More Than One Billion People 'Hold Anti-Semitic Views', Says ADL

More Than A Billion People 'Hold Anti-Semitic Views' -- Guess Where Britain Ranked
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One in four people worldwide hold anti-Jewish prejudice, and Europe has more people with anti-semitic views than Asia or Sub-Saharan Africa, new research has shown.

Researchers for the US-based Anti-Defamation League asked participants questions about 11 Jewish stereotypes - and found them to be anti-semitic if they found more than six of them to be true.

The UK has just 8% of people holding anti-semitic views, one of the world's lowest. But the lowest was in the south-east Asian country of Laos, where prejudice was expressed by just 0.2% of the population.

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A Jewish girl lighting a Hannukah candle during the winter festival

Greece was the most anti-semitic country in Western Europe, with 69% of people expressing anti-semitic opinions of the adults surveyed expressing such opinions.

ADL National Director Abraham Foxman said the country's prime minister had already invited him to visit and discuss what could be done about the report's findings.

Worldwide, the highest was in the Palestinian territories, where it was 93%. Just under 50% of the Muslims surveyed by the researchers expressed anti-semitic views, but trends toward prejudice seemed to be linked more closely to region than religion.

Three-quarters of Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa were found to hold anti-Jewish prejudice, but just 18% of Muslims in sub-Saharan Africa felt the same.

Almost three-quarters of the 53,100 adults surveyed said that they had never met a Jewish person.

"Our findings are sobering but sadly not surprising,' said Foxman.

"We can now identify hotspots, as well as countries and regions of the world where hatred of Jews is virtually non-existent.

Those who get their information about Jews from the internet are much more likely to harbour anti-Semitic views than those who get their information from other sources, the study found.

The study also looked at Holocaust awareness, with just 24% of people in sub-Sarahan Africa knowing what the genocide was. In Western Europe, 94% of people knew what the Holocaust was.

Less than half of those surveyed under the age of 35 have ever heard of the Holocaust.

THE ADL FOUND SOMEONE TO BE ANTI-SEMITIC IF THEY ANSWERED 'PROBABLY' OR 'DEFINITELY' TO SIX OF THESE 11 STATEMENTS

1. Jews are more loyal to Israel than to [this country/to the countries they live in]: 41%

2. Jews have too much power in the business world: 35%

3. Jews have too much power in international financial markets: 34%

4. Jews still talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust: 30%

5. Jews don't care what happens to anyone but their own kind: 33%

6. Jews have too much control over global affairs: 29%

7. Jews have too much control over the United States government: 25%

8. Jews think they are better than other people: 34%

9. Jews have too much control over the global media: 25%

10. Jews are responsible for most of the world's wars: 23%

11. People hate Jews because of the way Jews behave: 32%