Abstract: Campaigning organisation Avaaz commissioned ICM Unlimited to conduct a nationally representative poll to look into attitudes of the British public towards Jews and Muslims.
Some of the key findings include:
Overall, just under half of British adults say that they have a positive view of Jews (47%), while 7% say that they have a negative view. When it comes to Muslims, the British public’s attitudes are more unfavourable. A quarter say that they have a negative view of Muslims (26%), while a third say that they have a positive view (32%).
2017 Conservative voters are more likely than those who voted Labour to have a negative view of Muslims. Just under four in ten of those who voted Conservative in 2017 say that they have a negative view of Muslims (37%), more than double the proportion of those who voted Labour who have a negative view (16%).
A greater proportion of people agree than disagree for four of the five statements about Muslims/Islam that Avaaz tested. That is, more people agree than disagree that: Islam threatens the British way of life (45% agree vs. 31% disagree), Islamophobia in Britain is a response to the everyday behaviour of Muslims (36% vs. 34%), parts of the UK are under Sharia law (33% vs. 28%), and that there should be a reduction in the number of Muslims entering Britain (41% vs. 25%). The only statement with which more people disagree than agree is: ‘Islamic terrorism reflects the views of the Muslim community in Britain’ (26% agree vs. 49% disagree).
Six in ten 2017 Conservative voters agree that ‘Islam threatens the British way of life’ (62%), compared to 35% of 2017 Labour voters.
When it comes to attitudes towards Jews, just over one in seven of people agree that ‘Jews have disproportionate influence in politics’ (15%). Among 2017 Labour voters, this figure rises to one in five (20%), compared to one in seven 2017 Conservative voters (14%).
Abstract: Racism and racial prejudice, considered a relic of obsolete and outdated social systems, is emerging in the depths of ultra-modern Western societies with different characteristics from the past but with a surprising and worrying virulence. These waves of prejudice and racism testify to the many fears that fill the horizons of advanced societies, undermining not only their internal reliability, but also just their democratic settings. This paper presents a critical review of Islamophobia as a racial prejudice, showing that two main definitions are at work: Islamophobia as xeno-racism or linked to the so-called clash of civilizations. Then, it presents the outcomes coming from a Computer Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI) survey led among a representative sample of the Italian population (n = 1,523) on Antisemitic and Islamophobic attitudes. The cogency and structure of anti-Muslim public discourse and connected mass attitudes, revealed by our investigation, confirm the emergency of these two relevant dimensions of Islamophobia, which claim for a more accurate definition of Islamophobia. Moreover, the distribution of anti-Semitic and Islamophobic attitudes illustrate an interesting overlapping of Islamophobia and Antisemitism which claims that racism is multi-targeted and that there is not so much options between Antisemitism and Islamophobia. Finally, we use three main variables—anomie, ethnocentrism, and authoritarianism—as predictors of Islamophobia and Antisemitism. We tested the strength of these three predictors with the aid of path technique based on multiple regression analysis, which helps to determine the direct and indirect impacts of certain independent variables on dependent variables in a hypothetical causal system.
Abstract: Celem tekstu jest próba uchwycenia integralnych, choć czasami antytetycznych i skrywanych więzi, które w europejskim (chrześcijańskim/zsekularyzowanym) imaginarium łączyły żydów i muzułmanów, Żydów i Arabów. Idea tekstu wyrasta z przekonania, że procesu konstytuowania się jakiejkolwiek tożsamości lub wspólnotowości nie da się satysfakcjonująco opisać bez wyjścia poza standardową analizę, która koncentruje się na tym, jak tożsamość ustanawia się poprzez odniesienie do tego, co wobec niej inne. Tezą autorki jest to, że w przypadku europejskich (chrześcijańskich/zsekularyzowanych) wspólnot i tożsamości kluczowym elementem odnoszenia się do „inności” jest konceptualne i polityczne żonglowanie różnymi kategoriami „innych”, a więc m.in. figurami „żyda” i „muzułmanina”, „Żyda” i „Araba”. Autorka rekonstruuje zmienne konfiguracje, w jakich na przestrzeni europejskiej historii pojawiały się te figury. Pokazuje, że ewoluowały one od etapu, na którym różnorodne wyobrażenia na temat żydów i muzułmanów, Żydów i Arabów zawierały często przekonanie o ich rozmaicie rozumianym pokrewieństwie i bliskości, do etapu, w którym następuje radykalne symboliczne i polityczne zerwanie między tym, co żydowskie i tym, co muzułmańskie/arabskie. Zawarta w tekście analiza przedstawiona jest jako baza do zrozumienia mechanizmów antysemityzmu i islamofobii, a także łączących je korelacji.
Abstract: This article sets out to discuss the emergence of (anti) ‘new antisemitism’ as a transnational field of governance, and particularly as a field of racial governance. Romeyn’s interest is not so much in the ‘facts’ of antisemitism or ‘new’ antisemitism, but in the ways in which it functions as a ‘power-knowledge’ field in which a cast of actors—global governance actors, such as the United Nations, UNESCO, the Organisation for Security and Co-Operation in Europe, the European Commission, non-governmental organizations, experts and scholars, and politicians—set out to define, invent measuring tools and technologies, analyse, formulate policy statements and programmes, and develop ‘interventions’ to address and redress (‘fight’) the ‘problem’. Embedded in the new antisemitism as a field of governance are the assumptions that, ideologically, it is imbricated in the universalist anti-racism of the liberal left, and that, culturally, it emanates to a significant extent from within ethnocultural or ethno-religious attitudes peculiar to populations originating from Northern Africa, the Maghreb or, more specifically, from majority Islamic countries. With respect to the latter groups, global governance actors concerned with the fight against the ‘new antisemitism’ instate a ‘regime’ that performatively enacts boundaries of belonging. This regime erects an interior frontier around culture/religion that effectively externalizes and racializes antisemitism.
Abstract: Muslim–Jewish relations have a long and complex history. However, notions that all Jews and Muslims are eternal enemies are proven wrong both historically and by today’s survey data. A comprehensive review of the available survey data from the last two decades provides a glimpse into the views of Muslims and Jews of each other in countries where both communities are a minority. It is based on surveys from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden, the U.K., and the U.S., including more than 91,000 respondents, comprising almost 27,000 Muslims and, in additional surveys, more than 52,000 Jewish respondents. Many Muslims and Jews acknowledge that the other community suffers from discrimination, albeit to varying degrees. Jews often see Islam and Muslim extremists as a threat to Jews, but most Jews, more than society in general, seem to distinguish between Muslim extremists and Muslims in general. Antisemitic attitudes are significantly higher among Muslims than among the general population in all surveys, even though the majority of Muslims in most European countries and in the United States do not exhibit antisemitic attitudes. The differences in anti-Jewish attitudes between Muslims and non-Muslims do not disappear when controlling for sociodemographic factors.
Abstract: This book focuses on the development of bilateral Jewish-Muslim relations in London and Amsterdam since the late-1980s. It offers a comparative analysis that considers both similarities and differences, drawing on historical, social scientific, and religious studies perspectives. The authors address how Jewish-Muslim relations are related to the historical and contemporary context in which they are embedded, the social identity strategies Jews and Muslims and their institutions employ, and their perceived mutual positions in terms of identity and power. The first section reflects on the history and current profile of Jewish and Muslim communities in London and Amsterdam and the development of relations between Jews andMuslims in both cities. The second section engages with sources of conflict and cooperation. Four specific areas that cause tension are explored: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; antisemitism and Islamophobia; attacks by extremists; and the commemoration of wars and genocides. In addition to ‘trigger events’, what stands out is the influence of historical factors, public opinion, the ‘mainstream’ Christian churches and the media, along with the role of government. The volume will be of interest to scholars from fields including religious studies, interfaith studies, Jewish studies, Islamic studies, urban studies, European studies, and social sciences as well as members of the communities concerned, other religious communities, journalists, politicians, and teachers who are interested in Jewish-Muslim relations.
Abstract: For more than a decade, there has been a discussion about the scope and character of a “Muslim antisemitism” in Europe, spurred on by anti-Jewish harassment and terrorist attacks by Muslims in some European countries.* However, there are only a few major studies on the attitudes of Muslims towards Jews in Europe, while larger studies on the attitude of Jews towards Muslims have so far been missing completely. Based on the data from the 2017 survey, “Attitudes towards Jews and Muslims in Norway. Population Survey and Minority Study” (CHM), it is now possible to investigate how Jews and Muslims in Norway perceive each other, whether they see opportunities for cooperation as minorities and have common experiences of discrimination, what their positioning in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict looks like, and whether it influences their mutual perception. While the focus is on the relationship between Muslims and Jews, in some cases the results for the general Norwegian population are included as a tertium comparationis, since Jews and Muslims form part of Norwegian society.
Abstract: Around 2011 Israeli (Jewish) immigration to Germany became a recurring subject in public discourse. Reflecting ideological investments, the migration was reported with curiosity. Israeli migrants turned into Jews in German imagination, contradicting their self-definition of being primarily Israelis. As Jews they were welcome, but within limits. If the ‘guests’ expressed too much agency and challenged the status quo of German/Jewish and more so Jewish/Muslim and Israeli/Palestinian relations, things could become complicated. While Palestinian issues are met with increasing support across the social, media, and political spheres, Palestinians are not that welcome as (Muslim) migrants. They are suspected of importing a ‘new antisemitism.’ This paper seeks to unravel the conflicting attitudes towards the interlinked categories Israelis/Jews and Muslims/Palestinians, by focussing on the issue of the politics of hospitality. These reveal how agentic presences of those categorised as others destabilise the assumed ethnic, and ethno-religious boundaries of the German, nominally Christian, majority.
Abstract: Religious minorities have always been at the centre of the German nation-state’s self-understanding, as it came to define itself vis a vis, and often against, them. Historically, this can be seen specifically in the Jewish experience, and today reverberates in the experience of Muslims grappling with a position of alterity in German society. We will move beyond the scholarship on these two religious minority groups to that of these two religious minority groups—that is the intellectual milieu of German Jews and German Muslims. Both have confronted the insider-outsider status of religious minorities in Germany, while themselves occupying—and thinking from—this position of alterity. As Jewish intellectuals a century prior, Muslim intellectuals are confronting the (im)possibility of fully belonging to the society at hand. In so doing, they are, at times inadvertently, coming into conversation with Jewish intellectuals past on ideas surrounding the practice of religion, pluralism, minority-state relations, and social ethics.
Abstract: As pandemic restrictions intensified in Western Europe, so too did a wave of COVID-related
antisemitism and Islamophobia, proliferating on social media. Considering antisemitism and
Islamophobia as joint and intersecting phenomena, this report investigates the ways in which,
eighteen months after the start of the pandemic, anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim narratives continue to be created, spread and accessed on social media. Through interviews with thirteen Jewish
and Muslim community leaders, subject-area experts and representatives of inter-governmental
organisations, this report presents not only the key trends both on and offline, but they ways in
which they have impacted the targeted communities, and the ability of Jews and Muslims in
Western Europe to live and practice their religion threat-free. This research makes ten key recommendations for social media companies, governments and civil societies, in order to urgently
address the spiralling radicalisation which is evidenced throughout this report.
Abstract: Jews and Muslims in France never formed singular communities and never solely or primarily interacted with each other as a function of ethnoreligious identity categories. Rather, their on-the-ground interactions often took place as a function of a variety of other identifications, solidarities, and experiences. Yet, media discourse commonly constructs Jews and Muslims as homogeneous, disparate, and separate communities and their relations as oppositional and troubled. This article examines how Jews and Muslims are relationally defined and constructed in media discourse, focusing on the national dailies Le Monde and Le Figaro. My analysis reveals the discursive patterns that emerge in articles on Jews and Muslims and how these representations implicitly construct ‘Jews’ and ‘Muslims’ and their ‘relations’. In doing so, I make two main arguments about newspaper reporting on Jewish–Muslim relations in France: (1) With some exceptions, Jews and Muslims are constructed as two separate, homogeneous communities and their relations presented as tense and problematic; (2) Jews tend to be presented as fully integrated and their representation is in general positive, while Muslims are more often presented as not fully integrated – or even as at odds with French society and its values – and their representation is, at best, ambiguous and, at worst, negative.
Abstract: This thesis uses critical discursive psychology to analyse anti-Semitic and Islamophobic discourse on the Facebook pages of two far-right organisations: Britain First and the English Defence League. Using the Charlie Hebdo attack as a time frame, I examine how the far-right manage their identity and maintain rationality online, as well as how users on Facebook respond to the far-right. This thesis demonstrates how Britain First and the English Defence League present themselves as reasonable in their anti-Semitic and anti-Islamic stance following the Charlie Hebdo shooting. Ultimately, I bring together the study of fascist discourse and political discourse on social media using critical discursive psychology, in a novel synthesis. The Charlie Hebdo shooting and the shooting at the kosher supermarket in Paris in January 2015 (as well as other attacks by members of the Islamic State) have led to Muslims being seen as a threat to Britain, and thus Muslims have been exposed to Islamophobic attacks and racial abuse. The current climate is a challenging situation for the far-right, as they are presented with the dilemma of appearing as rational and even mainstream, whilst nevertheless adopting an anti-Islamic stance. The analysis focuses on how Britain First and the English Defence League used the shooting at the Kosher supermarket to align with Jews in order to construct them as under threat from Islam, and promote its anti-Islamic stance. I also analyse visual communication used by Britain First to provide evidence that Britain First supported Jewish communities. Discourse from Facebook users transitioned from supportive towards Jews, to questioning the benefits that Jews brought to Britain, and expressing Holocaust denial. Furthermore, I discuss how other far-right politicians in Europe such as Geert Wilders from the Dutch Party for Freedom, portrayed himself as a reasonable politician in the anti-Islamic stance he has taken in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack. Findings are discussed in light of how the far-right communicate about the Charlie Hebdo shooting whilst maintaining a reasonable stance when projecting anti-Semitic and Islamophobic ideology, and how such discourse can encompass hate speech. I demonstrate how critical discursive psychology can be used to show how various conflicting social identities are constructed and interact with each other online. This thesis shows how the far-right use aligning with Jews as means to present Muslims as problematic, and how such alignment has resulted in the marginalisation of both Jews and Muslims.
