Media, Police Pump Up “Islamophobia” Numbers, Ignore Higher Anti-Semitic Attacks

Islamophobia
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The mainstream media howled with outrage this morning, republishing the Metropolitan Police’s press release talking up the “rise” in “Islamophobic” attacks in Britain’s capital over the last year. The problems however, are that the police won’t release the details of the Islamophobic incidents, and for some reason, they buried the greater rise in anti-Semitic attacks in London over the past year.

“Islamophobic crime in London ‘up by 70%’” screamed the BBC.

“Hate crimes against Muslims soar in London,” roared the Guardian.

“Islamophobic Britain: Where Muslim women are spat on, punched and covered in faeces,” exclaimed the Telegraph.

And worse still, the Metropolitan Police themselves headlined their press release: “Met’s response to rise in Islamophobic hate crime in London”.

Odd, isn’t it? Given that while Islamophobia apparently rose by 70.7 per cent (478 reported offences in 2014, compared with 816 offences this year), the number of racist attacks against Jewish people was actually up by 93.4 per cent (from 258 attacks to 499).

So while the numbers are lower, that sounds to me like the increase in anti-Semitic attacks is steeper than the increase in Islamophobia. Both, however, are a minute percentage of the total 13,007 hate crimes reported in the last year.

So why would the Metropolitan Police be so keen to promote the anti-Islamic attacks, and squash the anti-Jewish figures? And why are mainstream journalists following the police in tow?

No, I don’t actually know either.

But it is worth noting that there are only around 300,000 Jewish people in the United Kingdom, and about 3 million Muslims here.

This means that there has been one anti-Semitic attack in London for every 601 Jewish people in the United Kingdom. There has been one Islamophobic attack in London for every 3,676 Muslims in the United Kingdom.

This shouldn’t be a case of “my co-religionists are more under threat than yours”, but it should put this stuff in perspective a little bit. And our media, and our police, should be ashamed of this counterfactual scaremongering.

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