‘Open season on Jews’: global attacks on civilians explode as Middle East war rages
Authorities are allowing an ‘open season on Jews’, an anti-Semitism organisation says, following the attempted lynching of Israeli passengers at a Russian airport | WATCH
Authorities around the world were allowing an “open season on Jews”, a leading organisation combating anti-Semitism said, following the attempted lynching of arriving Israeli passengers at a Dagestan airport in Russia.
A mob looking for Israelis and Jews overran an airport in Russia’s Caucasus republic of Dagestan on Sunday after rumours spread that a flight was arriving from Israel.
Hate crimes against Jews have rocketed, along with an explosion of hate speech in pro-Palestinian demonstrations and on social media, where celebrities and activists openly promote Jewish genocide, analysts say.
“This latest outrageous attempted lynching in Dagestan, coupled with many other events around the world, including the ‘Flood Brooklyn for Gaza’ event on Saturday, demonstrates sadly that this is open season on Jews,” said Combat Anti-Semitism Movement chief executive Sacha Roytman Dratwa. He said that while genocidal chants were being heard on the streets of Europe, the US and around the world, “all we hear are excuses”.
“Law enforcement agencies should be given the green light to show zero tolerance to hate, incitement, and violence, because blood will be shed soon if they don’t. We call on authorities to use all the tools at their disposal to act against anti-Semites.”
In intimidating scenes recorded on social media on Sunday, a large vigilante mob waving Palestinian flags and chanting “God is Great” swarmed the tarmac of the Makhachkala airport in Dagestan, seeking access to Jewish arrivals from a Tel Aviv flight.
The violent melees resulted in 20 people and security staff being injured, two critically, and resulted in 60 arrests by riot police.
Earlier, other mobs had gone from room to room in a hotel in Khasavyurt demanding to see guest’s passports, and allowed by the local police, local news website, ChP Dagestan reported.
Dagestan is a mainly Muslim Russian republic of more than three million people in the North Caucasus, and some have blamed Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin meeting with Hamas leaders last week for fuelling the violence.
Ze’ev Elkin, a member of Israel’s National Unity party who often serves as a translator for Israeli prime ministers in meetings with Mr Putin, told Israeli television the Dagestan airport chaos was the consequence of the Kremlin’s stance in the wake of Hamas’s October 7 massacre of Israelis.
“There are radical Islamic groups in those areas, but what’s happening today is not happenstance,” he said.
CAM has recorded 172 instances of anti-Semitic acts since the atrocities of October 7.
Jewish communities worldwide have faced a wave of anti-Semitic violence, hateful conduct and vandalism incited by events in the Middle East, CAM says.
In Melilla, Spain, amid chants of “murderous Israel”, a synagogue was set alight. Rioters burned a synagogue in El Hamma, Tunisia, and in Berlin, molotov cocktails were thrown at the Kahal Adass Jisroel synagogue.
In Nicosia, Cyprus, four Syrians were arrested after a pipe bomb exploded near the Israeli embassy.
Lives have been taken. The day after the Hamas attacks, an Egyptian police officer killed three tourists, two of whom were Israelis. In Arras, France, a teacher was stabbed to death. In Hartlepool, England, a man was stabbed to death as revenge for “Israel killing kids in Gaza”.
The UK government held an emergency COBRA meeting on Monday amid fears the heightened Middle East tensions were escalating the risk of a “homegrown” terror attack in Britain.
In Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he was deeply outraged by “the anti-Semitic hatred”.
Mr Scholz referred to the role of Germany in the Holocaust and the death of six million Jews, saying: “That is why our ‘never again’ must be unbreakable.”
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