'Canary in coal mine': 'Antisemitism is always alert system of a larger problem within our society'
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00:00 For more we can speak now to Simon Rodin-Benzeken who is
00:03 Europe director for the American Jewish Committee. Thank you very much indeed for joining us.
00:08 There were more anti-semitic acts in the three months that followed October the 7th than in the previous three years combined.
00:15 Let me start by asking for your reaction to these numbers.
00:18 So first of all, thank you very much for having me. What can I tell you? I'm not surprised, unfortunately.
00:24 We know
00:26 that whenever something is going on in the Middle East between Israel
00:30 and the terrorist organization Hamas, we always have had in the past over the past 20 years
00:37 sharp spike of anti-semitic acts. We also know that anti-semitism, as has been seen said previously in your report, is a
00:45 structural problem in France. So as of October 7th when the Minister of Interior
00:53 Gérald Darmanin reinforced security measures all across the French territory for Jewish institutions,
01:00 we knew that this would be happening. But this makes it of course not less concerning.
01:06 Indeed, and you mentioned the Interior Ministry there. Those numbers came from the Interior Ministry and you mentioned some measures taken, some
01:13 pre-emptive measures taken by the Interior Ministry. But are you satisfied that they've done enough?
01:20 So first of all, I think
01:22 enough, no. But it is of course very important that the Ministry of Interior, right from October 7th,
01:30 took the decision to protect Jewish community sites, whether they're synagogues, whether
01:35 Jewish schools, etc.
01:39 But as you can see in the report, the problem is this time not only Jewish sites.
01:45 But it is in the private sphere and in schools in particular. And there I think more needs to be done.
01:53 More also needs to be done on the social media front.
01:57 We know that in particular young people are exposed to anti-semitic hate speech, in particular online, that some of the radicalization
02:06 in terms of anti-semitism is happening online.
02:10 And this is also why in particular young people are concerned, meaning that much of the anti-semitism is happening
02:18 either in schools or in universities.
02:20 You said at the beginning that this isn't a new problem.
02:24 It's a structural problem in France and perhaps in other countries in Europe as well. I was just wondering before
02:30 October the 7th, had you noticed the situation was worsening or had things in terms of the statistics at any rate
02:39 stayed fairly constant?
02:41 No, I mean we know basically when you look at the numbers of anti-semitic hate crimes,
02:48 basically since the beginning of the Second Intifada,
02:52 meaning the early years of 2000, France has really had a structural problem of
02:58 anti-semitism on the French territory.
03:01 So depending on the years, you can go from
03:07 300 anti-semitic acts to a thousand. We've never gone
03:12 beyond the number of 1,000 anti-semitic acts, which is the case now for this year.
03:19 But you know already 300 anti-semitic acts
03:22 represents nearly one anti-semitic act a day on average for a Jewish population that represents less than
03:30 1% of the total of all French people.
03:34 So again, the problem is structural, it has been structural for two decades
03:40 and more definitely needs to be done to fight this problem.
03:44 Now you are the Europe Director for the American Jewish Committee.
03:48 Are you seeing, I mean obviously the numbers in other parts of Europe are fairly comparable.
03:54 I mean, I've seen the numbers for Italy, I've seen the numbers for Belgium,
03:57 definitely going in similar direction to those of France.
04:01 Are there any bright spots, are there any countries in Europe that stand out for you and you say
04:06 these are countries that have got the situation under control, that have taken the necessary measures?
04:12 I just wonder whether there is any
04:14 perhaps more positive
04:17 interpretation of the figures in any of the other countries that you keep an eye on.
04:22 No, first of all, the problem of anti-semitism in particular since October 7 is really global.
04:28 It's not only in Europe, you can see it in the United States, you can see it in Australia, you can see it in Canada.
04:34 You can really see it all over the world.
04:37 By the way, when one of the first things that Hamas said after October 7th attack
04:43 was this was supposed to be a global intifada.
04:47 And we see much of this.
04:49 Are there bright spots in terms of security, in terms of anti-semitic hate crimes?
04:54 Yes, there are countries where it's much lower.
04:57 You have countries such as Poland, such as Hungary.
05:02 But there you have different forms of anti-semitism that don't necessarily mean anti-semitic violence, but you can have
05:09 Holocaust revisionism or you can have, you know, different forms of anti-semitism.
05:15 So overall I would say it's really a global problem that goes also, I think, hand in hand with
05:22 because anti-semitism is always to some extent the cannery in the coal mine.
05:26 And that goes, I think, with a larger problem of, you know, crises within our democracy, within our societies.
05:36 Anti-semitism is always the alert system of a larger problem within our societies.
05:43 And to some extent, this is, I think, what we are seeing across the world now.
05:46 And just lastly, any observations about the perpetrators?
05:50 I mean, in our report, it suggested that some of them are very young.
05:54 Some of this is happening in the schoolyard, really.
05:57 What are your observations?
06:00 Yes, we know that this is, again, this has been a problem for a long time.
06:04 Already two decades ago, we had a book that was released at the time that was called The Lost Territories of the Republic,
06:12 where it was already described that in some of the French schools, you cannot teach the Holocaust.
06:20 And students were refusing to want to hear about the history of France.
06:26 And I think this is a problem that we have seen.
06:29 And it's obviously very concerning because these are our future citizens.
06:34 Education, we know, is always the first place where anti-semitism can be combated as well.
06:42 So it is obviously very concerning.
06:45 And again, I think the role of social media and of social media companies in this regard is also very important,
06:52 because many young people today get most of the information on social media, on Facebook, on Twitter, now X, on TikTok.
07:01 And I think there, the responsibility of those companies is really huge because there is a huge amount of horrific anti-Semitic content that you can easily get today on social media.
07:13 OK, we're going to have to leave it there, but thank you for taking the time to speak to us, Simone Rodin-Bendekin.
07:17 Thank you very much indeed.