Muslimattitudestowards antisemitism‘disturbing’

BRITISH MUSLIMS ARE more likely to support antisemitic conspiracy theories than other citizens, a wide-reaching poll has found.

Extensive research by polling group ICM for Channel 4 revealed that many Muslims believed Jewish people had too much power over government, media, the business world, international financial markets, and global affairs. Jews were also said to be responsible for most of the world’s wars.

The poll, conducted for Wednesday’s documentary What British Muslims Really Think, also found that attitudes to antisemitism and the Holocaust differed between British Muslims and the wider population.

Asked whether they thought antisemitism was a problem in the UK today, 26 per cent of 1,081 British Muslims it was — compared to 46 per cent of the 1,008 people in the poll’s control group, representative of the average British citizen.

The poll found that more than a third of British Muslims “agreed” with the suggestion Jewish people had too much power in Britain. The national average in agreement was only nine per cent.

When it came to the media, 39 per cent of Muslims felt Jews had too much power, compared to 10 per cent nationally. There were similar findings in relation to “Jewish power” in business.

More than 40 per cent of British Muslims said Jews were more loyal to Israel than the UK, while one in three said Jewish people talk “too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust”. The poll found that 27 per cent of Muslims in this country believed people “hate Jews because of the way Jews behave”.

The study showed a small number of British Muslims had sympathy with suicide bombers and around a quarter expressed a desire for Sharia law in this country.

Trevor Phillips, the former head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, hosted the documentary. He said the findings were “extremely worrying”. On many issues, Muslims were a “nation within a nation,” he claimed.

The Board of Deputies said the poll results were “certainly disturbing” and indicated a need to “redouble our efforts in the field of interfaith work and education to ensure that our communities are able to co-exist harmoniously”.

Jewish Leadership Council chief executive Simon Johnson said: “It is sad that ancient stereotypes still play out in society at large and in particular within parts of the Muslim community.”