new paper reviewing surveys of Western European attitudes towards Jews, published by the Institute for the Study of Global Anti-Semitism and Policy (ISGAP), found that “antisemitic (sic) attitudes are significantly more widespread among Muslims than among other segments of European societies. Perpetrators of the most extreme cases of violence against European Jews in recent years were Muslims.” This is no surprise to Jews who are subject to a rising number of Muslim attacks and harassment throughout Western Europe. France in particular has witnessed innocent Jews being slaughtered by Muslim jihadists simply because they were Jews, as tragically exemplified by the massacre of four Jews in a kosher supermarket in Paris last January.
The ISGAP analysis debunks the politically correct tripe that such attacks do not reflect Islam, but are instead the acts of disaffected individuals whose extremism has hijacked Islam for their own purposes. The author of the paper found that the attitudinal surveys he reviewed demonstrated that “the interpretation of Islam seems to be highly relevant. Antisemitic (sic) attitudes are particularly strong among believing and practicing Muslims and correlate with authoritarian, ‘fundamentalist’ interpretations of Islam.”
President Obama’s explanation for what he has called “violent extremism” relies on the false premise that socioeconomic issues such as lack of jobs and discrimination are the underlying causes of terrorism committed in the name of Islam. The Muslim religion has nothing to do with the violence, says Obama. Based on the data from the surveys cited in the ISGAP paper, this whitewashing explanation is not supported by the evidence.
One of the studies that the ISGAP paper’s author reviewed was published in France by Fondapol (Fondation pour l’innovation politique) in November 2014. The study was based on a survey that included 575 people who said they were born into a Muslim family, aged 16 and over, and another survey of a sample of 1,005 people over age 16 said to be representative of the French population as a whole. While sampling methodology issues may have affected the precise accuracy of the polling data and increased the margin of error, the trends the surveys found, even with a larger margin of error taken into account, are highly revealing.
The Fondapol study found a higher prevalence of anti-Semitic attitudes amongst the Muslim population in France than amongst the entire French population, although anti-Semitism was found on both the extreme left and extreme right as well. “Muslim respondents were two and even three times more anti-Jewish than French people as a whole,” according to the Fondapol study.
The surveys asked respondents whether they agreed or disagreed with the following statements in order to measure comparative attitudes towards Jews:
1) Jews today use their status as victims of Nazi genocide during World War II in their own interest.
2) Jews have too much power in the economic and financial sector.
3) Jews have too much power in the media.
4) Jews have too much power in the political domain.
5) Jews are responsible for the current economic crisis.
6) There is a worldwide Zionist conspiracy.
The Fondapol survey also documents the correlation between Muslim anti-Semitism and religious belief. According to the survey’s findings, “While there were no significant differences in Muslim responses on the basis of age, education or social status, anti-Semitic views tended to correlate with the intensity of Muslim religiosity: 37 percent of those born in a Muslim family without religious involvement thought Jews had too much political power, but 49 percent of Muslim believers thought so, and 63 percent of believing and practicing Muslims.”
Anti-Semitism is central to the supremacist ideology of Islam. Consider, for example, this teaching from the Hadith (compiled sayings and teachings of Prophet Muhammad), which Hamas has incorporated into its charter:
It was narrated that Ibn ‘Umar (may Allaah be pleased with him) said: ‘I heard the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) say, ‘The Jews will fight you and you will prevail over them, then a rock will say, ‘O Muslim, here is a Jew behind me, (come and) kill him.’” (Narrated by al-Bukhaari, no. 3593).
Imams in mosques throughout Western Europe regularly preach hatred against Jews. Islamic scholars, considered authoritative in the Muslim world and “moderate” in the Western press, such as Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi, regularly justify violence against Jews as part and parcel of core Islamic beliefs. According to a Pew Research Center study on Muslim Networks and Movements in Western Europe, the most prominent of “Islamic theologians with a significant profile in Western Europe” may indeed be Yusuf al-Qaradawi. He is particularly popular among younger Muslims in Western Europe as well as North America, a pool from which ISIS is drawing to replenish its ranks.
In a January 2009 speech which aired on Al Jazeera, al-Qaradawi said the following about Jews:
Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the [Jews] people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by Hitler. By means of all the things he did to them – even though they exaggerated this issue – he managed to put them in their place. This was divine punishment for them. Allah willing, the next time will be at the hands of the believers.
In short, anti-Semitic attacks in Europe over the past 15 years have been perpetrated predominately by Muslims. Their jihad flows directly from the core teachings of Islam as codified and promulgated down through the centuries and endorsed today by leading Muslim clerics and scholars.
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