Rise in recorded antisemitic hate crimes in Milton Keynes following Hamas-Israel conflict

Police in Thames Valley, the force that covers Milton Keynes, have recorded a rise in antisemitic hate crimes following the outbreak of the Hamas-Israel conflict last year, new figures show.

The number of antisemitic hate crimes recorded by many of the UK’s largest police forces jumped sharply in the same time period.

Jewish charities called the findings "shocking" and called on perpetrators to be identified and prosecuted.

Figures obtained by the PA news agency from Freedom of Information requests sent to all forces in the UK show 21 antisemitic hate crimes were recorded by Thames Valley Police between October 7 and November 7.

This was up from just one in the same time period the year before.

Meanwhile, 20 Islamophobic hate crimes were recorded by police in Thames Valley in the month following Hamas' attack – up from 14 the year before.

The Community Security Trust said the figures made clear the extent of the “unacceptable rise in anti-Jewish hatred” across the country since the Hamas terror attack on October 7.

A spokesman for the Jewish charity said: "This wave of antisemitism was triggered by the mass murder, rape and kidnapping of Jews in Israel, and is fuelled and sustained by extremist hatred online and on our streets.

"It is essential that perpetrators are identified and prosecuted, and that wider society shows its disgust for this racist hate crime."

Tell Mama, an organisation that monitors and works to tackle anti-Muslim sentiment and abuse in the UK, said levels of anti-Muslim hatred and discrimination “deeply worrying”, impacting trust in authorities and their sense of identity and belonging.

Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Police, the largest force in the UK, said delays prevented it from supplying full figures until the new year, but it had previously reported 218 antisemitic hate crimes between October 1 and 18 this year, compared with 15 in the same period in 2022.

Methods for recording hate crime are not consistent across forces, so the data cannot be used to compare the number of offences between different areas or provide an overall total for the whole of the UK.

.