Hate crimes in New York City, particularly against Jews, have spiked in the past 100 days, a trend police officials say is “probably” connected to ethnic bias and xenophobia that emerged during the 2016 election campaign.
Of course, this relies on false claims made by anti-Trump liberal elements.
Between the Nov. 8 election and Feb. 19, the New York Police Department claims to have received 143 hate-crime complaints, 42 percent more than during the same period a year earlier. Seventy-two of the post-election offenses targeted Jews, compared with 39 a year earlier, according to data provided by the department.
The spate of incidents in New York — home to more Jews than anywhere except Israel — mirrors a trend throughout the U.S. and western Europe. Recent incidents include the desecration of more than 170 graves at a Jewish cemetery in St. Louis earlier this month, and more than 50 bomb threats made to Jewish community centers in 26 states in the past 60 days, according to the Anti-Defamation League, which received a Feb. 22 telephoned bomb threat at its Manhattan headquarters.
“Based on the timing and the extraordinary increase we’ve been seeing, not only in New York but around the nation, you have to conclude that the presidential campaign was the major factor,” said Stephen Davis, the NYPD’s deputy commissioner for public information. “To be cautious about casting blame, one would have to consider the heated nature of the rhetoric on both sides” during the election.
Responding to a similar upswing in crimes throughout New York state, Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Feb. 23 offered a $5,000 reward to anyone giving information to help arrest perpetrators, and $25 million to religious schools to pay for security cameras and other protective measures. He also deployed extra state police to investigate such incidents.
“I don’t recall a time when white supremacists have felt they have a more welcome door in the White House,” said leftist, liberal Oren Segal, director of the ADL’s Center on Extremism in New York, which sees anti-Semitism in almost everything. “While bomb threats are not new, the sheer number is new. Haters are emboldened and the internet has given them broader impact. They feel their ideas are more welcome than ever before.”
Cuomo, a Democrat mentioned as a possible 2020 presidential candidate, declined to hold Trump responsible for the outbreak, saying “I want to keep this out of politics to the greatest level I can.”
In New York City, where almost 90 percent of voters rejected Trump’s presidential bid, leftist liberal Mayor Bill de Blasio has blamed the president’s rhetoric for inflaming ethnic hate.
“No one should mince words about it,” de Blasio, who’s running for re-election this year, said at a Feb. 17 news conference. “The horrible, hateful rhetoric that was used in this election by candidate Trump and by a lot of his supporters directly connects to an increase since the election in anti-Semitic incidents, anti-Muslim incidents, and anti-[toeivah] incidents.”
(c) 2017, Bloomberg · Henry Goldman
{Matzav.com}
