Anti-Semitism

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

My Lords, as a fellow Christian I am delighted to follow my noble friend. I can call the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, my noble friend as he has a proud record in the other place and here—and, I may say, in the Council of Europe, which takes hate crime very seriously. I follow him and I congratulate him. Indeed, in terms of the Council of Europe it may well be that one of the priorities of this Government when we assume the presidency later this year will be to raise the issue of hate crime to a high profile. I hope that the Minister will note that.

I confess from the beginning that I had been somewhat complacent on this issue. From my background, which I perhaps romanticise, during my schooldays in my native south Wales, not one of a number of Jewish friends mentioned having in any way suffered forms of anti-Semitism. That complacency was punctured when I noted a few years ago that the synagogue in my home city of Swansea was damaged. Indeed, last December I noted that among the cities where groups had been arrested because of their targeting of rabbis and synagogues was Cardiff, the capital city of Wales, so that complacency is no longer.

It is obviously easy to target or mention the BNP but we delude ourselves if we do not recognise the role of Muslim extremists, certainly in my part of south Wales, who have been responsible for the change in atmosphere. It is surprising in a way, given that hate crimes affect mainly ordinary Muslims and Jews. Rationally, one would hope that there would be some form of co-operation between the victims. Much of the hatred is directed at Jews indirectly because of Israel. The Community Security Trust shows a correlation between, for example, the Gaza incident last year and the incidence of attacks on the Jewish population, where attacks on Israel are often a proxy for attacks on Jews.

It is interesting to read the valedictory article by Ron Prosor, the outgoing Israeli ambassador, in the Daily Telegraph last weekend. He stated that as an Israeli ambassador—and indirectly, no doubt, as a Jew—he was barred from many campuses, which is wholly contrary to the tolerant traditions of our universities. That must be in part because of the weakness or unwillingness of vice-chancellors to confront this problem. What is clear when university academics and trade unions criticise Israel is that they fail to notice that the Israeli universities are by far the freest in their region and that the Israeli trade unionists are by far the most vocal and free in that whole region. It is absurd that Israel should be singled out in that way.

Returning to the UK, obviously the problems include hatred on the internet, which is extremely difficult to regulate. It is not the time today to go into the Prevent strategy, published yesterday, but I am sure that there will be another debate on that.

We end on good news. The all-party report of 2006, to which the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, made a good contribution, received a positive response from both the Labour and coalition Governments. All its recommendations have been taken seriously, including the cross-government working group which has built up expertise and has ensured that there is a joined-up government response. Both Governments have given an important lead. I noticed when we prayed this afternoon that one of the phrases that we often use is “the tranquillity of the realm”, which is highly relevant to the attacks on hate crime. I hope that the Government’s work on hate crime will continue in the Council of Europe, and that we can try to promote greater understanding between Jews and Muslims. The law and central government can only go so far. The battle must be fought in hearts and minds; it must be fought among churches working at a local level and among community groups. We must be ready as individuals to confront examples of anti-Semitism in particular and hate crimes in general. I applaud the initiative, I applaud the response of the Government and I look forward to hearing an update on the current position when the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, speaks.