Survey: Anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim feelings growing across Europe, world

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Last update - 23:53 17/09/2008             
Survey: Anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim feelings growing across Europe, world
By News Agencies
Tags: Anti-Semitism, Muslims

Anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish feelings are rising in several major European countries, according to a worldwide survey released on Wednesday.

The Washington-based Pew Research Center's global attitude survey found that most Muslims in countries where they are in the majority worry about the rise of Islamic extremism at home and abroad. Majorities held that view in Indonesia, Pakistan, Tanzania, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan and Nigeria.

Large numbers of respondents in several Muslim countries also identified struggles within their countries between people who want to modernize the
society and those dedicated to maintaining fundamentalist practices of Islam.

Regarding respondents' attitudes toward Jews, Britain was the survey's only European country to report no significant increase in anti-Jewish attitudes.

Just under one in 10 British respondents held those views. Similar numbers of Americans reported negative views of Jews during those same years.

The project of the nonpartisan Pew Research Center began in 2001 and comprises public opinion surveys involving a variety of subjects such as people's assessments of their lives or their views of the state of the world.

It provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world, the survey says.

The 2008 version, released Wednesday, found that half or more of respondents in Spain and Germany rated Muslims unfavorably: 50 percent in Germany, compared with 46 percent in 2004; and 52 percent in Spain, compared with 37 percent in 2005 and 60 percent in 2006. Muslim terrorists bombed a commuter train in Madrid on March 11, 2004, and killed 191 people, modern Europe's deadliest terror attack.

Again, the United States and Britain had the fewest respondents holding negative views of Muslims, both 23 percent. In Britain that was up from 18percent in 2004, and it was down in the United States from 31 percent in 2004.

The survey found that people who held anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim views tended to be older and less-educated than those who did not. Surveyors bundled France, Germany and Spain, the Western European countries where such views were most common, to draw a picture of those holding ethnic-based negative attitudes. They found that most anti-Semitic people were anti-Muslim as well.

People ages 50 and older express more negative views of both Jews and Muslims than do those younger than 50, the survey said. Similarly, Europeans who have not attended college are consistently more likely than those who have to hold unfavorable opinions of both groups. They also tend to support the political right in Europe, it said.

The survey also said positive attitudes toward Osama bin Laden have declined in several countries but the al Qaeda leader still enjoys high support in Nigeria, Indonesia and Pakistan.

The survey found much more positive views prevailed in most places about
Christians.

In some countries, however, unfavorable views of Christians have surged during the last four years, the survey said. One of those places is Turkey, a Muslim country with a democratic political system, where unfavorable views of Christians have accompanied a rise in unfavorable attitudes about Jews.

These are other findings:

-Despite the increase in anti-Jewish sentiment in Europe, the deepest
resentment of Jews exists outside Europe, especially where Muslims
predominate. Favorable opinions of Jews rank in the single digits in Turkey, Egypt,Jordan, Lebanon and Pakistan.

-Jordan, where close to 2 million Palestinians live, many as citizens, is the only predominantly Muslim country surveyed that had a positive view of the Palestinian group Hamas. Hamas controls the Palestinian Gaza Strip, but the United States considers it an international terror group.

-France is the most secular country in the survey. Only 10 percent of French respondents said religion was very important in their lives, and 60 percent said they never pray.

-France also had the highest percentage with favorable opinions of Jews, 79 percent. The United States had 77 percent, Britain and Australia 73 percent.

The Pew survey was conducted during varying periods from March 17 to April 21 in 24 countries. Telephone interviews were used in seven countries and face-to-face interviews in 17. Local languages were used.

The number interviewed ranged from 700 in Australia to 3,212 in China. All samples were conducted nationally, except for Brazil, China, India and Pakistan, where samples were largely urban. The margins of sampling error was plus or minus 2 percentage points in India and China, and was either 3 or 4 points in the other countries.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1022130.html