Hating the Jew you’ve never met

[Mosby]

The ADL’s massive Global 100 survey of worldwide anti-Semitic attitudes, published Tuesday, offers some sobering statistics. Some 1.1 billion adults harbor anti-Semitic views. In the Middle East, 74 percent of adults agreed with a majority of the survey’s 11 anti-Semitic propositions, including that “Jews have too much power in international financial markets” and that “Jews are responsible for most of the world’s wars.”

The complexities uncovered by the study are fascinating and important. They include, for example, the jarring discovery that 52% of Germans and Austrians believe Jews talk too much about the Holocaust — but also that young Germans and Austrians are shedding their parents’ anti-Semitic attitudes. The number of Germans holding such views dropped steeply from 33% among those over 50 to 15% among those under 34, and among Austrians from 41% to 12%. The German-speaking world is simultaneously growing tired of hearing about the Holocaust and more accepting of Jews.

We find similar complexity in the discovery that Britain, a hub of global efforts to delegitimize the Jewish state, is nevertheless one of the least anti-Semitic countries in the world, while Greece, Israel’s newfound regional ally, is one of the most.

And while the Internet has toppled tyrants and created new opportunities for openness and development in the Muslim world, Internet use is also a significant factor in a Muslim becoming anti-Semitic. The prevalence of anti-Semitic views grew by some 20 percentage points among Muslims who get their news primarily online compared to those who get their news from television, newspapers or even religious leaders, the study found.

These are valuable insights, and the survey offers many others.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/hating-the-jew-youve-never-met/

[Behind the Aegis]

1. The survey is very interesting and I am still looking over stats.

I am seeing a correlation between "very bad economy" and Jews power in business and such. When the economy comes into play, two groups are blamed, Jews and/or immigrants. The "PC" bunch will pretend it isn't there, or they will mask their own hate in certain words and phrases without every identifying either Jews and/or immigrants.

The most jarring numbers to me are the number of anti-Semites who have never met a Jew and the increase of Holocaust denial.

[LeftishBrit]

3. When the economy comes into play, two groups are blamed, Jews and/or immigrants

Very, very true, alas.

In addition, the people at the bottom of the heap tend to get blamed for 'scrounging' (or Americans would I think say 'mooching'). Nothing like getting the moderately poor to blame the very poor for their plight!

But, yes, Jews and immigrants have always been the eternal scapegoats for bad economic circumstances.

[LeftishBrit]

2. Interesting

While some of this reflects the opposite direction of causation - Jews, when hey have the choice, are less likely to choose to live in places which are hotbeds of anti-Semitism - there is certainly a general tendency for prejudice to be worst where contact is least. Studies show that anti-immigrant prejudice in Britain is worst in places with few or no immigrants. Also, people who live in communities where there is a lot of intergroup contact, even if they themselves are not much exposed to 'the Other', tend to exhibit less prejudice than those who live in highly segregated communities.

[Behind the Aegis]

4. It's "the other" phenomena.

I see some of the same statistics regarding homophobia and the homophobes access to/knowledge of gay people. The more segregated a group is, the more they seem to harbor anti-"what-have-you" feelings.