Zionism is a Jewish conspiracy meant to manipulate Western societies to benefit Jews, according to a majority of 1,007 respondents to a French poll about Jewish nationalism.

Some 53 percent of the respondents to the survey conducted by the Ifop polling company agreed with the conspiratorial statement that “Zionism is an international organization that seeks to influence the world and societies to the Jews’ benefit,” the Union of Jewish Students in France, or UEJF, said in response to the report it commissioned.

Of those polled, 11 percent said they “strongly agree.” Half of the respondents said Zionism was a “racist ideology.”

Zionism refers to the movement to re-establish the Jewish state in the historic Land of Israel.

Almost 26 per cent of respondents called the anti-Semitic boycott of Israel justified, while 38 percent said that the very existence of the Jewish state “fuels anti-Semitism.”

Sacha Ghozlan, president of the UEJF, said the results showed ignorance about the Jewish state is widespread in modern France.

This UEJF / IFOP poll shows a low level of knowledge about what Zionism is. It also testifies to a worrying level of adherence to conspiracy theses for the youngest.

While news in the Middle East is cause for concern, the French are attached to the fact that the links between France and Israel are strengthened and do not adhere to the boycott movement of Israel.

The pedagogy on Zionism and on what Israel should be strengthened, especially among the youngest as both anti-Zionism and the instrumentalization of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict feed anti-Semitism in France.

The ignorance of modern Israel Mr. Ghozlan touched on was borne out by the statistical analysis. It also defied the basic facts that some of Judaism’s holiest sites are located in the so-called West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount and Western Wall in Jerusalem; the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs in Hebron; and Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus.

Almost a quarter of the respondents said that Israel declared its independence after 1980. A third indicated correctly that the nation was established in 1948.

Israel was described as a “threat to regional stability” by 57 percent of respondents and as a “theocracy” by 51 percent. The assertions that Israel is a democracy and is a “normal country like all other” received approval ratings of 46 and 48 percent, respectively.