Mixedmessages fromMuslimpoll
MORE BRITISH Muslims believe that Jews, rather than Al Qaeda, were responsible for the 9/11 atrocity in New York — although the numbers subscribing to the antisemitic myth remain well below one in 10.
According to the “most comprehensive” poll of UK Muslims, seven per cent thought the attack on the Twin Towers in 2001 was carried out by “the Jews” compared to just four per cent who thought the perpetrators were Al Qaeda or a similar organisation.
As many as 31 per cent pinned the blame for 9/11 on America, while more than half, 52 per cent, said they did not know who was responsible.
In focus groups, some repeated the canard that no Jews were working in the building on the day it was hit, while one young woman in Slough, Berkshire, said the attack was “Israel’s way of coming power king of things, they’re joined up with America and it’s getting rid of the Muslims”.
Another focus group participant talked of seeing a picture on the internet of Abu Bakr al-Baghadi, the leader of Daesh, “sitting in meetings” with Mossad and MI5.
Susceptibility to conspiracy theo- ries was described as a “more troubling” implication by the authors of the report, published by the think-tank Policy Exchange.
But stressing the diversity and complexity of views among British Muslims, they said the overwhelming majority feel a strong sense of belonging to Britain.
While Muslims were more religious and socially conservative than the general population, social conservatism was not the same as extremism.
Despite their religious outlook, the lifestyles of most British Muslims was “essentially secular” in character.
The vast majority, 90 per cent, condemned terrorist violence, with only two per cent sympathetic to it (compared with four per cent of the British population in general).
Only one in five Muslims would turn to a Muslim organisation to influence local or government officials, and it was felt organisations such as the Muslim Council of Britain carried “little national clout”.
Seven per cent believed Jews were behind 9/11