Antisemitic attitudes in Britain have surged to their highest level in at least a decade, with more than one in five Britons now embracing openly hostile views toward Jews, according to a new survey released Sunday.

The YouGov poll, commissioned by the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA), found that 21% of respondents agreed with four or more antisemitic statements — a sharp jump from 16% last year and nearly double the 11% recorded in 2021. The Telegraph, which first reported the findings, said the numbers represent the steepest rise in antisemitism since such surveys began.

Nearly half of those surveyed — 45% — agreed with the claim that Israel treats Palestinians the way Nazis treated Jews, up from a record 33% last year. The CAA blasted that view as “one of the most common antisemitic tropes that we see.”
“It both trivializes the Holocaust, in which six million Jews were industrially slaughtered, and insultingly accuses victims of the crime committed against them of perpetrating it,” the group said in a statement.

The poll showed antisemitic sentiment especially high among younger Britons. Sixty percent of respondents aged 18–24 agreed with the Nazi comparison, while nearly half (49%) said they were uncomfortable spending time with people who openly support Israel. Only 18% expressed being comfortable in doing so.

Just 31% of young voters said Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish homeland, compared with 20% who said it does not. More than half — 58% — argued that Israel and its supporters are a “bad influence” on British democracy, nearly double the national average of 29%.

Alarmingly, one in ten young Britons reported a favorable view of Hamas, while 14% said the group should not be designated as a terrorist organization. Nineteen percent went further, saying the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel — in which Hamas militants murdered 1,219 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped 251 more, according to official tallies — was justified.

The poll also found a surge in conspiracy-minded claims. Twenty-six percent of Britons said Israel acts with impunity because its supporters “control the media,” up from 18% last year. Among young respondents, 42% endorsed the statement.

“Bearing in mind that the overwhelming majority of British Jews identify as Zionists and with the Jewish state, these attitudes among young Britons have enormous implications for young Jews on campus, on social media and starting out in the workplace,” the CAA warned.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)