Topics: Antisemitism: Incident Monitoring, Antisemitism: Online, Politics: Democratic Politics, Elections and Voting, European Union, Hate and Hate Speech, Internet, Islamophobia, Main Topic: Antisemitism, Social Media, Racism, Ukraine-Russia conflict (2014 onwards)
Abstract: W wyniku przeprowadzonego drugiego etapu pilotażowego monitoringu, mającego zbadać zjawisko narastającej liczby treści o charakterze nienawistnym w internecie w okresie kampanii wyborczej, dokonano wielu istotnych obserwacji.
Kampania do Parlamentu Europejskiego, będąca kolejną z serii kampanii wyborczych odbywających się w krótkim odstępie czasu od poprzednich, miała miejsce w okresie okołowakacyjnym, co wiązało się z mniejszym zaangażowaniem zarówno ze strony partii politycznych, jak i użytkowników internetu. Mimo tego obniżonego poziomu zaangażowania wzrost treści o charakterze nienawistnym był już zauważalny przed formalnym rozpoczęciem kampanii, co sugeruje, że polityczny i społeczny klimat pozostawał spolaryzowany na skutek poprzednich wyborów do Sejmu i Senatu, które odbyły się 9 października 2023 roku.
Wraz z formalnym rozpoczęciem kampanii wyborczej zaobserwowano stały wzrost aktywności w serwisach internetowych oraz ciągłą tendencję wzrostową treści o charakterze nienawistnym. Po zakończeniu kampanii doszło do istotnego zmniejszenia liczby tego typu treści.
Analiza zachowań użytkowników internetu podczas monitoringu ujawniła, że wzrost treści nienawistnych rozprzestrzeniał się między różnymi grupami, co świadczy o dynamicznym i płynnym charakterze tego zjawiska. Zauważono, że nienawistne treści skierowane do jednej grupy mniejszościowej często prowadziły do generowania nienawiści wobec innych grup mniejszościowych. Szczególnie interesującym aspektem jest fakt, że wzrost treści antysemickich korelował z nasileniem treści antyukraińskich i antyuchodczych, co sugeruje związek między różnymi formami nienawiści w dyskursie społecznym.
Zapraszamy do zapoznania się z raportem
Spis treści:
Wstęp
Metodologia
Badanie – wyniki
Analiza zmian
Treści o charakterze antysemickim
Treści o charakterze antyuchodźczym i antymuzułmańskim
Treści o charakterze antyukraińskim
Treści o charakterze anty-LGBT+
Wnioski końcowe
Publikacja powstała w ramach projektu „Kompleksowa strategia przeciwdziałania antysemickiej mowie nienawiści w przestrzeni publicznej”, finansowanego przez Fundację Pamięć, Odpowiedzialność i Przyszłość, realizowanego przez Żydowskie Stowarzyszenie Czulent przy wsparciu merytorycznym Centrum Badań nad Uprzedzeniami.
Niniejsza publikacja nie prezentuje stanowiska i opinii Fundacji Pamięć, Odpowiedzialność i Przyszłość (EVZ).
Abstract: On the eve of the 2024 UK General Election, national polls show the Labour Party ahead of the
Conservative Party by 20 percentage points. An average of polls at the time of publication has Labour
at 41.9% and Conservatives at 22.2%, with Reform UK at 15.0%, well ahead of the Liberal Democrats,
Greens, Scottish National Party (SNP), Plaid Cymru and other parties. These polls do not, however,
show the voting intention of Jewish people in the UK. The JPR Research Panel provides the research
infrastructure to gather nationally representative data about Jewish people’s behaviours and attitudes
on a wide range of social and political issues. This paper presents initial data on voting intentions for
4 July 2024, based on 2,717 UK-based Jewish adults who responded to a survey between 14-20 June
Abstract: The article aims to tease out the relationship between, on the one hand, changing rhetorical strategies for dealing with ‘post-war-tabooed’ antisemitism in the Austrian parliament and, on the other, shifts in democratic culture – that is, the expression of democratic equality in the publicly sayable. Starting from the theoretical assumptions that parliament symbolises democracy tout court and that parliamentarism is a ‘rhetorical condition of democracy’ (Kari Palonen), we seek to explore the nexus between parliamentary rhetoric and democracy in depth. We do so, first, by identifying the successive postwar rhetorical strategies for dealing with antisemitism in their (historical) political context and, second, by delineating how those strategies mark shifting boundaries of the sayable in relation to antisemitism in Austrian postwar parliamentary rhetoric. Third, we show how those strategies and shifts signify transformations of Austrian democratic culture and democracy and that this process has a gendered dimension. Methodologically, we draw on a multidisciplinary mix of qualitative approaches, combining discourse and rhetoric analysis, specialised approaches to the analysis of parliamentary debate, and Conceptual History.
Abstract: Although different patterns of political participation among self-aware minority groups have spurred much debate in the academic circles, especially in stable democracies, this issue remains understudied in the newer post-communist societies and notably so the post-conflict countries of former Yugoslavia. Much of the existing research conducted in established democracies has demonstrated that increased levels of national minority political involvement are directly related to democratic development, but that these groups are shunning more traditional forms of engagement, notably political party membership in favour of direct engagement through informal participation. Nevertheless, there is very little understanding of what national minority political participation represents in post-conflict states, as much scholarly research has termed it as underground, invisible or inexistent. Despite this, there is evidence that in these states formal political participation of national minority groups is still strong, but it remains unknown to what degree this occurs, what factors influence this behavior and to what degree is this behavior present among autochthon minority groups. As active political participation of national minorities plays an important role in the democratization and stabilization of such societies, this represents an important gap in our knowledge. This thesis aims to investigate the level of conventional political participation and the trigger factors for such engagement of two significant, yet contrasting national minority groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), namely Jews and Poles. To do this, a mixed-method approach embedded in the transformative paradigm is employed, combining qualitative and quantitative findings of fieldwork. The thesis assesses eight indicators of formal political participation and reveals whether we can observe new trends when it comes to conventional engagement of these two, but also whether their influence remains limited due to their inability to formally participate in the government. It finds that both groups are political communicators, which choose to opt out of political party membership or financial support to electoral campaigns, because they feel alienated from formal politics due to constitutional limitations. However, this exit from the highest forms of political participation is not coupled with total disengagement, as both groups are actively engaged in other forms of formal political activism. This thesis concludes that new trends of political behaviour are emerging among the two observed groups, and especially so among their youth.
Abstract: Overt state-sponsored antisemitism ended in Europe with the fall of the Soviet Union. Antisemitic attitudes, however, remain prevalent in Europe, and some European political actors have instrumentalized antisemitism for political gain. This report examines both the conscious use of antisemitism in European politics and the calculated tolerance of antisemitism, demonstrating that the oldest hatred remains a modern political tool.
Unlike antisemitic incidents of violence, vandalism, or insults, the political use of antisemitism does not target Jews themselves. Instead, antisemitic propaganda targets domestic or foreign audiences as a means of gaining political support. Demonstrating tolerance for antisemitism is another tactic of attracting political support. Polling data shows that these strategies have a rational basis. ADL’s 2019 Global 100 survey of antisemitic attitudes found that one in four Europeans polled harbored antisemitic beliefs.
Antisemitic propaganda has as its goal to energize and attract followers. Antisemitic propaganda is also used to tarnish political opponents in the eyes of a specific audience by intimating that someone is Jewish, supportive of Jewish causes or of the State of Israel. Other times, political opponents are slandered as antisemites or Nazis to diminish their reputations with specific audiences. Each of these techniques will be covered in this report, which focuses on the conscious choice of instrumentalizing or tolerating antisemitism for political gain. Antisemitic rhetoric by political actors as an indicator of bias is a much broader topic, and this report does not cover those instances.
The broad categories of the politicization of antisemitism include (1) politically motivated accusations of, or uses of, antisemitism against political opponents; (2) political appeals to antisemitic beliefs among the public, including the conspiracy theories about Jewish control of government, economy, media; and (3) tolerance of antisemitism within political movements as a strategy for increasing popular support. This list not exhaustive of the political instrumentalization of antisemitism, but this report provides illustrative examples from recent years in these broad categories.
Why is this report important? While violent antisemitic attacks receive wide publicity – and rightly so – the politicization of antisemitism can also severely impact Jewish communities. The British Jewish community provides a compelling example.
In January 2015, 11% of British Jews were considering emigrating, according to a poll by the UK’s Jewish Chronicle. That survey was conducted before Jeremy Corbyn, widely regarded within the British Jewish community as an antisemite himself, was even a leadership candidate for the Labour party. In September 2018, after antisemitism had become a serious problem in the Labour party under Corbyn, the Jewish Chronicle poll found that 39% of British Jews were considering emigrating. And in an October 2019 poll by the UK’s Jewish Leadership Council, just prior to the UK General Election, 47% of British Jews said they would “seriously consider” leaving the UK if Jeremy Corbyn were to win the election.
Had Jeremy Corbyn won, leading a major party widely recognized as tolerating antisemitism among its members, and had even 30% of British Jews emigrated as a result of that single event, that number of roughly 90,000 Jews would have been similar to the total of all the French Jews who left France over the past 20 years.
The sections below are select examples of the different ways in which antisemitism has been instrumentalized for political gain by various actors. The purposes and tactics vary substantially, but have the common element of politicizing antisemitism:
The Russian government instrumentalized antisemitism in the forms of propaganda and “false flag” operations to influence domestic and foreign public opinion in its conflict with Ukraine.
Polish political campaigns used overt antisemitic rhetoric during elections to win votes.
The Hungarian government used coded antisemitism in political campaigns against EU migration policies.
The UK Labour party consciously tolerated antisemitism to widen its political support from far-left radicals.
Ukrainian nationalists glorified World War II era fighters to promote nationalist narratives, while trivializing their involvement in the Holocaust.
The far-right Alternative for Germany party trivialized the Holocaust as part of their appeal to “Holocaust fatigue” among German voters.
Other political actors have engaged in similar acts of politicization, and their absence from this report is not indicative of any assessment. The cases below are simply the most blatant examples of the types of politicization to be highlighted.
Abstract: Through secondary analysis of survey data collected by YouGov for Campaign Against Antisemitism, this research note provides a longitudinal account of changes in Judeophobic antisemitism (that is, antisemitism articulated in relation to Jews identified as Jews) in mainland Britain from 2016-2020. Because survey responses are aggregated by most recent general election vote, the dataset facilitates comparison between those who voted for each of Britain’s three main parties in the 2015, 2017, and 2019 UK general elections. (Those who voted for other parties, as well as those who did not vote and those for whom voting data are missing, are aggregated as a fourth category.) Amongst those who voted for the centrist Liberal Democrat party, levels of Judeophobic antisemitism declined throughout the period. Amongst those who voted for the left-wing Labour Party, levels of Judeophobic antisemitism began at a low level, rose to a peak in 2018, and then declined, returning to something close to their 2016 level by 2020. Changes amongst other voter groups were less clear-cut, although all voter groups saw a decline in Judeophobic antisemitism from 2019 to 2020. Although it is beyond the scope of this article to analyze trends in antizionist antisemitism (that is, antisemitism articulated in relation to Israel and its supporters), comparative figures for that form of antisemitism are provided for the years 2019–2020.
Abstract: Elections were held in 181 local authorities
in England, Scotland and Wales on 3 May 2012, for
the London Assembly and for the mayoralties of
London, Liverpool and Salford. Ten other cities held
a referendum to decide whether to adopt the
system of an elected mayor, while one, Doncaster,
voted on whether to abolish theirs.
The British National Party (BNP) stood 137
candidates in the local elections, as well as standing
for the mayors of London, Salford and Liverpool,
and for the party list section of the London
Assembly. This compares poorly with the 323 BNP
candidates who stood in the local elections in 2011,
and with the 611 BNP candidates who stood the last
time these seats were up for election, in 2008. This
fall in candidate numbers continued the BNP’s
gradual decline in membership numbers, financial
resources and popular support over the past three
years.
Partly as a result of the BNP’s problems, this
election saw an increased presence from other
far right parties. The National Front (NF) stood
38 candidates, more than it has managed
to muster for several years, and stood for mayor
of Liverpool and the party list section of the London
Assembly. Other, tiny far right groups, such as the
British Freedom Party and the Democratic
Nationalists, stood candidates in single figures.
The English Democrats (ED), although not itself
a far right party, has absorbed large numbers
of former BNP members in recent years without
requiring any of them to publicly renounce their
views. In this election the ED stood 87 candidates
in the local elections, well over a third of whom
were former BNP activists, candidates or councillors.
It also stood for the mayor of Liverpool and for the
party list section of the London Assembly.
The elections took place against the backdrop
of recession and public service cuts, which might
be expected to benefit extremist parties. The
question of candidates’ attitudes to the Jewish
community became a significant theme in the
London mayoral election, particularly regarding
statements allegedly made by the Labour
candidate, Ken Livingstone
