Anti-racism volunteers registered 80 anti-Semitic throughout Belgium in 2012, a 23 percent increase since 2011.
Ha’aratz
August 18, 2013
The number of anti-Semitic attacks reported last year in Belgium is the highest figure recorded there since 2009, according to an annual report.
Anti-racism volunteers registered 80 anti-Semitic throughout Belgium in 2012, according to a report released this month by the Antisemitsm.Be watchdog group. The figure represents a 23 percent increase since 2011.
The number is the highest recorded by the group since 2000 with the exception of the 100-odd attacks documented in Belgium in 2009, when an Israeli military campaign against Hamas triggered a massive leap in anti-Semitic attacks worldwide.
The authors of the report wrote that last year’s 80 reported incidents constitute a 34 percent increase from the per annum average from the past 12 years.
The increase, the authors wrote, owes to a noticeable spike in attacks after the murder of four Jews by a Muslim extremist in Toulouse, France, in March 2012.