German anti-Semitism and resentment towards Israel have risen sharply in recent months, a new survey has found.
More than one in four respondents in the new poll equated the Jewish state’s treatment of Palestinian Arabs to Nazi persecution of Jews during World War Two, Reuters reported on Thursday.
The bi-annual survey on xenophobia in Germany by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation showed broad measures of anti-Semitism on the decline over the past decade.
However, it also showed a spike in negative views towards Israel and Jews in general between June and September, coinciding with the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
When asked in September, for example, whether they believed Jews, because of their actions, were partly responsible for their own persecution, 18 percent of respondents agreed, up from less than 8 percent in June.
Just over 27 percent of those surveyed in September said they broadly or fully agreed with the idea that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians was no different than Nazi persecution of Jews during the Holocaust, when six million Jews were murdered.
That survey result was still down significantly from 2004, when over 51 percent of respondents agreed with this statement, noted Reuters.
One in five respondents, in the survey of 1,915 German citizens, said Israel’s policies made Jews less likeable.
“The lines between anti-Semitism and substantive criticism of Israel are becoming blurred and that is a problem,” the Friedrich Ebert Foundation said in a statement.
The survey was released a week after German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned at a conference in Berlin that “hatred of Jews” was on the rise in Germany and across Europe amid spiraling violence in the Middle East.
Only a few days ago, the mayor of the German city of Dortmund asked authorities to ban the neo-Nazi ‘Die Rechte’ party, after it reportedly demanded that the mayor send a list of the city’s Jews, a request that the mayor promptly refused.
Anti-Semitism rose dramatically worldwide during this summer’s war between Israel and terrorists in Gaza, but Europe was particularly hard-hit by the wave of hatred.
In addition to Germany, there was also anti-Semitic violence in France, Belgium and Holland. British Jewry was also left shaken following a 400% increase in anti-Semitism overall.