In Britain, there is anecdotal evidence that polling organisations are reluctant to conduct surveys that might show the Muslim community in an unfavourable light. The most detailed work, however, has been done in France. Repeated surveys show, according to Jikeli, that the three most anti-Semitic groups in France are supporters of the far-Right (the Front National), the far-Left (the Front de Gauche) and Muslims. Of these three, Muslims “show by far the highest level of anti-Semitism” across a range of attitudes. Nearly half of all French Muslims, 46 per cent, emerge as “coherent” anti-Semites, compared to 38 per cent of Front National and 22 per cent of Front de Gauche supporters, while 15 per cent of the general population share such views — about twice as many as in the UK. Among Muslims, such factors as education, occupation and income make relatively little difference. Whether or not anti-Semites know Jews personally is also statistically insignificant — this applies both to Muslims and non-Muslims. Nor do levels of discrimination or legal restrictions on Islamic practice. There is no evidence that Muslims become anti-Semitic because they are persecuted or marginalised.

What does make a difference to Muslim anti-Semitism is religious fundamentalism. Surveys found that non-practising and non-believing Muslims were much less likely to be anti-   Semitic, while anti-Semitic attitudes are held by the great majority of devoutly religious Muslims. Hence we may conclude that anti-Semitism is not merely a transient phenomenon among European Muslims, which will pass away over time as they become more integrated, but a deeply-held conviction that is intimately connected to Islamic beliefs and the political mindset that usually accompanies them.

Where does Muslim anti-Semitism come from? It is well known that many passages in the Koran depict Jews in a bad light. But not so many people realise that the founder of Islam showed by his own example what he thought should happen to Jews who did not submit to Islam. Ibn Ishaq, his first biographer, records what happened when the Messenger (as he was known) had defeated and captured a Jewish tribe, the Banu Qurayza: “Then the Messenger went out to the market of Medina . . . and dug trenches in it. Then he sent for them and struck off their heads in those trenches as they were brought out to him in batches . . . There were 600 or 700 in all, though some put the figure as high as 800 or 900 . . . This went on until the Messenger made an end to them.”

It is not, therefore, an accident that Islamist states and terrorist organisations today execute or murder Jews wherever they can find them. The global nature of their anti-Semitism is very striking. Take, for example, Latin America, where Iranian-backed terrorists have not only carried out attacks on the Jewish community in Argentina, but have implicated successive governments in cover-ups and secret diplomacy. In India, a country with hardly any Jews, the Mumbai terrorists managed to find and kill several. In South Africa, demagogues are demanding that Jews either subscribe to their own anti-Semitic agenda, or face discrimination or even expulsion. And in Europe, we have recently seen a series of murderous attacks on Jews in France and Belgium, where they make up less than 1 per cent of the population. It is only a matter of time before such lethal anti-Semitic attacks take place here in Britain. Indeed, the level of anti-Semitic incidents has risen steadily here and last year reached an all-time high. We are dealing with an epidemic of anti-Semitism that goes far beyond anything seen in the 1930s during the fascist agitation in the East End.