Vox article says 'we don’t know why' there was a recent spike in antisemitic attacks in the US

An article published by Vox on Wednesday is questioning why antisemitic attacks are increasing in the United States, and whether or not they have even increased as drastically as advocacy groups say they have.

Across the US over the last few weeks, violence between Gaza and Israel has bubbled into violent attacks on Jewish people. The article wonders why the violence between Israel and Gaza this time around had garnered such attacks in the US compared to past conflicts.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights group, data they collected pertaining to antisemitic incidents, which ranged from harassment to vandalism to assault, reportedly increased 75 percent during May’s conflict.

Vox stated though, that "the ADL’s data has some problems: It might be overstating the current level of anti-Semitic animus," but conceded that the attacks happening linked to current anti-Israeli sentiment is not typical.

"The ADL’s data is the most commonly cited non-government metric of anti-Semitism in the United States, often taken as authoritative. Its information is granular and swiftly updated, allowing researchers to separate out what was happening before and after the Israel-Hamas conflict began on May 10," states Vox. "By its numbers, there’s a clear break and rapid increase after the onset of hostilities."

Vox states that the ADL’s data includes "recent incidents that are only dubiously anti-Semitic — like a sign at a pro-Palestinian protest with the slogan “Zionism is racism. Abolish Israel," which may skew numbers to look as though more attacks are happening.

Mari Cohen redid the ADL’s math for an article in Jewish Currents, and found that while her math didn’t reach the 75 percent increase the ADL got, antisemitic incidents "more than doubled" during the recent conflict. Cohen took 43 of the ADL’s recent cases in its public tracker, and excluded "incidents in which the ADL’s determination of antisemitism is controversial, including protest signs with anti-Zionist content or Holocaust comparisons."

Vox laid out three theories as to why there has been this sudden surge in antisemitic incidents in the US.

The first, states that these are "isolated incidents and not reflective of any deeper trend," with "the number of violent assaults targeting Jews every year is very small, in the dozens rather than hundreds. When your sample size is that small, a few incidents can take on outsize importance."

The second theory blames the Trump administration for the uptick in violence, pointing to the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue attack in Pittsburgh.

"There is little doubt that anti-Semitic sentiment in America began spiking in 2016. The ADL and other data sources suggest a surge beginning then, most commonly linked to the alt-right’s rise on Trump’s coattails, and continuing for the next four years. The violence has been severe," they write.

The third theory laid out by Vox claims that America is experiencing a "Europeanization" of antisemitism, mirroring the surge in incidents seen across Europe in recent years.

"While upswings of violent anti-Semitism during Israeli-Palestinian conflicts are relatively rare in the United States, they’re common in Western Europe. Data from the Kantor Center at Tel Aviv University shows that, during the 2008-’09 Gaza war, there was a massive spike in anti-Semitic violence, death threats, and vandalism worldwide — with a high percentage concentrated in European countries with sizable Jewish populations like France," Vox states. "During the current conflict, early data from the United Kingdom showed a 600 percent increase in anti-Semitic incidents."

Vox pointed out through, a difference between Europe and the US is the status of Muslim people in their societies.

"Many of the perpetrators of anti-Semitic violence in places like France are from alienated and socially marginalized Muslim communities. American Muslims by contrast, tend to be more tightly integrated into American society," the article writes. "Moreover, American Muslims and Jews tend to have positive views of each other despite disagreements on Israel-Palestine. For these reasons, communal violence during Middle East flare-ups is much rarer in America."

Missing from Vox's explanation, perhaps not surprisingly, was the constant antisemitic and anti-Israel rhetoric of mainstream Democrat politicians such as AOC and Ilhan Omar.

In an interview with Fox & Friends Wednesday, journalist Eve Barlow set the record straight about the recent surge in antisemitic attacks.

Barlow blamed the "vehement hatred and language" that is written online surrounding antisemitism leading to the "historic pattern in which anti-Jewish hatred, antisemitism is risen again, it’s not just on the rising it’s risen. And the conflict between Israel and Hamas has given antisemites the permission to attack Jews in the streets, in cities around the world regardless of their politics, regardless of whether or not they support the state of Israel. This is an attack on Jews."

Barlow went on to say that some on social media don’t know that they are spreading lies and propaganda surrounding the incident and stoking the fires of hatred.

"Of course there are a lot of people that are spreading this propaganda that don’t realize that it’s antisemitic to do so," said Barlow. "But they are being pelted by millions, hundreds of thousands of retweets of misinformation that is being shared by celebrities, by people who don’t understand the history, the factual truth of the situation, and who are spreading mass propaganda about this conflict that then enables antisemitism to exist in the streets."

"We know by now that what happens online does have offline consequences," Barlow continued. "And this is a really frightening example of how that is manifesting against Jewish people."