A troubling new survey commissioned by the Policy
Exchange think tank says that more British Muslims blame Jews for the 9/11
terrorist attacks than blame terrorists from Al Qaeda. The research,
carried out by polling company ICM, claims that only 4% of British Muslims
believe that Al Qaeda was responsible for the 9/11 atrocities, whereas 7%
believe that “Jews” were to blame (52% of British Muslims said they did not
know who conducted the attacks, and 31% thought the American government was
behind the attacks).
The results are in sharp
contrast with the beliefs of the general British population, 71% of which
blames Al Qaeda and only 1% of which blames Jews (10% attributed the attacks to
the American government and 16% did not know who did it).
The foreword to the
report by Khalid Mahmood MP, noted: “So many British Muslims seem ready to
entertain wild and outlandish conspiracy theories about the way the world
works, believing that dark forces are at work to ‘do us down’ as Muslims. From
the attacks of 9/11, down to the more recent conflict in Syria, too many people
seem ready to believe that these events are being deliberately organised and
manipulated — whether by the American Government, Jews, or some other
force – with the express intention of damaging Muslims.”
The report pointed out
that conspiracy theories were part of the “extremist worldview”. Focus groups
carried out by ICM gave one reason for blaming Jews as being “the widely
circulated, fraudulent claim that several thousand Jews failed to turn up for
work on 11 September 2001, a sign that they had foreknowledge of the attack —
and were therefore implicated in the crime.”
