50 days in the summer: Gaza, political protest and antisemitism in the UK – A sub-report for the All Party Parliamentary Inquiry Into Antisemitism

Gidley, Ben (2014) 50 days in the summer: Gaza, political protest and antisemitism in the UK – A sub-report for the All Party Parliamentary Inquiry Into Antisemitism. Project Report. Antisemitism Policy Trust, London, UK.

Abstract

On 12 June 2014, three Israeli teenagers were abducted in the West Bank, against a backdrop of heightened tension between the Israeli state and Palestinian forces, including a renewal of settlement building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The abduction was followed by days of escalating violence, including a massive Israeli policing operation in the West Bank, the murder of a Palestinian teenager after the bodies of the kidnapped Israelis were found, and increasing numbers of rockets fired from Gaza into Israel. A series of Israeli air strikes on targets in Gaza on the night of 30 June'1 July marked the start of sustained Israel’s military engagement, and Operation Protective Edge was launched on 8 July, comprising initially of airstrikes on targets associated with rocket fire (with around 200 people killed in the strikes), followed by ground engagement a week later. De-escalation began on 3 August, with Israel withdrawing ground troops from Gaza, and an open-ended ceasefire concluded this round of the conflict on 26 August. In total, over 2100 Palestinians were killed (with estimates of civilians ranging between 50% and 76% of the losses), along with 66 Israeli combatants, 5 Israeli civilians and 1 Thai national. There were demonstrations against Israel’s prosecution of the conflict across the world, including several in the UK, as well as other manifestations of protest, such as public calls for and acts of boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. There were some reports of antisemitic content in some of these demonstrations, against a broader context in which antisemitic incidents spiked dramatically. Over 130 antisemitic were recorded by the Community Security Trust (CST) in July, making it the highest monthly total since January 2009 (a previous period of war in Gaza and Israel’s Operation Cast Lead). This short report examines the 2014 protests, exploring the extent and degree of antisemitism in the anti'Israel protests, as well as the reporting of this antisemitism and its impact on the Jewish community. It focuses in particular on the 50 days of Operation Protective Edge. The research questions which this report attempts to address are: • What were the predominant discourses in the UK protests relating to Operation Protective Edge? • Were antisemitic discourses present? If so, how prevalent were they? • Are UK protests relating to Operation Protective Edge comparable in scale and in discourse to protests relating to other conflicts? • How do these issues relate to mainstream and Jewish media reporting on the conflict and on the demonstrations? • How do these issues and their media representation affect Jewish feelings about antisemitism?

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