I hope I’m not the only one you see linking this, but yesterday, CNN released the results of a poll yesterday that should not be ignored. I’m aware of the fact that posts with links disappear from search results nowadays, so I’ll reblog the post with links both to the CNN article and to the raw data added for those who are willing to look through the notes (that is, if this version you’re seeing isn’t already the reblogged version). Otherwise, you can google “CNN poll: Anti-Semitism in Europe“, I’m sure it’ll come up. The CNN article is easier to consume than the raw date, so personally, I suggest you read that, if you’re looking for something beyond my own discussion.
So… what is up with Europe? As it turns out, antisemitism is on the rise. Color me surprised.
We’re going to do this in points, because it’ll help keep everything clear in my head.
1. The year is 2018, and WWII ended 73 years ago.
2. The number of people polled was slightly over 1000 in each country, times seven countries, coming up to a total of 7,092. The survey was conducted during the middle third of September 2018, by a British organization called ComRes.
3. The poll had 14 questions, many of which had multiple clauses, and all of which fall under one or more of the following topics:
- Control questions
- Antisemitic stereotypes (Jewish influence especially)
- Opinions of Israel
- Holocaust remembrance and/or awareness
- General knowledge about Jews (specifically, literally just how many of us are there)
4. Oddly enough, the poll shows that a staggering amount of Europeans are antisemitic (as in, they hold antisemitic views) or know little to nothing about the Holocaust (one in twenty have never even heard of it!) and yet, most of the continent testifies to holding favorable or neutral views of Jews (only 10% or so said they viewed Jews unfavorably, third least-hated out of the 7 groups asked about in the control). Nonsensically, 43% also said that antisemitism was a growing problem, and 48% said that their government should be doing more to combat it. Uhm, okay…
Meanwhile, a staggering 30% – that’s almost one third of the population – don’t believe that Jews face discrimination in their country.
- In short, 9/10ths of Europeans don’t think they’re antisemitic, even though they are, but slightly less than half do believe that other people are antisemitic, and that the government should be doing something about it. But also, almost a third of Europeans don’t think Jews face discrimination at all.
5. How are they being antisemitic? Well:
- 27% think Jews have too much influence in business and finance across the world, and 22% believe it about their own country.
- let me remind you that Jews having influence over money is an antisemitic stereotype that dates to the early middle ages.
- 22% believe Jews have too much influence in politics across the world, but “only” 17% believe it about their own country.
- 20% believe Jews have too much influence over media across the world, and again 17% believe it about their own country.
- 23% believe Jews have too much influence over conflict and wars across the world, only one percent less regarding their own country.
- To clarify, between a fifth to a quarter of the European population believes Jews have too much influence in world and government affairs.
- An astounding 31% of Europeans believe that Jews use the Holocaust to advance their own positions or goals.
6. 28% blamed “most antisemitism in this country” on Israel’s actions. 17% blamed it on “the everyday behavior of Jewish people”.
7. More than half – 53% – agreed that Israel has a right to exist is a Jewish state, which I’ll admit is a figure that surprised me, because I thought it would be much lower, but also, how ridiculously low is it that barely a majority of Europeans believe that Israel should exist as a Jewish state, when Europe is at least partially the one to blame for its existence? You probably do need to contrast this with the amount of Europeans who know little to nothing about the Holocaust, though – that amounts to 33.17% of the people polled. That’s a third of the population. Meanwhile, less than 20% said that they knew a great deal. Within the statistics of people who didn’t think that Israel should exist as a Jewish state, the number of people who had never heard of the Holocaust more than doubled.
- Out of curiosity, I opened the statistics page for Germany only for this question – despite the fact that I’d always been told that Germany had a special focus on education about the Holocaust, their numbers were worse than the common statistics: a full percentage more said they have never even heard of the Holocaust, and slightly less than a percentage less said they knew a great deal about the Holocaust (while I rounded 19.95 up to 20% for gen-pop, I would receive no criticism at all for rounding down 19.15 to 19%).
8. 35% of Europeans believe that Israel uses the Holocaust to justify its actions, and I don’t think I can discuss this avenue further without puking.
32% of people said that the I/P conflict made them feel more unfavorable towards Jews.
9. The funniest statistic is that about half of all people are neither favorable nor unfavorable towards either Palestine or Israel, including Palestinians and Israelis.
10. The absolute worst statistic is that more than 56% of all Europeans report to never, in their life, having met a Jewish person. That is, as far as they’re aware, they’ve never talked to a Jew. And yet, they consistently overestimated the amount of Jews in the world and in their country – there is exactly one country in the world where Jews make up more than 2% of the population, and that’s Israel, and the total amount of Jews in Europe amount to 0.3% of the population. In the world, it amounts to 0.2%. The total amount of people who guessed that there it less than 1% in their own country was less than 6%, and in the world was 6.79%.
In short, the statistics are worrying, to say the least. And I have not gone over all of the statistics, not even close.
So… What’s up with Europe?
I could talk about the cyclical nature of antisemitism. Or I could talk about the dangerous path we’re on. I could talk about how these statistics reflect on America, or other countries. I could talk about what’ll happen next, or what we should do next.
But I think I’m going to let the numbers – sans my commentary – speak for themselves. Because… they’re not good numbers.
What’s Up With Europe?
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