OAN’s Brooke Mallory
5:17 PM – Monday, April 8, 2024
According to a recent survey conducted by polling company JL Partners and the Henry Jackson Society think-tank, nearly half of British Muslims say they sympathize or support Hamas, while only 1-in-4 think that the Palestinian Islamic terror group committed rape and murder during the attack on Israel on October 7th.
The poll serves as the most recent, largest study of Muslims living in the U.K., conducted in the six months following Hamas’ massacre of at least 1,200 people and kidnapping of hundreds more in Israel, many of whom have still not been released.
The Henry Jackson Society think-tank commissioned the study, which revealed that 46% of British Muslims support or sympathize with the terrorist organization that supports the destruction of Israel and the West.
Furthermore, a mere 24% of British Muslims expressed their belief that Hamas was responsible for murder and rape on October 7th in Israel, while the entire public in the U.K. held this view at 62%. On the other hand, 39% of Muslims in the U.K. stated they did not believe Hamas was responsible for atrocities, while 37% stated they were unsure.
The survey also revealed that younger and college-educated British Muslims were the least likely to think that Hamas was responsible for rape or murder during the terror attack; 40% of those with a university degree and 47% of those between the ages of 18 and 24 denied that the Palestinian terrorists had done anything wrong.
This is despite the mountains of evidence provided by the IDF and Israeli residents who endured the atrocities themselves.
The results show the “failure of counter-extremism policy over the years,” according to Alan Mendoza, executive director of the Henry Jackson Society, who spoke with The Telegraph outlet.
“What is probably going wrong is an unwillingness to tackle this kind of extremism for fear of being labeled Islamophobic or racist. There is a reluctance to call it out in the same way that people are very happy to call out far-Right extremists,” Mendoza said.
“The Government needs to find a way of supporting and strengthening the voice of moderate Muslims and drive the extremist narrative to the sidelines.”
MI5 chief Ken McCallum stated in 2020 that “[right-wing terror] threat is not, today, on the same scale as Islamist extremist terrorism… Islamist extremist terrorism by volume remains our largest threat.” Despite this, the government has been accused for years of spending an excessive amount of time and resources focusing on threats “posed by right-wing extremists.”
However, just last month, U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak declared in a speech to the country that the “far right” and Islamic extremists were attempting to destroy British democracy. This came after months of massive pro-Palestinian protests featured genocidal and anti-Semitic rhetoric on the streets of Britain, and after far-left George Galloway won a seat in Parliament on the backs of a campaign specifically focused on Muslims.
“We have recently set out a series of measures, which will promote social cohesion and counter religious hatred. Our plan will tackle division in our communities and ensure that we are protecting our democratic freedoms across the country,” stated a U.K. government spokesman in regards to the poll.
Additionally, according to the survey, 46% of British Muslims and 16% of the general population, respectively, think that Jews have “too much power” over the U.K. government. Of those surveyed, 52% believed that it should be against the law to display an image of the prophet Mohammed, and 32% of British Muslims stated that they would support the imposition of Sharia law.
Previously, a former religious studies teacher from the small West Yorkshire town of Batley was forced to go into hiding with his family as a result of threats from Muslims after he showed his pupils a caricature of Mohammed during a 2021 session on blasphemy. This act prompted protests and he was later suspended, according to the BBC.
“He’s living far away from the Batley area and has been given a new identity. He’s slowly trying to rebuild his life, but it’s not been easy,” according to a family source who spoke to Daily Mail.
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