Anti-Muslim, anti-Jewish sentiments up in Europe
Studies say that while Islamophobia on rise in Europe, Muslim support for suicide bombings is down.

Anti-Semitism has risen in Europe and attitudes towards Muslims have become more negative in recent years, according to a US think-tank study released here.

Anti-Jewish sentiment was up in six European countries surveyed for the Washington-based Pew Research Center's 2008 Global Attitudes Project. Of those, Spain was found to be the least tolerant toward Jews and Muslims.

More than a third of Poles and Russians were anti-Semitic, as were one in four Germans and one in five French.

Britain stood out as the only European country where there has not been a substantial rise in anti-Semitism.

Only nine percent of Britons saying they viewed Jews unfavorably, largely unchanged from recent years, according to Pew.

In all the other European countries surveyed, anti-Semitism was up, with the rise "particularly dramatic in Spain, where unfavorable views have more than doubled over the last three years, rising from 21 percent in 2005 to 46 percent in the current survey," Pew said in the report.

Europeans held an even worse opinion of Muslims than they did of Jews, the study showed.

Fifty-two percent of Spaniards, half of Germans, 46 percent of Poles and nearly four in 10 French viewed Muslims unfavorably.

Slightly fewer than one third of Russians and around a quarter of Britons expressed anti-Muslim feelings.

However the survey showed that negative opinions of Muslims had declined in Spain and Germany since 2006.

Six in 10 Spaniards said they had a negative view of Muslims in 2006 compared with just over half this year, and the number of anti-Muslim Germans fell from 54 percent to 50 percent in the past two years.

More than 4,700 people were surveyed between March and April in the six European countries for the project.

Muslim support for suicide attacks down

The number of Muslims around the world who say suicide attacks are acceptable has fallen sharply in the past six years, as has Muslims' confidence in Osama bin Laden, the survey by the US think-tank showed Thursday.

But, the Pew Research Center warned in its Global Attitudes Project, significant minorities of Muslims in eight countries surveyed continue to endorse suicide bombings and support the Al-Qaeda leader.

In Lebanon, the number of Muslims who said suicide attacks can be justified often or sometimes in defense of Islam fell by 42 percent between 2002 to this year, the study showed.

But although down sharply from 74 percent six years ago, one in three Muslims in Lebanon still backed suicide attacks.

In Pakistan, support for suicide bombings has fallen by 28 percent to a scant five percent in the past six years.

In Jordan, support has dropped 18 points since 2002, but a quarter of Jordanian Muslims still support suicide attacks.

Even though numbers have fallen by 15 percent in six years, around 10 percent in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, continue to support suicide attacks.

Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, where around half the population is Muslim, also saw a 15 percent drop in support, but that left nearly one-third still in support of the deadly tactic.

Turkey and Tanzania saw drops in support for suicide bombings of 10 and six points respectively since 2002.

Support in Turkey, which has been rocked by several deadly attacks in recent years, was the lowest of any of the countries surveyed, with only three percent telling Pew pollsters in March and April that they back suicide bombings.

In Egypt, support for suicide bombings rose by five percent between 2007 and 2008; Egyptians were not surveyed in 2002.

Large numbers of Muslims in the eight countries also said they had lost confidence in bin Laden to do the right thing in world affairs, although support for the Al-Qaeda leader remained high in some countries.

That was the case in Nigeria in particular, where nearly six in 10 Muslims expressed confidence in bin Laden, around the same percentage as five years ago.

Support for bin Laden fell from nearly six in 10 Muslims in Indonesia and nearly half in Pakistan in 2003, to a still sizeable but significantly lower number of around one-third today.

In contrast, only two percent of Lebanese Muslims expressed a lot or some confidence in bin Laden, down from 20 percent in 2003, and in Turkey, the percentage was three percent this year compared with 15 percent five years ago.

The most dramatic drop in support for bin Laden was seen among Jordanian Muslims: whereas six in 10 of them expressed confidence in bin Laden just three years ago, only 19 percent did this year.

The Pew Global Attitudes Project is a series of worldwide public opinion surveys covering a broad array of subjects ranging from people’s assessments of their own lives to their views about the current state of the world.

Just under 8,000 in the eight countries asked for their views on suicide bombings and bin Laden.

Biggest Muslim survey

However, a recent huge survey conducted by the Gallup polling agency over six years and three continents, showed that the overwhelming majority of Muslims condemned the attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001 and other subsequent terrorist attacks.

The study shows that About 93 percent of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims are moderates and only seven percent are politically radical, according to the poll, based on more than 50,000 interviews.

Who Speaks for Islam, co-authored by John L. Esposito of Georgetown University, and Dalia Mogahed of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, showed that those who condone acts of terrorism are a minority and are no more likely to be religious than the rest of the population.

Muslims in 40 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East were interviewed for the survey, which is part of Gallup's World Poll that aims to interview 95 percent of the world's population.

- Middle East Online