What? Not even Scarlett Johansson? She’s Jewish.
A global survey by a prominent US-based Jewish NGO has found that 61% of Malaysians admit to having prejudices against Jews, a percentage almost three times higher than the world average (24%) and the average in the rest of Asia (which we would assume doesn’t include the Middle East – 22%).
In what the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) termed the first survey of its kind, Malaysia came in 19th in a list of 102 countries surveyed in terms of how anti-Semitic they are, after of the more famously anti-Semitic nations in the Middle East and North Africa. Malaysia is also the country most prejudiced against Jews in Asia, outside of the Middle East.
“For the first time we have a real sense of how pervasive and persistent anti-Semitism is today around the world,” ADL director Abraham H. Foxman told The New York Times.
Foxman added that the survey also served to help the ADL to “identify hot spots, as well as countries and regions of the world where hatred of Jews is essentially nonexistent.”
In the Southeast Asian region, Muslim-majority Malaysia and Indonesia (48%) were the countries with the strongesrt negative perception of Jewish people. Singapore, at third place, registered only 16%.
The figure decreases dramatically elsewhere, to 13% in Thailand 6% in Vietnam, and 3% in the Philippines. Laos clocked in with the lowest score overall with 0.2%.
Globally, the most anti-Semitic people were those from Iraq and the West Bank/Gaza with a 93% score each. Saudi Arabia recorded a score of 74%.
According to The Malay Mail Online, Malaysia’s own bias is rooted in the government’s overt support for Palestinians in the conflict, which in turn has encouraged local politicians to use the issue as a platform to appeal to the Malay-Muslim electorate.
Former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad remains a trenchant critic of the Zionist regime for its occupation of modern day Israel.
In a controversial speech delivered before the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) in 2003, Dr Mahathir had stunned the world by saying “Nazis killed six million Jews out of 12 million (during the Holocaust). But today, the Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them”.
In 2011, Malaysian fans had targeted Israeli footballer Youssi Benayoun who was playing for English Premier League team Chelsea in a friendly against a Malaysian selection. He was taunted throughout the match by the crowd, leading to his team lodging a formal complaint.
The Football Association of Malaysian subsequently apologised.
