Islamophobia soared in UK with Gaza war: Monitor

LONDON

Anti-Muslim hate incidents in the U.K. more than tripled following the outbreak of the war between Israel and Hamas, a monitoring group has said.

Tell MAMA recorded 2,010 such cases in the four months since Hamas's deadly attack against Israel on Oct. 7 sparked the conflict.

That was the largest recorded number of cases in a four-month period, said a statement from the organization, which was set up to monitor and report such incidents.

The latest figures were up from 600 incidents over the same period in 2022-2023, a rise of 335 percent.

"We are deeply concerned about the impacts that the Israel and Gaza war are having on hate crimes and on social cohesion in the U.K.," said Tell MAMA director Iman Atta.

"This rise in anti-Muslim hate is unacceptable and we hope that political leaders speak out to send a clear message that anti-Muslim hate, like anti-Semitism, is unacceptable in our country."

Tell MAMA said that 901 cases occurred offline while 1,109 were online. Most of the offline incidents took place in the British capital London, it added.

They included abusive behavior, threats, assaults, vandalism, discrimination, hate speech and anti-Muslim literature.

Women were the target in 65 percent of cases, the group said.

On Feb. 22, the chaotic debate over a ceasefire in Gaza reverberated through Britain’s Parliament as the speaker of the House of Commons faced calls to resign, and lawmakers said they feared for their safety amid pressure from all sides of the issue.

After more than six hours of sometimes heated debate on Feb. 21, both the governing Conservative Party and the Scottish National Party, or SNP, refused to participate in voting on the question. That left Labor, the largest opposition party, with the largely hollow victory of passing its version of a nonbinding motion calling for an “immediate humanitarian" ceasefire unopposed.

Anger over the way the debate unfolded led to more than 50 lawmakers submitting letters of no confidence in Speaker Lindsay Hoyle. Hoyle was meeting with the leaders of all three main parties to plot a way forward.

Underlying the parliamentary tug-of-war are rising tensions over the Israel-Hamas war, with hundreds of thousands of people marching through London last week in support of the Palestinian cause.

Earlier this month, a Jewish charity also reported that anti-Semitic incidents in Britain hit record levels last year, with a surge after Hamas's attack.

The Community Security Trust (CST), which monitors anti-Semitism in Britain, recorded 4,103 "anti-Jewish hate incidents" in 2023, its highest annual tally since it began counting them in 1984.

That represented a 147-percent increase on the 1,662 incidents recorded in 2022.