. . . Beyond the West Bank and Gaza, the survey found that in the Middle East and North Africa, 74% of those polled agreed with a majority of the anti-Semitic stereotypes in the index. In comparison, countries outside of the region have an average index score of 23%. The second most anti-Semitic region of the world is Eastern Europe, where some 34% of the population hold anti-Semitic beliefs.
“While it is startling to see how high the level of anti-Semitism is in the Middle East and North African countries, the fact of the matter is even aside from those countries, close to a quarter of those polled in other parts of the world is infected with anti-Semitic attitudes,” Foxman said.
The survey also documented key distinctions among countries based on the majority religions in the states. Foxman described finding “incredibly low levels of anti-Semitic beliefs” in European Protestant-majority countries such as Denmark, the United Kingdom, Netherlands and Sweden. Of the least anti-Semitic countries, five were majority-Protestant and four were in east Asia. The one outlier among the top ten that fit into neither group was Tanzania.
On the other extreme, 49% of all Muslims surveyed around the world responded “probably true” to at least 6 of the 11 index stereotypes in the poll, which also found that Christians in Eastern Orthodox and Catholic countries are more likely to harbor anti-Semitic views than those in Protestant countries. Muslims living outside of the Middle East and North Africa, however, are much less anti-Semitic. Muslims in sub-Saharan Africa come in well below the international average, with only 18% holding anti-Semitic beliefs. Muslims in western Europe were only slightly above the global average, at 29%, while eastern European Muslims were slightly below it, at 20%.