I was shocked by the letter (17 December) from Tony Greenstein and others about the government adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism. The letter said: “The new definition has nothing to do with opposing antisemitism, it is merely designed to silence public debate on Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians. Antisemitic incidents comprise about 2% of all hate crime. Why then the concentration on antisemitism and not on Islamophobia, which is far more widespread?”

Those assertions are all either misleading or false and seem to say that antisemitism in Britain doesn’t matter. It is true that religiously based hate crime represents a very small percentage of all hate crime. In 2015 out of about 66,000 hate crimes in the UK, about 5,000 were on grounds of religion and, of those, about 1,000 attacks each were antisemitic and Islamophobic. Both types of attack are as abhorrent as each other. The British Jewish population is less than 10% of the size of the British Muslim population, so the Jewish community is facing far more frequent racist attacks pro rata than the Muslim community. In fact, the attacks on the Jewish community are concentrated on those who are easily identified as being Jewish, including those going to or from Jewish community centres, events or synagogues. Secular Jews are frequently unaware of such attacks.

The new definition of antisemitism that the government has adopted specifically states that “criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic”. It does, however, define “applying double standards by requiring of it a behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation” as antisemitic. Is that what they want to do?

There is nothing in the new definition that would stifle legitimate criticism of Israel. When unjustified criticism of Israel is published in the media, such as the false report of a massacre in Jenin, antisemitic attacks in the UK increase, so this new definition is needed. Islamophobia does not increase in response to reports of the Israel-Palestine dispute. It does increase in response to reports of jihadi attacks in the west. That is also unfair on Muslims in Britain who are strongly opposed to terrorism. But it is no reason to make light of antisemitism in Britain.

Stephen Franklin

London

• Deplorable though the Netanyahu government’s settlement policy is, the description by the usual pro-BDS suspects of Israel as “an apartheid state” is ludicrous. This is a country whose minority Arab citizens have, and exercise, the vote, are represented in the Knesset, local government, the judiciary, academia and the press, and whose religion, whether Muslim or Christian, is freely practised.

That is not to say more does not need to be done to enhance provision for Israel’s Arab citizens, especially the Bedouin, but it would be a welcome change if those who constantly denounce Israel for failings real, exaggerated or imagined spent a fraction of their energy protesting about the slaughter in Syria, many of whose citizens are being treated in Israeli hospitals, or the actions of Hamas and Hezbollah.

Jeremy Beecham

Labour, House of Lords

• My question to the letter’s signatories is simple: how many of you have actually visited Israel? If you have had any kind of in-depth visit to Israel, you must have noticed how many Arabs study at its universities. How many of the doctors and teachers are Arab. How many checkout staff in the supermarkets are Arab, working side by side with Israelis. Do you see separate seating on buses and in public places for Arabs and non-Arabs? No. That is what apartheid was, and it is not practised in any shape or form in Israel.

Ann Levin

Ra’anana, Israel

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