The rise of the CAA - when good PR and bad statistics mix

The Campaign Against Anti-semitism is a fairly new grassroots organisation combating antisemitism. Previously it organised rallies such as this one. However, as I explained last week, it's recent survey, which has made all sorts of headlines, was deeply flawed. And it seems the experts agree...

Some quotes on the CAA's anti-Semitism survey

1.    Social Scientist Dr Keith Kahn-Harris - it was ‘methodologically invalid. There can be no confidence in its representativeness.’

2.     Jonathan Boyd, Director of Jewish Policy Research – ‘They haven’t done some key and fairly basic parts of the process.’
 
3.     Dr Michael Pinto Duschnisky – ‘These figures are not to be trusted’
 
4.     Jewish Policy Research statement – ‘The organisation’s survey about antisemitism is littered with flaws, and in the context of a clear need for accurate data on this topic, its work may even be rather irresponsible… quite basic methodological flaws and weaknesses
 

And while we're at it...

1. The CAA website claims that in July 2014, 95% of hate crimes in London were against Jews. This is false. The figure is only true if limited to faith hate crimes in July, and even then there is no breakdown of the number. And if we look at 2014 as a whole, there were 13,000 hate crimes, of which only 358 antisemitic. That’s not 95% - it’s not even 5%.