British
Muslims are more likely to support antisemitic conspiracy theories than other
British citizens, a wide-reaching poll has found.
Extensive
research by polling group
ICM for Channel 4 found that the Muslim community is more likely to believe
that Jewish people have too much power in Britain and 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
findings, which were conducted ahead of the broadcast on Wednesday of a
documentary, What
British Muslims Really Think, also found that attitudes to antisemitism and
the Holocaust broadly differed between British Muslims and the wider
population.
Asked
whether they thought antisemitism was a problem in Britain today, only 26 per
cent of 1,081 British Muslims who took part in the poll said they would
describe it as “a problem” – compared to 46 per cent of the 1,008 people in the
poll’s control group, representative of the average UK citizen.
The
poll also examined reaction to antisemitic conspiracy theories. It found that
35 per cent of British Muslims “agreed” with the suggestion that Jewish people
have too much power in Britain – compared to just nine per cent in the national
average.
Thirty
one per cent agreed that Jews have too much power in government compared to
seven per cent in the national average; 39 per cent of Muslims felt Jewish
people have too much power over the media, compared to 10 per cent nationally;
while 44 per cent of British Muslims said Jews have too much power in business
compared to 18 per cent.
More
than 40 per cent of British Muslims said Jews were more loyal to Israel than
the UK, while 34 per cent said Jewish people talk “too much about what happened
to them in the Holocaust”.
It
found that 26 per cent of British Muslims believe that Jews are responsible for
most of the world’s wars, compared to six per cent nationally; while 27 per
cent said that people hate Jews because of the way Jews behave.
The
poll found that Muslims in this country felt a strong connection to Britain,
but that their views on issues including homosexuality and women’s rights
significantly differ to the wider population’s views.
Trevor
Phillips, documentary host and former head of the Equality and Human Rights
Commission, described the findings as “extremely worrying”, adding that on many
key issues Muslims were a “nation within a nation”.
Speaking
on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said: “On specific issues – families,
sexuality, gender, attitudes towards Jews and on questions of violence and
terrorism – the centre of gravity of British Muslim opinion is some distance
away from the centre of gravity of everyone else’s opinion.
“One
in six Muslims say they would like to live more separately, a quarter would
like to live under sharia law. It means that as a society we have a group of
people who basically do not want to participate in the way that other people
[do].
“What
we also found is that there is a correspondence between this desire to live
separately and sympathy for terrorism.
“People
who want to live separately are about twice as likely to say that they have
sympathy for terrorist acts. Anybody, including most people in the Muslim
community, would find that extremely worrying.”
