Tag: anti-Semitism

Notorious serial hater David Duke has been arrested in Germany and is facing deportation.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit that tracks hate groups and fights discrimination cases, describes Duke as the “most recognizable figure of the American radical right, a neo-Nazi, longtime Klan leader and now international spokesman for Holocaust denial.”

The swastika now shows up so often as a generic symbol of hatred that the Anti-Defamation League, in its annual tally of hate crimes against Jews, will no longer automatically count its appearance as an act of anti-Semitism.

“The swastika has morphed into a universal symbol of hate,” said Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish advocacy organization. “Today it’s used as an epithet against African-Americans, Hispanics and gays, as well as Jews, because it is a symbol which frightens.”

Observing the trend, he said that his group had decided it would examine reports of scrawled swastikas for contextual clues. If it appears Jews were not the target, the incident will not be included in the league’s annual audit of anti-Semitic hate crimes.

The acting mayor of Amsterdam, Lodewijk Asscher, wants to look into the possibility of using so-called ‘decoy Jews’ to combat anti-Semitic violence.

The approach is in line with Asscher’s intention to look for unorthodox measures in the city’s fight against intolerance and violence toward gays and Jews, his spokesman said Monday.