Anti-Semitism is Rearing its Ugly Head Again

Anti-Antisemitism is firmly rooted in the minds of young Muslims. A whopping 80% of them state that Jews (mind you, not just Israelis but all Jews!) cannot be trusted.

The Youth Research Platform (JOP), an initiative of the Flemish government, conducted a poll under the supervision of Professor of Sociology Mr. Marck Elchardus of the Free University of Brussels (Vrije Universiteit Brussel). 

The conclusions are upsetting to say the least. The level of anti-Antisemitism is staggering. According to the poll results, around 10% of non-Muslims and 45%-50% of Muslim youth is anti-Semitic.

This means that half of the Flemish Muslim youngsters are anti-Semitic. This estimation is even on the low side, considering that many of the polled youngsters did not even “partly agree” with negative statements about Jews in the poll. The real number of anti-Semitic Flemish youngsters is therefore closer to 75%. In the beautiful city of Antwerp, this number is even 85%.

Some examples:

• Half (50%) of the Muslim youngsters do fully agree and another quarter(25%) partly agree with the statement that Jews instigate war and then blame others.
• Two thirds of the polled Muslim youngsters think that the Jews want dominance over everything.
• 80% of polled Muslim youth is of the opinion that you should pay extra attention when you do business with Jews.
• Close to 75% of the respondents state that Jews have too much influence in Flanders, Belgium. The same percentage states that they are of the opinion that Jews consider themselves to be superior to everybody else.

The poll also included two positive statements: “Jews are industrious” and “Jews can be trusted to the same degree as non-Jews”. Less than 30% agreed with the statement that Jews are industrious. Only 20% think that Jews can be trusted to the same degree as non-Jews.

Countless tweets and reactions in online articles contain blatant hate statements. Councilman Ali Özyürek (City of Arnhem, the Netherlands) thinks that it is not as bad as it looks, and politicians of Moroccan decent such as AhmedMarcouch point out that the widespread anti-Semitism under Dutch Muslims is just “fear mongering”. 

As the poll illustrates, Muslims in Western Europe are anti-Semitic regardless of their personal traits, education level of their parents, educations, language skills, media use, income level per household or the city they reside in.

Conclusion: Anti-Semitism among young Muslims is a fundamental, deep rooted and universal problem. So how will we deal with it? Let's not repeat the mistakes of the 1930s!

(Source used: the excellent opinion piece by Bart Schut in Paris for the VK, image courtesy of www.sanfranciscosentenial.com)