Michael Whine: The abiding threat to Jews worldwide

Michael Whine is Government and International Affairs Director of the CST.

A recent report by the Community Security Trust, the charity which advises the British Jewish community on security, makes sobering reading. Terrorist Incidents against Jewish Communites and Israeli Citizens Abroad 1968-2010 lists attacks and foiled plots in 57 countries over this period, with the largest number occuring in France (51 attacks), the USA (34 attacks) and Italy (33 attacks). Jewish communities were the targets in 250 attacks or foiled attacks, whereas Israel-linked institutions and individuals were the target in 189 cases. Of the former, synagogues were the targets of 88 actual and attempted terror attacks, while Jewish schools were targets on 16 occasions.

The early 1980s saw the highest number of attacks, which coincided with the largest number of terror attacks against all other targets. This was the era of the revolutionary Marxist-Leninist terror groups that evolved out of the post-1968 New Left movement, which received help from Soviet Bloc states and which forged ideological and tactical alliances with Palestinian terror groups.