A SINISTER alliance has developed between far-Right groups and Islamist extremists who are united in their hatred of Jews, Israel and Zionism and are contributing to increasing anti-Semitism in Britain.

A report criticises police forces for failing adequately to monitor anti-Jewish incidents. It calls on the Crown Prosecution Service to investigate why fewer than one in ten reported incidents leads to a prosecution.

The report was published after The Times revealed that conflict in the Middle East had led to a surge in anti-Semitism. It says that Britain’s 300,000 Jews are “more anxious and more vulnerable to abuse and attack than at any other time for a generation or longer”.

It refers to “anti-Semitic discourse”, defined as a “widespread change in mood and tone when Jews are discussed, whether in print or broadcast, at universities, or in public or social settings”.

But it expresses particular concern about a new, “symbiotic” relationship between the traditional perpetrators of anti-Semitism — the far Right and some Islamist extremists — who are united in their hatred of all things Jewish.

It found that Arabic translations of Mein Kampf and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion were stocked in Arabic bookshops in London.

Of particular concern to the inquiry was anti-Semitism on campuses, with literature being distributed that called for the killing of Jews and the destruction of Israel.

The report, published today, calls on the Government, the media, academics, politicians and community leaders to understand and treat anti-Semitism in the same way as any other form of racism.

It recommends that an interdepartmental task force be set up to combat anti-Semitism, involving local government. It calls for more research into the correlation between attacks on Jews in Britain and events in the Middle East. All police forces should be required to record anti-Semitic incidents, it says.

The All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Anti-Semitism was set up last year. None of the 14 members of the panel is Jewish, but evidence was taken from across the Jewish community.The report proposes that it be made an offence to download material from the internet that could incite racial or religious hatred.

Drawing on the view of the Macpherson report that a racist act is defined by its victim, not by whether a perpetrator considers himself racist, anti-Semitism is defined in the report as “any remark, insult or act, the purpose or effect of which is to violate a Jewish person’s dignity or create an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for him”.

Examples in the report include insults, neo-Nazi graffiti and Jews being attacked on their way to synagogue.

The author Howard Jacobson wrote in his submission of “a certain grinding, low level of anti-Semitism all Jews learn to live with”.

The inquiry uncovered calls for the killing of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or extremist religion and the demonisation of Jews through conspiracy myths and Holocaust denial. There was a tendency to compare Israeli policies to those of the Nazis, and to hold Jews collectively responsible for the actions of Israel.

The Labour MP Denis MacShane, the panel chairman, had held a meeting with Muslims in Yorkshire soon after the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US. He told the inquiry of his surprise when professionals at the meeting claimed that “no Jew reported for work in the twin towers on September 11”.

The report says: “The essence of these conspiracy theories has been to portray the Jews as sinister and secretive, manipulating events . . . to serve their assumed self-interest.”

The committee was sent material broadcast on Arab and Iranian television in which children are incited to engage in jihad against Jews.

Sir Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi, told the committee that Britain was manifestly not an anti-Semitic society: “It is one of the least anti-Semitic societies in the world.”

Henry Grunwald, the President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said, however, that there were probably “greater concerns now about anti-Semitism than there have been for many decades”. Figures from the Community Security Trust showed 455 anti-Semitic incidents last year, the second-highest figure since records began in 1984.

The Home Office should report annually to Parliament on the extent of anti-Semitism, the inquiry said.

The report made it clear, however, that criticism of Israel should not be regarded as anti-Semitic.

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