Study: Not All Jew-Haters Want Jews Shot

Some want them gassed, burned, drowned, crushed, buried, dissolved, beheaded or impaled

Phoenix, AZ (Reuters) – A Ku Klux Klan poll has found unexpectedly diverse attitudes among Jew-haters. Where researchers expected to encounter broad agreement with the sentiment that Jews should be shot, instead they discovered vehement insistence on a variety of other killing methods.

In the largest study of its kind conducted to date, the KKK survey solicited the opinions of 45,000 Neo-Nazis, Klansmen, White Supremacists and assorted other anti-Semite activists. They will publish their findings and analysis in the forthcoming issue of  the scientific journal Der Stürmer.

Whereas smaller, informal studies over the last three decades have tended to yield a more uniform picture, in which Jews, by and large, should be “lined up and shot,” the recent study found that “gassed,” “impaled,” and “burned” were in a dead heat with “lined up and shot,”  each garnering about 18 percent of the total responses. Additionally, “beheaded,” which had never before accounted for more than four percent of the responses, kept pace with “drowned” and “crushed” at eight percent. “Crushed” has never before registered as statistically significant, a fact that prompted speculation about the evolving maturity of the American Jew-hater. The study had a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.

“It’s an exciting time to be an anti-Semite,” said Professor David Duke of Louisiana State University, lead author of the study. “Of course it’s always exciting, but this study opens up new vistas in just how wonderfully variegated and subtle this pursuit can be. It raises so many questions – why the sudden interest in seeing Jews crushed, as opposed to the old reliable gas chamber? What other disposal methods have cropped up in recent years as preferences? There’s so much more exploration to do, and I can’t wait to follow up.”

However, Professor Louis Farrakhan, a noted expert on bigotry studies at the Islamic State University of Illinois, who was not involved in the research, cautioned that the results might reflect better survey methods, rather than a genuine shift in attitude toward Jews. “I’d be wary of ascribing too much significance to the preference for Jews to be ‘impaled’ over ‘dissolved,’ he said in a telephone interview. “I personally find [Professor] Duke’s methods suspect, but I’d need to study the data and methodology more closely before I can comment further.”

Farrakhan also criticized the study’s reliance only on white, American Jew-haters. His department has commissioned a similar study that will elicit responses from Jew-hating populations not included in the KKK study, such as Nation of Islam members and senior Iranian government officials.

The largest, most comprehensive previous study of the fate Jew-haters wish upon Jews took place in 1980, when the Arizona Nazi Party surveyed 800 anti-Semites west of the Mississippi. They found that 750 of the respondents preferred Jews be shot, with other deaths lagging far behind. Assuming the new survey results indicate a shift in attitudes and not merely a sounder statistical body of data, Duke plans to send further questionnaires to the respondents to explore their evolving sensibilities.

“I’d always thought we Jew-haters were very much alike. But it turns out we’re a diverse bunch – and that’s just amazing, because it’s bridging the differences among people that make us such a great species.”