Well, I would argue exactly what you’re arguing, about anti-semitism in the UK generally being about lack of understanding, etc.
However, I’d also add that most people in the UK simply don’t think about Judaism enough to be anti it. The current scapegoat is Muslims (and, as always, the working class), and Jewish people are pretty much ignored.
BTW, you said ‘nothing in the linked articles indicates that the anti-semitism displayed originated among Muslim immigrants and simply denying reality hardly makes your point.’
The Jewish school in that article was in Manchester; Manchester has a high number of Muslim residents, especially in its young people. In the 2001 census, 43% of the residents near the Jewish school in Manchester described themselves as Muslim. Not sure this link will work - from the directgov site. It also gives the stats for other religions.
Even if you made the reality-denying assumption that the Muslims in that area were evenly distributed across the ages, that means there are more Muslims near that school than any other religion. So yes, actually, there are fairly good odds that the kids harrassing the Jewish schoolkids are Muslim.
Many Muslim Brits are only a generation or two from not being British, and, while I definitely do not think this means they’re not British (they are British), it does mean they’re growing up in a somewhat different culture to white CofE or Catholic Brits who mostly don’t care about religion, or to other minorities. I mean, if I moved to India and raised my kids there, they’d be raised in a somewhat different culture to other Indians too.
Basically, the small increase in anti-semitism in Britain could be entirely down to the increase in the number of Muslims, although that’s not because because all Muslims are born hating Jews or anything ridiculous like that. Thanks to Israel and Palestine, there are fairly concrete reasons for strife between Muslims and Jews as well as good old-fashioned prejudice - and IME, immigrants and ex-pats tend to not only pack their prejudices with them but give them their own seat on the plane. This is very true of Brits abroad, btw; it’s a human thing, not tied to any religion or ethnicity.
Plus, like I said, Muslims are the current scapegoat in the UK; it’s hardly surprising if this, in turn, results in more attacks by a tiny number of Muslims on the old enemy, Jews, who are a visible minority (when it comes to schools or synagogues or the significant Hassidic communities in places like London) and an easy target. And one person making 30 attacks counts as much in the stats as 30 people making 30 attacks.
