Among Germans, 46% have a good opinion of Israel and 34% have a poor opinion. In contrast, many Israelis have a decidedly positive image of Germany, with 63% saying their view of the country is favorable, and only 19% saying it is poor.
Those are the key findings from the new study “Germany and Israel Today: Between Connection and Alienation” (Deutschland und Israel heute: Zwischen Verbundenheit und Entfremdung) which is based on a representative survey conducted by pollytix strategic research gmbh in Germany and New Wave Research in Israel on behalf of the Bertelsmann Stiftung.
Antisemitic beliefs in Germany
The present study uses specific questions to examine aspects of antisemitic attitudes in Germany, without claiming to fully capture this complex phenomenon. It provides information on individual indicators, but not on antisemitism as a whole. The results thus tend to be higher than in other comparable studies. According to the current sample, one-quarter of respondents in Germany (24%) say that Jews have too much influence in the world. Antisemitism expressed in relation to Israel is another cause for concern: 36% of Germans equate Israel’s policies towards Palestinians with the treatment Jews experienced under the Nazis. It is true for both aspects of antisemitism that the lower the respondent’s level of education, the greater the prejudice. “Given the demonstrable connection between education and antisemitic prejudices, we are urgently called upon to invest more in educational efforts in the future,” Rother says.
