So the sum total of what the U.K. is doing to put a halt to current levels of anti-Semitism on U.K. campuses? They’re wagging their fingers and saying “shame.”
Although the government has again said that it “deplores” any attempts to target Jewish students at British universities, it stepped back from recommending any new hardline measures against student or academic activities deemed to be anti-semitic.
Instead ministers, responding to a report on anti-semitism published last year by the all-party parliamentary inquiry, have reiterated that universities should adopt existing guidance from both the government and Universities UK, the organisation that represents vice-chancellors, on how to tackle hate crime and incidents involving extremist groups.
The government also reminded university governing bodies that under race relations legislation they have a statutory duty to produce a race equality policy, which sets out how they intend to prevent racial discrimination and promote good race relations on campus.
That’ll show ’em.
No wonder Iraq captured 15 British sailors. They knew the Lion of Britain has no teeth.
The report also agreed with the party’s conclusions that while the issue of anti-semitism is taken seriously by universities the “practice is not consistent across the sector.”
But the government failed to endorse the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia’s (EUMC) definition of anti-semitism on the grounds that it was a “work in progress.”
The EUMC, now the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, defines anti-semitism as the expression of hatred towards Jews, their property and Jewish community institutions and religious facilities. More contentiously, it adds “such manifestations could also target the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity”.
The Union of Jewish Students’ campaign director, Mitch Simmons, said the government report was a “major step and valuable”.
But he was disappointed that the government and MPs had failed to address the issue that some universities fail to take up incidents of anti-semitism raised by the student union because they believe the organisation is separate to the university.
The British police don’t even report all incidents of anti-Semitism.
Time to go, Jews of Britain. The Jews of France are already fleeing by the thousands. (Holy crap! Joe updated his blog!)