UPCOMING RESEARCH ARTICLES (2021)
Anti-Semitism in Australia
Matteo Vergani, Dan Goodhardt, Rouven Link, Amy Adamczyk, Joshua Freilich, Steven Chermak
Previous research established that trigger mechanisms such as distinguishability (i.e., events triggering target group visibility), stimuli (i.e., events triggering out-group salience) and organizations (i.e., the presence of hate groups) are associated with variation in hate incidents against minorities. However, no research to date has explored whether different trigger mechanisms are associated with qualitatively different types of criminal and non-criminal hate incidents. We used data from an Australian community register to build a database containing 673 incidents, including both criminal and non-criminal anti-Semitic acts that occurred between October 2013 and September 2017. We found that the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict, Jewish religious festivals, and the presence of the hate group Antipodean Resistance were significantly associated with an increase in reported incidents. Additionally, we found that incidents that occurred during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict were significantly more likely to target Israel and Zionism rather than the Jewish religious identity, more likely to involve propaganda materials (such as leaflets, stickers and posters), and more likely to involve more serious violence or threat of violence. Incidents that occurred during Jewish religious festivals were more likely to involve in-person forms of hate speech (that is, verbal abuse and offensive gestures). Incidents that occurred after the establishment of Antipodean Resistance were more likely to involve propaganda materials (such as leaflets, stickers and posters), more likely to be claimed by the hate group, and less likely to be violent or involve the threat of violence. We propose that these differences reflect the diversity of ideological groups with which different offenders identify.