Europe: Muslims have emerged as a new group of antisemitic perpetrators in W. Europe

Antisemitic Attitudes among Muslims in Europe: A Survey Review, by Günther Jikeli

Since the early twenty-first century, Muslims have emerged as a new group of antisemitic perpetrators in Western Europe. Perpetrators of the most extreme cases of violence against European Jews in recent years were Muslims, and they partly justified their actions by their interpretation of Islam.

The most terrible incidents include: the terror attacks in January and February 2015 in Paris and Copenhagen, where nineteen people were murdered, among them at least five because they were Jewish; the shootings at the Jewish Museum in Brussels in May 2014, where four people were killed; the murder of three children and a teacher at a Jewish school in Toulouse in 2012; and the torture and murder of Ilan Halimi in Paris in 2006.

Statistics for France and Great Britain from the last decade show that antisemitic perpetrators have been disproportionately of Muslim origin. Exact numbers are difficult to establish, however, because most perpetrators have not been identified. Cautious estimations put the percentage of Muslim perpetrators of antisemitic acts in Great Britain at between 20 and 30 percent, while the percentage of Muslims in the general population stands at 5 percent. About 30 percent of the perpetrators in all antisemitic incidents in France in recent years have been identified as Muslim/ Arab. Adding the number of non-identified perpetrators, the actual percentage can be estimated to be above 50 percent. 1 Muslims make up 6 to 8 percent of the total population of France.

While antisemitic acts peaked during tensions in the Israeli– Palestinian conflict and the Iraq War, the annual levels of antisemitic acts have risen significantly compared to the 1990s and cannot be attributed solely to fallout from these conflicts. How is this reflected in antisemitic attitudes.  More.