ADL and the Global Pandemic of Muslim Jew-Hatred

By Andrew Bostom, MD, MS,     17th December 2023

—For two decades, ADL has been documenting, then downplaying, this uniquely Muslim scourge

I was introduced to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)’s global Antisemitism survey data, indirectly, in 2006. An analysis of ADL’s 2004 Western European data was published August, 2006, in the The Journal of Conflict Resolution. The study authors confirmed their rather mundane a priori hypothesis: Anti-Israel sentiment was a strong, independent predictor of Antisemitism. De-emphasized, and noted only in passing by these authors, was a much more original, and striking finding: In a controlled comparison to Western European Christians, Western European Muslims were nearly 8-fold more likely to evidence extreme Antisemitism, as gauged by agreement with at least 6 of 11 Antisemitic stereotypes. More disturbing, and auguring a pattern of deliberate minimization which persists to this day, the original 2004 34pp. ADL survey report of 2004 made no mention of the Muslim sample at all!

By 2014, ADL was applying its slightly modified (p.3) survey instrument globally. Any honest and rational assessment of the data would have highlighted these baleful findings:

—The world’s 16 most Antisemitic countries were all in the Muslim Middle East, where 74% to 93% of the overwhelmingly Muslim denizens of these nations  exhibited extreme Antisemitism—Judea-Samaria/Gaza 93%; Iraq 92%; Yemen 88%; Algeria 87%; Libya 87%; Tunisia 86%; Kuwait 82%; Bahrain 81%; Jordan 81%; Morocco 80%; Qatar 80%; United Arab Emirates 80%; Lebanon 78%; Oman 76%; Egypt 75%; Saudi Arabia 74%.

—There was a 2 to 3-fold excess occurrence of extreme Muslim Antisemitism, globally, by religious affiliation—Muslim, 49%; Christian, 24%; No religion, 21%; Hindu, 19%; Buddhist, 17%.

Instead, without any evidence ADL conducted the controlled, multivariable-adjusted analyses published in 2006 (p.2), being Muslim was omitted (p.10) from the purported, “Factors that are predictors of Antisemitic views.”

A year later, in 2015, ADL published Western European data that openly included large Muslim population samples. The disproportionate occurrence of Muslim Jew-hatred was again apparent: There was 2 to 4.5-fold excess prevalence of extreme Muslim Antisemitism in Western Europe—Belgium, 68% of Muslims vs. 21% of non-Muslims; Spain, 62% of Muslims vs. 29% of non-Muslims; Germany, 56% of Muslims vs. 16% of non-Muslims; Italy, 56% of Muslims vs. 29% of non-Muslims; United Kingdom, 54% of Muslims vs. 12% of non-Muslims; France, 49% of Muslims vs. 17% of non-Muslims.

While forced to concede these excessive Muslim rates, ADL emphasized how they were, “lower than corresponding figures of 75% in 2014 for Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa.” ADL’s 2015 survey press release also gave priority to its claim that, “In the aftermath of the shocking violence against Jews in Western Europe the past year, the level of Antisemitic attitudes among the general population in France showed a dramatic decline, while Germany and Belgium registered significant reductions.”

In 2017, ADL released its first U.S. survey that included Muslim American data on extreme Antisemitism. Ignoring the 2.4-fold excess rate of extreme Muslim Antisemitism among American Muslims, i.e., 34%, relative to 14% in American non-Muslims—consistent with global patterns ADL has detected for at least the past decade—the report chirped, “that is far lower than Muslims in Europe, where 55% hold these views, and the Middle East/North Africa, where 75% hold (extreme) Antisemitic views.”

ADL released its  2019 survey data characterizing the prevalence of extreme Antisemitism within 18 countries assessed between April 15 and June 3, 2019. Six of these countries—Belgium, The United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, France, and Italy—again included a Muslim over-sample, allowing for a direct comparison of Muslims vs. Christians, those professing no religion, and the general populations. These findings confirmed the ongoing, disproportionate roughly 3-fold excess occurrence of extreme Antisemitism among Western Europe’s Muslims. Giving the most urgent finding lowest priority—listing them as the last of six bullet points—ADL grudgingly acknowledged, “Muslim acceptance of Antisemitic stereotypes was substantially higher than among the national populations—on average almost three times as high—in the six countries tested: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and The United Kingdom.” ADL also failed to note how compared to Western European Christians, specifically, Muslims remained three times more likely to harbor extreme Antisemitic attitudes. Furthermore, these raw 2019 data were again never subjected to multivariable-adjusted statistical analysis, as was true of ADL’s 2004 Western European findings. Recall that controlled comparison (p.2) revealed an almost 8-fold excess risk of extreme Antisemitism, among Muslims, vs. Christians.

ADL’s 22pp. summary report of its most recent survey of 6 Western and 4 Eastern European countries (published May, 2023), makes no mention whatsoever of extreme Muslim Antisemitism, while emphasizing (p.17) alleged, “high concern over right wing violence.” Yet elsewhere, ADL’s own raw 2023 tabulations of extreme Antisemitism for the only two countries where Muslim data are provided, i.e., France and Belgium, reveal the same 10-year, repeated phenomenon: 62% of French Muslims exhibited extreme Antisemitism, vs. 15% of French Christians; for Belgium those numbers were 52% Muslims, 21% Christians.

Not surprisingly, ADL heavily promoted journalist Bari Weiss’ 2019 pocket book, “How To Fight Anti-Semitism.”  Weiss disregarded the salient findings of ADL’s 2014 global survey: namely, that the 16 most Antisemitic countries in the world were all Arab Muslim, with a prevalence of extreme Antisemitism of from 74% to 93%, and that Muslims worldwide exhibited a 2- to 3-fold excess prevalence of extreme Antisemitism, relative to those professing Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, or no faith. Bari Weiss’ reductio ad absurdum “assessment” omitted those data noting (p. 141), in lieu, “a 2014 ADL survey which looked at attitudes toward Jews in 100 countries found that…only 8% of respondents in the Middle East and North Africa had heard of the Holocaust and believed it actually happened.”

Finally, during an April, 2019 U.S. Congressional hearing,  in “response” to Zionist Organization of America President Mort Klein’s presentation of ADL data such as the 2014 global survey illustrating the 16 countries with the highest prevalence of extreme Antisemitism—all of them, Arab Muslim societies whose populations are 90-100% Muslims (with the exception of 60% Muslim majority, Lebanon)— ADL’s Eileen Hershenov, Senior VP for Policy, had the temerity to portray, the virulently Antisemitic Muslim denizens of these countries, as follows:

“One of the witnesses (Klein) talked about global attitudes that we look at…and the ADL does track that…[V]ulnerable, marginalized communities have bigotry within them.”

For two decades, ongoing, ADL has been documenting, then downplaying, or ignoring altogether, the global excess of extreme Muslim Antisemitism. ADL’s unconscionable denial must cease immediately because it cripples any serious efforts to understand, let alone combat, this contemporary, uniquely Muslim scourge.