The doubling of sports-related anti-Semitism last year led to the first increase in overall anti-Semitic incidents in three years in the Netherlands.
In its annual monitor report on anti-Semitism, released Thursday, the Hague-based Center for Information and Documentation on Israel, or CIDI, counted 114 cases in 2012 compared to 113 cases the previous year. Thus, “2012 put an end to a two-year decline registered in 2010 and 2011 in the overall number of anti-Semitic incidents,” the Dutch-Jewish watchdog group reported.
Sports-related incidents accounted for 10 percent of the total figure in 2012, compared to less than 5 percent the previous year. Six of the cases documented in 2012 involved violence or physical intimidation compared to four incidents in 2011.
Two people told CIDI they intended to leave the Netherlands because of anti-Semitism, the report also said. Earlier this month, Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans said that “even in the city of Amsterdam, anti-Semitism is being justified because of real and perceived injustices in the Middle East.”
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