Racial, Ethnic, and Xenophobic Violence

While religious hatred has featured prominently among incidents of hate violence in regions of conflict in the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa, and in other more stable nations, racial, ethnic, and xenophobic violence is also a global problem. In the Western world, it is arguably one of the most dominant forms of hate violence. There is a long history of racist violence in the United States, beginning with brutal warfare between early settlers and Native Americans. In some European countries, extremism, as a determinant of hate violence, appears to be on the rise. Violence against Jews is nested in widespread denigration and bigotry. Just before the 2014 conflict was being waged between Israel and Hamas, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL 2014) reported the results of a worldwide survey of attitudes toward Jews.