Survey Reveals Europe Likes ISIS More Than Arab States Do
October 24, 2014The brutal Islamic State (ISIS) terror regime conquering large portions of Iraq and Syria has been gaining huge popularity in the West with aggressive recruitment – so much so that a new study reveals it is more popular in Europe than in many Arab states.
A Washington Institute study conducted in September and published last week found that a mere 3% of Egyptians, 5% of Saudis and under 1% of Lebanese felt any support for ISIS, reports Huffington Post.
While the numbers still represent a massive number of people – 1.5 million in Egypt, 500,000 in Saudi Arabia and several thousand in Lebanon – compared to Europe the reception of the Sunni jihadist group can be said to be cold.
In sharp contrast, an August poll by ICM found 7% of Britons and 16% of French – and a whopping 27% of French aged 18 to 24 – feel “very” or “somewhat” favorably towards ISIS.
Putting the figure from the UK in context, 5% of the British population is Muslim, meaning that a large portion of local ISIS support is coming precisely from non-Muslims.
That figure has been borne out in recent Scotland Yard figures, which reveal 5 Britons join ISIS every week, and so far over 500 total have joined the group, which recently had its plans to commit beheadings in the streets of London foiled.
In France, security officials recently revealed over 1,000 citizens have joined ISIS, including a recent batch of 100 girls and women who included a “handful” of Jewish girls – one of the girls was exposed to have tried to blow up her parents’ store.
Examining the recent studies, Tablet magazine asserts that the European girls are leaving for jihad to serve as wives, concubines and baby-sitters for terrorists out of a lack of purpose and meaning in their comfortable western lives.
“To the Islamic State’s foreign fighters, especially its Western European contingent, the idea of a caliphate, ripped from the pages of Muslim history, resonates with a kind of existential authenticity missing from the vast and drab European suburbs warehousing Muslim youth,” writes the magazine.
While ISIS may not be polling as very popular in the Arab states, that did not hold true for another Sunni jihadist terror group – namely Hamas.
The Washington Institute research found a third of Egyptians, over half of all Saudis, and a fourth of Lebanese have positives views of the Gaza-based terror organization that is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.
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