who had emigrated
from Moldova in 1989.
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- Gilichenski said reports suggested that anti-Semitic
attacks were being carried out by Jewish citizens on a daily basis in Israel.
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- Some 500 anti-Semitic attacks are reported in Israel
every year, according to independent estimates.
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- Russian nationalists who identify with anti-Semitic ideology
are believed to be responsible for the vast majority of these attacks.
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- Israeli authorities decline to provide statistics on
anti-Semitic attacks inside Israel.
- Israeli police are also reluctant to brand the incidents
as anti-Semitic.
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- Instead, the police use the term vandalism for racist
attacks and desecration of graves and synagogues.
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- "The law does not provide us with the ability to
even define an incident in Israel as being of an anti-Semitic character,
and they all fall within the general term of vandalism," one justice
ministry official said on condition of anonymity.
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- "Zhids"
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- Jewish Rabbi Avraham Levine was a victim of a brutal
anti-Semitic attack when a group of teenage skinheads attacked him while
walking home in the city of Petah Tikva on Tel Aviv's outskirts
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- "They jumped on me, beat me and cursed my mother
in Russian," said Levine, 38, who arrived in Israel from Russia in
1995
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- "Then they returned with sticks and beat me up.
My arm was broken but only God saved my life.
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- "They shouted 'Zhids leave Russia!' In Russia, I
would hit someone if he said 'zhid.' How can someone do it in Israel?"
he said
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- "Zhid" is a derogatory term in Russian for
a Jew, roughly equivalent to north America's "kike."
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- In recent years, dozens of Jewish schools and synagogue
walls have also been vandalized and sprayed with swastikas and racist slurs
in Russia.
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- In May 2005, the great synagogue of Petah Tikva was vandalized
and desecrated with anti-Semitic slurs.
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- The same month, military police arrested a soldier of
Soviet origin who had a Nazi swastika tattooed on his arm and who said
he hated Jews.
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- Shortly afterwards, another soldier was indicted for
setting up the first neo-Nazi website in Israel, which included links to
the text of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf and a photo of him and two other
soldiers performing a Nazi salute in uniform.
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- Blind Eye
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- Gilichenski accused Israeli authorities of turning a
blind eye to the surging anti-Semitic attacks inside Israel.
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- "Israel is very swift to criticize anti-Semitism
abroad but remains silent in the face of anti-Semitism within," he
said.
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- There is no law explicitly banning anti-Semitism in Israel,
because such a situation was never imagined by Israeli lawmakers.
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- Comment
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- As you sow you shall reap, Israel was founded on racism
and the stealing of other peoples property. How ironic then that what they
inflicted upon innocent Palastinians is now being inflicted upon them by
their own people.
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- The Muslims fight the Israelis not because we are anti-semetic
but because our land has been stolen and we want it back. If they return
the land back then they are welcome to stay and live amongst us as they
did in the past under the Caliphate system.
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- Islam condemns racism and anti-semitism but does Zionism
respect anyone other than Israelis? And what is the difference between
Fascism and Zionism?
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