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In recent years, Foxman said, the organized Jewish community has been too tolerant of Jewish hatred in the Arab world because the Israeli government turned the other cheek in order to advance the peace process. However, Foxman said, Israel and the Jewish community must realize now that anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic incitement is partly to blame for the current crisis.

It is time to have a "much higher standard of intolerance" for Arab and Muslim anti-Jewish sentiment, Foxman said, and "the same standards should apply" to the Arab world as to European countries.

"We need to put it higher up on the agenda," he said.