Not surprisingly, Operation Cast Lead led to a significant increase. 631 anti-Semitic actions were recorded in the first half of 2009, 360 of which in January, during the operation in Gaza, compared to 474 for the whole of 2008.
Richard Prasquier, President of CRIF, reckons that “France is not an anti-Semitic country… but there is a climate of abhorrence of Jews which expresses itself through insults and, quite often, through physical aggression.”
Ariel Goldmann, spokesperson for the SPCJ and a vice-president of CRIF and the FSJU, makes this analysis of the situation: “The excesses of pro-Palestinian mobilisation in January 2009 (…) opened the way for numerous anti-Semitic attacks targeting both people and property. Anti-Zionist feelings, galvanised by a form of grass roots anti-Israeli sentiment (which however is limited), found themselves free to express themselves, sometimes through violence toward the Jewish community in France.”
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