Israel-Palestine Conflict

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Clive D. Field

Public perceptions of the religious dimensions of the Israel-Palestine conflict are illuminated in a six-nation ICM poll released on 13 March and undertaken on behalf of the Al Jazeera Centre for Studies (established in 2006), the Middle East Monitor (MEMO, founded in 2009) and the European Muslim Research Centre (EMRC), launched in 2010 at the University of Exeter.

Fieldwork was conducted online on 19-25 January 2011 among a representative sample of 7,045 adults aged 18 and over in Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands and Spain. There were 2,031 British respondents.

The survey posed ten questions relating to the Israel-Palestine situation, several of them sub-divided, and only those touching overtly on religion are highlighted here. Broader findings can be found in the three major published research outputs from the poll:

the 41 pages of national data tables at:

http://www.icmresearch.co.uk/pdfs/2011_march_memo_israelpalestine_poll.pdf

the 44-page ICM report and analysis at:

http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/downloads/other_reports/public-perceptions-of-the-palestine-israel-conflict-FINAL-REPORT-icm.pdf

the 50-page MEMO report and analysis at:

http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/downloads/reports/european-public-perceptions-of-the-israel-palestine-conflict-memo.pdf

Additionally, through the kindness of ICM, BRIN has been given access to the unpublished data tables for Great Britain, giving breaks by gender, age, working status, housing tenure, education level, ethnicity and region.

Asked which three or four things came into mind on hearing the words ‘Israeli-Palestinian conflict’, 47% of the weighted sample of Europeans cited religious conflict, ranging from 34% in The Netherlands to 51% in France. The British figure was 46%.

Answering the same question, 24% of Europeans mentioned Islamic organizations, with a low of 20% in Britain (but 27% among the over-55s) and a high of 30% in The Netherlands. 17% of Europeans referred to Muslims/Arabs, including 15% of Britons (rising to 21% in the North-West, Yorkshire and the Humber and the East Midlands).

65% of Europeans agreed that Israel is a country where there is oppression and domination by one religious group over another. The proportion was highest in Spain (72%) and stood at 57% in Britain, but reached 63% among men and ethnic minorities and 66% for those with a university degree or equivalent. Only 9% of Britons and 13% of Europeans said that all religious groups were treated the same in Israel, the remainder giving other replies.

17% of Europeans and 23% of Britons (the largest proportion of all six countries, and increasing to 30% for the over-55s) agreed that European citizens who are Jewish should be allowed to serve in the Israeli army. 34% and 20% respectively disagreed, with 22% and 29% uncertain.

12% of Europeans and 6% of Britons agreed that being critical of Israel makes a person anti-Semitic. 50% and 52% respectively disagreed, with 17% and 25% undecided. Agreement was highest in Germany (19%). In Britain disagreement reached 59% with men, the over-55s and Londoners and 61% among the university-educated.

36% of Europeans and 28% of Britons agreed that the Israel-Palestine conflict fuels anti-Semitism in Europe. 21% and 20% respectively disagreed, with 18% and 28% don’t knows. Agreement was highest in France (46%). In Britain peak agreement was registered by those owning their homes outright and graduates (32% each), the over-55s (33%), residents of the North-West (34%) and the Welsh (35%).

39% of Europeans and 32% of Britons agreed that the Israel-Palestine conflict fuels Islamophobia in Europe. 20% and 19% respectively disagreed, with 16% and 26% uncertain. Agreement was highest in Italy (45%). In Britain agreement peaked among the 18-24s, graduates and Londoners (36% each), ethnic minorities (38%), residents of the South-West (39%) and students (41%).

48% of Europeans and 40% of Britons agreed that Israel exploits the history of the sufferings of the Jewish people to generate public support. Just 13% and 11% respectively disagreed, with 17% and 27% don’t knows. Agreement was especially high in Germany (53%) and Spain (54%). In Britain 51% of the over-55s and 48% of men were critical of Israel for being exploitative in this regard.

Three brief comments on the overall British data (including questions not considered here) may be ventured.

First, a relatively high proportion of Britons (one-quarter or more) express no clear views on the Israel-Palestine conflict. To a limited extent, this may indicate a position of benign neutrality, but more typically it is likely to reflect a lack of familiarity with the issues. The politics of the Middle East are not necessarily followed closely by everybody.

Second, there is significant criticism of Israel, both for the way it functions as a state and for the actions it has taken on the Palestinian question. This contrasts markedly with the 1950s and 1960s when Israel was widely accorded ‘underdog’ status in Britain. Now it is often seen as oppressor. The trend data can be studied in Clive Field, ‘John Bull’s Judeophobia: Images of the Jews in British Public Opinion Polls since the late 1930s’, Jahrbuch für Antisemitismusforschung, Vol. 15, 2006, pp. 259-300.

Third, much of this antipathy to Israel is probably rooted, not simply in increasing sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians, but in concerns that Israel’s role in the Middle East is exacerbating religious tensions in Britain and Europe. This is true both of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, given that preoccupation with Israel-Palestine has been a major factor in giving British Muslims a public profile and voice. International relations are, therefore, frequently being viewed through a British domestic lens.

The overall tenor of the findings, and of the textual reports which analyse and interpret them, seems likely to create some controversy. Doubtless, there will be negative reactions from Israeli and some Jewish quarters in due course. Whether this survey sparks quite so much outrage as the 2003 European Commission poll, which identified Israel as the greatest threat to world peace, is more doubtful.

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The Galliano Affair

Posted on March 6, 2011 by Clive D. Field

Some nasty commercial consequences may be in store for Christian Dior, the iconic fashion, fragrance and jewellery brand, despite its prompt sacking last week of John Galliano, its head fashion designer since 1997, who has recently been exposed as shouting anti-Semitic abuse in a Paris bar and saying ‘I love Hitler’.

15% of British adults who normally buy Dior products say that they intend to boycott them in the light of the controversy over Galliano’s comments, according to a YouGov survey for today’s The Sunday Times. Fieldwork was conducted online on 3-4 March among a sample of 2,413 Britons aged 18 and over. The data tables will be found at:

http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/YG-Archives-Pol-ST-results-04-060311.pdf

80% of respondents do not normally purchase Dior merchandise. Of the 20% who do, 3% have been so offended by Galliano’s anti-Semitism that they are inclined to boycott Dior in future, while 12% will not do so and 5% do not know what they will do.

The number of potential boycotters rises to 6% in London and Scotland, equivalent to 23% and 29% respectively of Dior customers there, but otherwise there are no great variations by demographic sub-groups.

The potential commercial fallout might have been even greater were it not for the fact that 52% of Britons regard this as a one-off incident, down to a single designer with personal problems and which does not reflect a more generic issue of racism in the high fashion industry.

However, although just 16% think there is more widespread racism in the industry, far more are inclined to accuse it of other difficulties. 45% consider that dysfunctional and immoral behaviour is endemic throughout the industry, whereas 34% prefer to lay the blame at the door of a few eccentric figures.

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Anti-Semitic Incidents in 2010

Posted on February 3, 2011 by Clive D. Field

There were 31% fewer anti-Semitic incidents in the UK in 2010 than in 2009, according to the latest annual report from the Community Security Trust (CST). It runs to 36 pages and is available at:

http://www.thecst.org.uk/docs/Incidents%20Report%202010.pdf

The CST is a registered charity which provides physical security, training and advice for the protection of British Jews; represents Jewry to Government and police in respect of matters affecting security and anti-Semitism; and assists victims of anti-Semitism.

The decline in anti-Semitic incidents might have been anticipated. 2009 had been an exceptional year, largely on account of hostility to Israel’s substantial military operations in Gaza at the start of 2009, described by CST as a significant ‘trigger event’. 

Nevertheless, the 639 incidents recorded in 2010 was still the second-highest number since CST began collecting data in 1984 and a rise of 17% on the 2008 total.

This reflects a generally upward trend, which CST attributes in part to better reporting of incidents, although it considers that many instances of verbal abuse are not yet notified.

The 639 incidents were categorized as: abusive behaviour (60%), assaults (18%), damage and desecration of property (13%), threats (5%), and anti-Semitic literature (4%). No examples of extreme violence were recorded in 2010, of which there are a handful in most years.

Incidents were not evenly distributed throughout 2010. The largest monthly figure (82) was in September, believed to be linked to the presence of visibly Jewish people in public during the High Holy Day period.

81 incidents were logged in June, many of them related to negative reactions to the Israeli boarding on 31 May of a flotilla of ships trying to break the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza, as a result of which nine pro-Palestinian activists were killed.  

Not unexpectedly, the largest number of incidents was reported from areas of Jewish concentration, with 34% each in Greater London and Greater Manchester, although the Jewish population of the latter is just one-seventh of the former (21,700 against 149,800).

6% of incidents occurred in Hertfordshire (where 16,900 Jews live) and 26% elsewhere in the UK (with 78,300 Jewish residents).   

The victims of these incidents came from the whole spectrum of the Jewish community. The most frequent were: random Jewish individuals in public (48%), synagogues and their congregants (17%), Jewish organizations (12%), and private homes and schools/schoolchildren/teachers (9% each).

In cases where the demographics of victims could be identified, 65% were male, 27% female and 8% mixed groups. 66% of victims were adults, 25% minors and 9% a combination of both.

Physical descriptions of the incident perpetrator were received in some cases, of whom 47% were white, 6% East European, 7% black, 29% Asian, and 10% of Arab appearance. 83% of perpetrators were men, 12% women, and 5% of both sexes. 68% were adults and 31% minors.

In one-quarter of incidents the perpetrators employed discourse based upon the Nazi period, including swastikas and references to the Holocaust. Discourse related to Israel or the Middle East was used in 12% of incidents and Islamist discourse in 4%. Evidence of political motivation was found in 37% of instances and of premeditation in 65%.

In addition to the 639 anti-Semitic incidents, CST investigated 372 other cases which it eventually concluded were not anti-Semitic in terms of motivation, targeting or content. Two-fifths of these concerned potential information collection and suspicious behaviour at Jewish locations.

CST includes in its tally of incidents some which are not crimes. The CST statistics will therefore exceed the number of anti-Semitic hate crimes tabulated by the police, on which we have previously reported at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=746

A further measure of anti-Semitism is found in sample survey data. The BRIN source database contains descriptions of 72 such surveys undertaken between 1938 and 2010. Go to:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/sources/

and key ‘anti-Semitism’ in the search box.

One of the most recent and extensive (as regards the number of questions) surveys was conducted in December 2008-January 2009 on behalf of the US-based Anti-Defamation League, with fieldwork in Austria, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Spain, as well as Great Britain. The report on this study is at:

http://www.adl.org/Public%20ADL%20Anti-Semitism%20Presentation%20February%202009%20_3_.pdf

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Perceptions of Discrimination

Posted on January 19, 2011 by Clive D. Field

Today’s news includes a report that two devout Christians running a private hotel in Cornwall have been found to be in breach of the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007 for refusing to allow a gay couple to share a double room on their premises. The couple has been awarded damages against the hotel owners.

The fact that a Christian husband and wife seeking to uphold, as they saw it, a traditional Christian view of marriage have committed an act of direct discrimination against two homosexuals in a civil partnership will doubtless be seized upon by some Christians as further proof that the legal odds are stacked against Christians.

But does the general public agree with this reading of events? Before Christmas we reported on a ComRes poll for Christian Concern on the topic (http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=804). This probed attitudes to the rights of Christians, but largely in isolation from those of other sections of society.

Now YouGov has undertaken another poll for The Sun which provides a broader, more comparative context. The 1,884 respondents, adult Britons aged 18 and over interviewed online on 17 and 18 January, were asked to say how far they felt each of sixteen groups (four of them religious) was unfairly discriminated against in Britain.

10% said that Christians suffered a lot of discrimination, rising to 12% among men, the over-60s and Conservative voters. A further 18% thought they suffered some discrimination (including 24% of Conservatives and 22% of over-60s), 29 per cent a little, 34% not at all, while 10% had no clear opinion.

The proportion holding that Christians suffered a lot of discrimination was higher than those saying the same about Jews (5%) and atheists (2%), although it was less than for Muslims (18% saying that they experienced a lot of discrimination, peaking at 29% among the 18-24s).

Only 17% of the sample claimed that Muslims were not discriminated against at all, which was 7% less than in the case of Jews, 17% less than for Christians and 38% less than for atheists.

In fact, 55% were of the view that atheists suffered absolutely no discrimination, the only one of the sixteen groups for which an absolute majority took this line. This figure rose to 62% with Conservatives and 60% with over-60s and Scots.

If we combine the categories of groups perceived to suffer a lot of discrimination and to suffer some discrimination, then the following rank order emerges:

  1. Gypsies and travellers  –  60%
  2. Immigrants  –  54%
  3. Transsexuals  –  53%
  4. Muslims  –  50%
  5. Elderly people  –  45%
  6. Asian people  –  44%
  7. Gays and lesbians  –  43%
  8. Black people  –  41%
  9. White people  –  32%
  10. Working class people  –  31%
  11. Women  –  29%
  12. Christians  –  28%
  13. Jews  –  26%
  14. People with ginger hair  –  25%
  15. People with regional accents  –  17%
  16. Atheists  –  10%

The survey therefore appears to confirm the findings from other research that Muslims are the religious group suffering greatest discrimination. Despite a millennium of British anti-Semitism, and contrary to the impression of some Jewish commentators, Jews seem to fare better than expected and better even than Christians.

It should be remembered, of course, that this was a survey about people’s perceptions of groups which suffer discrimination, and that Christians would have been the largest single religious category of people doing the perceiving. The study was thus analogous to some of the questions in the Government Citizenship Surveys.

It is therefore possible that a different league table might have emerged had the questioning been about either personal experiences of being discriminated against and/or prejudices which individuals hold against particular groups. It would be especially interesting to know how atheists would come out of such an exercise, given that they seem the least disadvantaged of all the groups in this study.

The data tables for this YouGov poll will be found at:

http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/YG-Archives-Life-Sun-Discrimination-190111.pdf

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Hate Crimes

Posted on December 8, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Data on the number of hate crimes reported to and recorded by the police across England, Wales and Northern Ireland were published for the first time on 30 November, partly with the intention of encouraging people to come forward with details of such crimes, which are widely believed to have been under-reported in the past.

The statistics relate to the calendar year 2009 and were collated by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), an independent and professionally-led strategic body with a membership of 338 Chief Police Officers.

During the year the police services noted 52,028 crimes where the victim, or any other person, perceived the offence to be motivated by hostility on the grounds of race, religious conviction, sexual orientation, disability or because a person was transgender.

83.5% of these crimes involved race hatred, 4.0% religion or faith, 9.2% sexual orientation, 0.6% transgender, and 2.7% disability. At 2,083, religious hate crimes were up by more than a fifth on 2008, although better reporting may account for some or perhaps even all of this increase. The boundaries between race and religion/faith hate crimes are presumably quite blurred on occasion.

Religious hate crimes were spatially concentrated. Indeed, 20 of 44 police forces recorded fewer than 10 cases and Sussex none at all. The largest numbers of such crimes were in London (36.4%), Greater Manchester (17.2%), Lancashire (6.0%), West Midlands (5.1%), and Thames Valley (4.9%). This distribution might lead one to suspect that the crimes were preponderantly Islamophobic, but this can be mere speculation.

It should be noted that the figures for anti-Semitic hate crimes were apparently included in the race rather than religion/faith category, although they were also separately enumerated. There were 703 anti-Semitic crimes in 2009, 54.8% of them in London, 28.2% in Greater Manchester, and 7.3% in Hertfordshire – all areas of Jewish concentration. 24 police forces had no anti-Semitic hate crimes.

This anti-Semitic total was 221 less than the 924 cases previously reported by the Community Security Trust (CST) for 2009. The discrepancy mainly reflects the fact that data for non-crime incidents are excluded from ACPO’s statistics, being only held locally, whereas they are included in the CST’s review. Also, the latter covered 30 cases in Scotland, a home nation not within the purview of ACPO.

The data table showing breakdowns by police force will be found at:

http://www.acpo.police.uk/asp/policies/Data/084a_Recorded_Hate_Crime_-_January_to_December_2009.pdf

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Holocaust Education

Posted on September 8, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Policy-makers and older generations of Britons sometimes get worried that the Holocaust, and the events of the Second World War more generally, are fading from the public memory. Last year, for instance, there was extensive media coverage of a study by the London Jewish Cultural Centre and Miramax which revealed that many secondary school pupils did not know about Auschwitz, some even regarding it as a brand of beer.

Now YouGov has released the results of a survey it conducted on 1-2 July this year among 2,233 adults aged 18 and over drawn from its online panel. The poll asked about the importance of British schoolchildren learning about eleven periods and events in European history.

The Holocaust topped the list, 80% regarding it as very or fairly important that schoolchildren learn about it. Communism (72%) and Fascism (69%) came second and third, with the Enlightenment (45%) and German and Italian unification (41%) in the bottom two places. The Reformation scored 53%.

The importance attached to teaching about the Holocaust varied with age, from 69% among the 18-24s to 78% for the 25-39s, 83% for the 40-59s and 85% for those aged 60 and over. However, the youngest age cohort still attached the greatest significance to the Holocaust of all the periods and events on offer.

Women (83%) also deemed the Holocaust more important than men (77%) and the ABC1s (84%) more than the C2DEs (75%). Among voters, Liberal Democrats were most supportive (88%). At 82%, London and the rest of southern England regarded teaching of the Holocaust as a little more important than elsewhere in Britain.

The full results of the survey will be found at:

http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/YG-Archives-Life-SchoolSubjectsEuropeanHistory-080910.pdf

The questions on European history formed part of the same poll which covered religious education, for which see http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=512.

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The New Anti-Semitism

Posted on May 29, 2010 by Clive D. Field

In his massive new book, Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England (Oxford University Press, 2010, ISBN 978-0-19-929705-4, £25.00), Anthony Julius devotes two long and controversial chapters to the ‘new anti-Semitism’, which emerged (according to him) in the late 1960s and early 1970s, in consequence of the Six Day War, and has become hegemonic in the 1990s and 2000s.

He sees this as the fourth in a line of English anti-Semitisms which he traces back to the early Middle Ages. The new anti-Semitism is characterized by an anti-Zionism which has secular and confessional (Muslim, Jewish and Christian) manifestations and is directed against the very existence, as well as the actions, of the state of Israel. For Julius, it would appear, to be anti-Israel is to be anti-Jew.

Julius himself makes little use of quantitative data in his book. However, against this background, it is interesting to note the latest in a series of international polls conducted, across 28 countries between November 2009 and February 2010, for the BBC World Service by the polling firm GlobeScan, together with the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland. In the UK a nationally representative sample of 1,020 adults aged 18 and over was interviewed by telephone between 8 December 2009 and 15 January 2010. The GlobeScan/PIPA report will be found at:

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pipa/pdf/apr10/BBCViews_Apr10_rpt.pdf

Respondents were asked whether they thought a selection of countries had a mainly positive or mainly negative influence in the world. Attitudes to Israel were found to be widely negative, with 24 countries giving an unfavourable evaluation and just two a positive one (the remaining two being divided). The range in those indicating they had a mainly negative view of Israel was from 29% in India to 92% in Egypt.

The UK occupied a middle position, with 50% of its citizens having a mainly negative perception of Israel. This was identical to the average for all 28 nations, but significantly more than in the United States and Commonwealth countries, and rather less than among some of our nearest European neighbours (with 57% in France, 60% in Spain and 68% in Germany) and the five majority-Muslim populations surveyed.

Just 17% of adults in the UK had mainly positive views of Israel, the third lowest figure in UK citizens’ assessment of 17 different countries. Only Iran (10% mainly positive, 59% mainly negative, -49% net) and North Korea (13% mainly positive, 53% mainly negative, -40% net) fared worse, although Pakistan (-25%) was also poorly regarded.

The net -33% rating for Israel in the UK compared, at the other end of the scale, with +55% in the case of Germany and +47% for Japan, both former Second World War enemies. Other high figures were +54% for Canada, +43% for the UK itself (well, at least we have some self-esteem left), +37% for India and +32% for the European Union.

For a longer-term perspective on this issue, reference may be made to the essay by Clive Field on ‘John Bull’s Judeophobia: Images of the Jews in British Public Opinion Polls since the late 1930s’, Jahrbuch für Antisemitismusforschung, Vol. 15, 2006, pp. 259-300, and especially to the table on page 281 which shows British sympathies in the Middle East conflict between 1955 and 2006.   

Field’s summation of the opinion poll findings on attitudes to Israel was as follows:

  • Post-independence Israel has attracted its highest levels of sympathy from the British public when it has appeared in danger and in an ‘underdog’ position, especially in 1956 (Suez Crisis), 1967 (Six Day War), 1973 (Yom Kippur War) and 1990-91 (Gulf War)
  • Public support for Israel’s position in the Middle East conflict has steadily collapsed after 1967, from an average 52 per cent at that time to 18 per cent in 2002-06
  • Increasingly it has been felt that Israel should withdraw to its original frontiers, abandon the lands taken by military action since 1967, and dismantle the Jewish settlements on the West Bank
  • While strong opposition to PLO terrorism against Israel has been manifest, the British public has increasingly protested against Israel’s perceived disproportionate use of military might against its opponents, especially in Lebanon after 1982 and in the occupied territories; the Palestinians have also been steadily winning the moral and political arguments
  • Of very recent years Israel has started to be seen in Britain as a significant threat to world peace, and its actions against the Palestinians as adversely affecting Muslim attitudes towards the West
  • Even discounting the impact of the Middle East conflict, Israel’s standing on social, political and general measures has become exceedingly low in relation to many other countries
  • Anti-Israeli sentiment has probably marginally raised the general level of anti-Semitism, although most Britons are at pains to decouple the two phenomena and to stress that enmity towards Israel does not equate with hostility towards Jews

This last point, encapsulating a clear distinction between anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiments, is one which Julius appears to struggle to comprehend, still less to accept.

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Voting Intentions and Attitudes to Religious Minorities

Posted on April 27, 2010 by Clive D. Field

With just over a week to go before the general election, we are literally awash with opinion polls at present. Unfortunately, few of those conducted during the present campaign have featured faith-specific issues, while the relatively small sample sizes mean that we get few clues about the attitudes of people who support political parties other than the ‘big three’.

It thus seems appropriate to recall one very large scale survey which YouGov ran for Channel 4 in the lead-in to last year’s European parliamentary elections, when the ‘minor parties’ were expected to make a strong showing in Britain.

No fewer than 32,268 electors were interviewed online between 29 May and 4 June 2009, including 2,749 persons intending to vote for the Green Party, 4,306 for the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and 985 for the British National Party (BNP).

The findings, which have long been in the public domain at

http://www.yougov.co.uk/extranets/ygarchives/content/pdf/Megapoll_EuroElections.pdf

have attracted scant attention. For us, they are especially useful in highlighting opinions about religious minorities, specifically Jews and Muslims, by voting intentions.

10% of all voters considered that Jews suffered unfair discrimination in Britain. Green supporters were the most sympathetic (15%), with Labourites and Liberal Democrats on 12%, Conservatives and UKIP voters on 9% and the BNP on 6%.

6% overall thought the Jews benefited from unfair advantage in Britain. Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green supporters all stood at 5%, UKIP at 6% and the BNP at 12%.

Asked whether there was a major international conspiracy led by Jews and Communists to undermine traditional Christian values in Britain and other western countries, 17% said this was completely or partially true.

The proportion rose to 21% for UKIP and 33% for BNP voters, the other parties ranging from 9% (Greens) to 19% (Conservatives). Those who said the statement was completely untrue numbered 62% in the aggregate but only 48% in the case of BNP followers.  

Just 1% of the sample registered as holocaust deniers (and no more than 2% even for BNP voters). However, 8% of UKIP and 18% of BNP supporters thought the scale of the holocaust had been exaggerated.

Turning to Muslims, 21% of all voters held that they suffered unfair discrimination in Britain. The highest percentages were for the Greens (40%) and Liberal Democrats (33%), with Labour on 29% and the Conservatives on 15%. UKIP (8%) and BNP voters (3%) were least sympathetic to Muslims.

39% felt that Muslims in Britain enjoyed unfair advantages, and this figure rose to 61% in the case of UKIP and 70% for BNP voters. They were followed by the Conservatives on 44%, Labour on 27%, the Liberal Democrats on 26% and the Greens on 22%.

Still larger numbers agreed that, even in its ‘milder forms’, Islam constituted a serious danger to western civilization. 44% overall held this view, with 64% among UKIP and 79% BNP voters. Conservatives stood at 49%, Labour at 37%, Liberal Democrats at 32% and the Greens at 27%. Those in disagreement were 32%, with only the Greens achieving a majority (55%); among UKIP supporters the figure was 17% and for the BNP’s 7%.

Three conclusions emerge from these results. First, there is significantly more prejudice against Muslims than Jews. Second, the actual level of prejudice varies considerably according to the measure used and the wording of the question. Third, Green and Liberal Democrat voters are most tolerant (but by no means totally unprejudiced), and UKIP and (in particular) BNP supporters apparently most prejudiced against Jews and Muslims.

It should be noted that all the above data relate to the views of those intending to vote for one of the six political parties in May-June 2009. These views may not necessarily be current. Nor should they be confused with the official positions of each of the parties as set out in their general election manifestos or by their leadership.

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Scottish Jewry in Decline

Posted on March 19, 2010 by Clive D. Field

The current issue (19 March 2010, pp. 4-5) of the Jewish Chronicle includes a two-page feature by its political editor, Martin Bright, on the decline of the Scottish Jewish community, from 18,000 in the 1950s to 10,000 today. The overwhelming majority of these Jews are concentrated in the Greater Glasgow area.

The article announces that, following a meeting earlier this month with the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities, the Scottish Government (through its Community Safety Unit) has committed to launch an enquiry into the causes of this decline, amid growing concern about anti-Semitism north of the border. Scottish ministers have yet to make any online public statement on the matter and to decide on the exact form of this investigation.

The anxiety about growing anti-Semitism is voiced in a recent online essay by Kenneth Collins and Ephraim Borowski on ‘Scotland’s Jews: Community and Political Challenges’, published on the website of the Institute for Global Jewish Affairs. The authors claim that much Scottish anti-Semitism is associated with events in the Middle East (specifically hostility to Israel and support for the Palestinians).

Some confirmation of this comes from the number of anti-Semitic incidents reported to the Community Security Trust (CST). There were just 10 of these in Scotland in 2008 but 30 in 2009, including 16 in January alone when the Israelis were mounting Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. One of the most serious incidents was the desecration of Jewish graves at Glenduffhill Cemetery in Glasgow, pictures of which have only just been released to the media.

Another potential indicator is prejudice against Jews and/or Israel expressed in public opinion polls. Unfortunately, although there is no shortage of such polls on a Britain-wide basis (see Clive Field, ‘John Bull’s Judeophobia’, Jahrbuch für Antisemitismusforschung, Vol. 15, 2006, pp. 259-300), the Scottish sub-samples (where analysed) are typically too small to be meaningful.

In any case, no causal link between anti-Semitism and the decline of Scottish Jewry is yet proven. Indeed, the Jewish Chronicle quotes spokespersons from the Scottish Jewish Archives Centre and the CST who appear rather dismissive of any such link.

For an overview of Scotland’s Jewish community, see Kenneth Collins with Ephraim Borowski and Leah Granat, Scotland’s Jews: A Guide to the History and Community of the Jews in Scotland, second edition, Glasgow: Scottish Council of Jewish Communities, 2008. The same publisher also issued in the same year Marlena Schmool, Scotland’s Jews, a study of Scottish Jews in the 2001 census.

Also of interest is Nathan Abrams, Caledonian Jews: A Study of Seven Small Communities in Scotland, Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2009. This focuses on the Jews of Aberdeen, Ayr, Dundee, Dunfermline, Falkirk, Greenock, Inverness, the Highlands and Islands.

POSTSCRIPT [11 June 2010]: Recent reports in the Jewish Chronicle qualify Martin Bright’s original feature article in three important respects:

a) Alex Salmond, Scotland’s First Minister, does not accept that anti-Semitism is a growing problem in Scotland;

b) the Scottish Government has not agreed to conduct an investigation into the causes of Jewish decline in Scotland; and

c) the Glasgow Jewish Educational Forum is critical of the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities for exaggerating the threat of anti-Semitism in Scotland

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Anti-Semitic Incidents in the United Kingdom

Posted on February 5, 2010 by Clive D. Field

The Community Security Trust (CST) has published its detailed (36 pages) Antisemitic Incidents Report, 2009. This is available on the Trust’s website at http://www.thecst.org.uk/docs/CST-incidents-report-09-for-web.pdf

The CST has been monitoring anti-Semitic incidents in the United Kingdom on an annual basis since 1984. A registered charity since 1994, the CST has 55 full-time staff and 3,000 volunteers who provide physical security, training and advice for the protection of British Jews; represent Jewry to Government and police in respect of matters affecting security and anti-Semitism; and assist victims of anti-Semitism.

924 anti-Semitic incidents were recorded by the CST in the United Kingdom in 2009, the highest annual total since statistics commenced, and 55 per cent more than the previous high of 598 incidents in 2006. This 924 represents an increase of 69 per cent on the 2008 figure of 546 and follows two years in which incidents had fallen.

The main reason for this new peak of incidents is the unprecedented number recorded in January and February 2009 (288 and 114 respectively), during and after the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. The level of incidents did not return to something like a ‘normal’ figure until April. 23 per cent of all incidents during the year included a reference to Gaza.

The majority (605) incidents in 2009 were categorized as involving abusive behaviour, followed by 121 instances of assault, both being the highest ever recorded figures. The remaining types of anti-Semitism were: damage and desecration (89), literature (62), threats (44) and extreme violence (3).

There was a close correlation between the number of incidents and areas of Jewish concentration, with 460 incidents being reported for Greater London, 206 for Greater Manchester and 258 from more than 70 other locations throughout the country.

In addition to the 924 confirmed anti-Semitic incidents in 2009, CST investigated a further 489 cases which it ultimately judged not to be anti-Semitic in nature.

The 2009 report includes, at page 35, monthly incident figures for 1999-2009. Detailed reports for 2005-08 inclusive are also available on the CST website.

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