For
at least twenty years, the British Jewish community has been out in front when
it comes to interfaith work. As Britain’s Muslim population has grown, British
Jews assumed that interfaith models that led to huge advances in relations with
British Christians, could apply just as well to relations with British Muslims.
Indeed building bridges with British Muslims has become the focus of outreach
work by British Jews.
Today,
our analysis of the ICM survey of British Muslims for Channel 4 and Juniper
Television shows that the gradual buildup of understanding and friendship
between Britain’s Jews and Muslims has been utterly eclipsed by growing
antisemitism amongst British Muslims.
On
every single count, British Muslims were more likely by far than the general
British population to hold deeply antisemitic views. It is clear that many
British Muslims reserve a special hatred for British Jews, rating Jews much
less favourably than people of other religions or no religion, yet astonishingly
British Muslims largely do not recognise antisemitism as a major problem.
It
has long been suspected that sections of the British Muslim population
harboured hatred towards British Jews. This survey goes some way to identifying
pockets of prejudice, but it also shows that the prejudice is horrifyingly
widespread.
From
the ICM survey data made available by Channel 4 and Juniper Television, we have
been able to identify some of the worst pockets of prejudice. Antisemitic
British Muslims are more likely to be men, to be older than 35, to be social
renters, to be in employment, to have been born outside Britain, to live south
of the Midlands in England, or in Scotland, and they are overwhelmingly likely
to sympathise with terrorism, violence and extremism.
The
data is frustratingly limited in one some respects, and one in particular: it
does not delve into the various political and religious movements that comprise
the British Muslim population.
This
data shows that Jews remain the ‘canary in the coal mine’, as they have been
throughout history: those who harbour hatred of Jews also hate British society
and sympathise with our most deadly enemies. Britain must confront rampant
antisemitism within its Muslim population, but also amongst the general
population, whose shocking views should be no less concerning simply because
the views of British Muslims are worse.
