Arabs and anti-Semitism

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This article describes issues of anti-Semitism (hostility towards or discrimination against Jews) in the Arab world.

For at least 2,600 years, that is since the Babylonian captivity (597 BCE), Jewish communities existed as a minority in the lands which Arab Muslims conquered and colonized between the 7th and 9th centuries C.E. (including Makkah and Madinah, formerly Yatrib) and where they eventually became the dominant ethnic element through settlement, conversion (free or forced), population replacement and indigenous flight. Since then there have been periods of intense judeophobia (anti-Semitism in the 20th century) and periods of peaceful coexistence.

In the course of the Arab-Israeli conflict, alleged and actual anti-Semitism has been a recurring issue in Arab countries, even as most of the Jewish population of these countries has fled or been forced to leave.

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Usage

A person who exibits anti-Semitic behavior may be of any ancestry, including a Jew or an Arab. For example, Johannes Pfefferkorn, Karl Marx and Bobby Fischer had Jewish ancestry, but are often considered to be anti-Semites. See related Etymology and usage of the term anti-Semitism.

Some reject being labelled as "anti-Semitic", claiming that their behavior is based on anti-Zionism. See related Anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism and New anti-Semitism.

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History of Arab anti-Semitism before 1948

Starting with the expansion of Islam in the first millennia, Jews, along with Christians and Zoroastrians, typically had the legal status of dhimmi in Arab lands. As such, they were entitled to limited rights, tolerance, and protection, on the condition they pay a special poll tax (the "jizya"), which exempted them from military service, and also from payment of the Zakat alms tax required of Muslims. As dhimmi, Jews were typically subjected to several restrictions, the application and severity of which varied by time and place: residency in segregated quarters, obligation to wear distinctive clothing, public subservience to Muslims, prohibitions against proselytizing and marrying Muslim women, and limited access to the legal systems. They sometimes attained high positions in government, notably as viziers and physicians. Jewish communities, like Christian ones, were typically constituted as semi-autonomous entities managed by their own laws and leadership, who carried the responsibility for the community towards the Muslim rulers.

Anti-Semitism in the Muslim world increased in the twentieth century, as anti-Semitic propaganda and blood libels were imported from Europe and as resentment against Zionist efforts in British Mandate of Palestine spread. While anti-Semitism has certainly been heightened by the Arab-Israeli conflict, there were an increasing number of pogroms against Jews prior to the foundation of Israel, including Nazi-inspired pogroms in Algeria in the 1930s, and massive attacks on the Jews in Iraq and Libya in the 1940s (see Farhud). George Gruen attributes the increased animosity towards Jews in the Arab world to several factors including: The breakdown of the Ottoman Empire and traditional Islamic society; domination by Western colonial powers under which Jews gained a disproportionatly large role in the commercial, professional, and administrative life of the region; the rise of Arab nationalism, whose proponents sought the wealth and positions of local Jews through government channels; resentment over Jewish nationalism and the Zionist movement; and the readiness of unpopular regimes to scapegoat local Jews for political purposes.[1]

After the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the Palestinian exodus, the creation of the state of Israel, and the independence of Arab countries from European control, conditions for Jews in the Arab world deteriorated. Over the next few decades, almost all would flee the Arab world, some willingly, and some under threat (see Jewish exodus from Arab lands). In 1945 there were between 758,000 and 866,000 Jews (see table below) living in communities throughout the Arab world. Today, there are fewer than 8,000. In some Arab states, such as Libya (which was once around 3% Jewish), the Jewish community no longer exists; in other Arab countries, only a few hundred Jews remain.

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Arab anti-Semitism in the 20th and 21st century

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Saudi Arabia

A Saudi government website initially stated that Jews would not be granted tourist visas to enter the country [2]; it has since removed this statement, and apologized for posting "erroneous information". Members of religions other than Islam, including Jews, are not permitted to practice their religion publicly in Saudi Arabia; according to the U.S. State Department [3], religious freedom "does not exist" in Saudi Arabia. Islam is the official religion of Saudi Arabia, and the tenets of that religion are enforced by law.

Saudi Arabian media often attacks Jews in books and news articles. Saudi Arabian government officials and state religious leaders often promote the idea that "the Jews" are conspiring to take over the entire world; as proof of their claims they publish and frequently cite The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as factual. The former King of Saudi Arabia allegedly gave visitors copies of both The Protocols and Mein Kampf. [4] In 2001, Arab Radio and Television of Saudi Arabia produced a 30-part television miniseries entitled "Horseman Without a Horse", a dramatization of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. [5]

Saudi Arabian government-sponsored newspapers have published articles claiming that Al Qaeda's September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon was actually carried out by "the Jews", also "the Zionists".

Many Saudi government newspapers promote the idea that a Jewish conspiracy pressed American President George W. Bush to go to war against Iraq.

Saudi Arabian government newspapers suggest that hatred of all Jews is justifiable. "Why are they (the Jews) hated by all the people which hosted them, such as Iraq and Egypt thousands years ago, and Germany, Spain, France and the UK, up to the days they gained of power over the capital and the press, in order to rewrite the history?" (Al-Riyadh, Saudi government daily, April 15, 2002, Turki 'Abdallah as-Sudayri, All of History is against Them)

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Arab Newspapers

Many Arab newspapers, such as Al-Hayat Al-Jadidah, the Palestinian Authority's official newspaper, often write that "the Jews" control all the world's governments, and that "the Jews" plan genocide on all the Arabs in the West Bank. Others write less sensational stories, and states that Jews have too much of an influence in the US government. Often the leaders of other nations are said to be controlled by Jews.

Articles in many official Arab government newspapers (notably those of the Palestinian Authority, Libya, and Saudi Arabia) claim that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, reflects actual facts, and thus points to an international Jewish conspiracy to take over the world.

"Netanyahu's Plan completely matches the foundations of the greater Zionist plan which is organized according to specific stages that were determined when the Protocols of the Elders of Zion was composed and when Herzl along with Weizmann traveled around the world in order to determine the appropriate location for the implementation of this conspiracy," (official Palestinian Authority newspaper, Al-Hayat Al-Jadidah, November 30, 1997)
"The Jews seek to conquer the world...We must expose the Zionist-Colonialist plot and its goals, which destroy not only our people but the entire world" (PA Minister of Agriculture, Abdel Jawad Saleh, quoted in Al-Hayat Al-Jadidah, November 6, 1997) [6]

The Egyptian government run newspaper, Al-Akhbar, on 29 April 2002, published an editorial denying the Holocaust as a fraud. The next paragraph decries the failure of the Holocaust to eliminate all of the Jews [7]:

With regard to the fraud of the Holocaust… Many French studies have proven that this is no more than a fabrication, a lie, and a fraud!! That is, it is a 'scenario' the plot of which was carefully tailored, using several faked photos completely unconnected to the truth. Yes, it is a film, no more and no less. Hitler himself, whom they accuse of Nazism, is in my eyes no more than a modest 'pupil' in the world of murder and bloodshed. He is completely innocent of the charge of frying them in the hell of his false Holocaust!! The entire matter, as many French and British scientists and researchers have proven, is nothing more than a huge Israeli plot aimed at extorting the German government in particular and the European countries in general. But I, personally and in light of this imaginary tale, complain to Hitler, even saying to him from the bottom of my heart, 'If only you had done it, brother, if only it had really happened, so that the world could sigh in relief [without] their evil and sin.'
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9/11 conspiracy theories

Main: 9/11 conspiracy theories: claims related to Jews and Israel

Across the Arab world, a fair number of Arab media outlets, some government-sponsored (such as those of Libya and Saudi Arabia, and some of those of the Palestinian Authority), published pieces alleging that the September 11, 2001 attacks were carried out by Jews, Zionists, Israelis, or even Americans. Many within the Arab world viewed this terrorist act as a conspiracy to make the world hate all Arabs, and therefore believed that people perceived to be enemies of the Arabs must really be to blame; many others disagreed. After Al Qaeda acknowledged their role publicly, these claims lost credibility, and came to be widely seen as a conspiracy theory. Such theories are also found outside the Arab world, including in the United States.

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The Palestinian Authority's view of Israel

Some people claim that the Palestinian Authority's hostility to Israel constitutes anti-Semitism in itself; others regard this claim as absurd, noting that hostility to an enemy nation need not imply hostility to the associated ethnicity, and that the Palestinian Authority includes representatives from Neturei Karta (an extremely small group of anti-Zionist Haredi Jews with views considered extreme by most Jews).

Examples of hostility to Israel follow, as translated by MEMRI:

The Palestinian Authority's official television channel has shows which teach 6 and 7 year old kids to kill Israelis. Episodes of a program called The Children's Club, broadcast in early 1998, showed a group of young Arab children, one of whom stood up, raised her fist, and shouted: “When I wander into Jerusalem, I will turn into a suicide warrior in battle dress! In battle dress!” She was cheered and applauded by the other children in the group, and their adult leader declared, “Bravo! Bravo!” On another segment, a young girl sang: “Each and every part of your soil I have drenched with all my blood. And we shall march as warriors of Jihad. Oh, my exalted martyr, you are my example. Oh, my sister, sing constantly about my life as a suicide warrior, how we remain steadfast. On, my country, you are my soul.” (Videotape of The Children's Club, Peace for Generations, Jerusalem, 1998)

An investigation by The Philadelphia Inquirer (September 7, 1997) found children's programs on PA television in which an 8 year-old girl was shown singing: “I am a daughter of Palestine. Qur'an in my right hand, in my left — a knife,” and another in which a young girl recites a poem she said she wrote for Yassir Arafat: “I am finished practicing on the submachine gun of return... We swear to take vengeful blood from our enemies for our killed and wounded. We will board a bustling boat which will take us to Jaffa.” On the show, the girl then approached Arafat, who kissed her on both cheeks. The Inquirer continued:

"In a show about the opening of Palestinian schools, girls in frilly white dresses were shown dancing with Kalashnikov rifles that they twirled like batons. In another broadcast, a schoolboy, asked what he got out of summer camp, answered: 'I am defending the homeland and undergo training like army drills.' "
"There is a children's quiz show about great figures in Palestinian history — many of whom are considered heroes by Palestinians, but terrorists by Israelis. One show featured Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, a shaikh who was killed by the British in 1935. The military wing of Hamas, which has carried out many terrorist bombings in Israel, was named for Qassam. The heroine of another episode was Dalal Mughrabi, a woman who commanded a bus hijacking near Haifa in 1978. Thirty-four Israelis and nine Palestinian commandos, Mughrabi among them, were killed. The quiz-show emcee referred to Maghribi as "our sacred martyr."

Senior PA officials also regularly engage in hostile propaganda against Israel, and Arafat has taken no action against them. For example, the Deputy Minister of the PA Ministry of Supplies has accused Israel of giving Palestinian Arabs “food containing material that causes cancer and hormones that harm male virility and other spoiled food products in order to poison and harm the Palestinian population.” (Yediot Ahronot, June 25, 1997)

The PLO's representative to the United Nations in Geneva has accused Israel of injecting “300 Palestinian children with HIV.” (Jerusalem Post, March 17 1997)

The director of the Inspection Department of the PA Ministry of Supplies has claimed that Israeli chewing gums sold in PLO-controlled areas “contain a sexually-stimulating adrenaline substance.” (Jerusalem Post, March 27 1997)

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The Palestinian Authority's view of Jews

Many senior PA officials and the PA-controlled media have also repeatedly made statements denigrating Jewish religious beliefs and Jewish history, such denying that modern Jews have any connection to the Jews in the Bible; that Jews have any historical connection to Jerusalem; and that the Western Wall has any religious significance in Judaism. (See Israeli-Palestinian history denial for details.) These same PA officials and the PA-controlled media have also repeatedly made statements distorting or denying the Holocaust.

In some cases, they have claimed that Jews invented the “myth” of Nazi genocide in order to gain world sympathy and reparations money. In other instances, they have acknowledged that some Jews were murdered by the Nazis, but charged that Jews vastly exaggerated the death toll for political purposes.

Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), Arafat's number-two man and the architect of the Oslo Accords, is the author of a book claiming that the Nazis may have really killed less than one million Jews. (Jerusalem Post, January 26, 1995) Numerous senior PA officials, Left-Wing and Right-wing Americans, Israeli Soldiers and Jewish intellectuals have also compared Israel to the Nazis, in one noted case declaring that Israel's treatment of Arabs is even worse than the Nazis' treatment of Jews, although such a claim is generally perceived as a tremendous exaggeration in light of factual realities.

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Hizbullah's Al-Manar TV channel

Jewish groups and European observers allege that Hizbullah's Al-Manar TV channel frequently airs antisemitic broadcasts, blaming the Jews for a Zionist conspiracy against the Arab world, and often airing excerpts from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which the Encyclopædia Britannica describes as a "fraudulent document that served as a pretext and rationale for anti-Semitism in the early 20th century.".

Al-Manar recently aired a drama series, called "The Diaspora", which observers allege is based on historical anti-Semitic allegations. BBC reporters who watched the series said that:
Correspondents who have viewed The Diaspora note that it quotes extensively from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a notorious 19th Century publication used by the Nazis among others to fuel race hatred. [8]

In another incident, an Al-Manar commentator recently referred to "Zionist attempts to transmit AIDS to Arab countries". Al-Manar officials deny broadcasting anti-Semitic incitement and state that their position is anti-Israeli, not anti-Semitic.

Due to protests by the CRIF umbrella group of French Jews regarding allegations of anti-Semitic content, French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin called for a ban on Al-Manar broadcasting in France on December 2, 2004; just two weeks after al-Manar was authorised to continue broadcasting in Europe by France's media watchdog agency. [9]

On December 13, 2004, France's highest administrative court banned Hizbullah's Al-Manar TV station on the grounds that it consistently incites racial hatred and antisemitism. (BBC)

On December 17, 2004, The United States followed the lead of the French government, and placed Al-Manar on the U.S. State Department list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. This measure was aimed at forcing the companies which currently transmit Al-Manar to the United States via satellite to drop the controversial station or face criminal prosecution.

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Anti-Semitic laws and policies in Arab countries

The Saudi Ministry of Tourism announced on its web site in early 2004, that visas to enter the country will not be issued to "Jewish people."[10].

The Jordanian Nationality Law of 1954 states that "Any man in the West Bank will be a Jordanian subject if he is not Jewish."

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Quotes

  • "The volume of anti-Semitic books and articles published, the size and number of editions and impressions, the eminence and authority of those who write, publish and sponsor them, their place in school and college curricula, their role in the mass media, would all seem to suggest that classical anti-Semitism is an essential part of Arab intellectual life at the present time-almost as much as happened in Nazi Germany, and considerably more than in late nineteenth and early twentieth century France." (Bernard Lewis, Semites and Antisemites New York/London: Norton, 1986, p. 286)
  • "The Jews have been amongst the most active advocates of destruction in many lands... It is well known that the disintegration of Russia was wholly or in great part brought about by the Jews, and a large proportion of the defeat of Germany and Austria must also be put at their door." (Musa Khazem El Husseini, Mayor of Jerusalem to Winston Churchill, March 1921, quoted in Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, Knopf 1999 Page 99)
  • "No more than 400,000 Jews were killed by the Nazis." "It is well-known that every year the Jews exaggerate what the Nazis did to them," said the moderator of a cultural affairs program on Palestinian Authority Television, during an August 25, 1997. "They claim there were 6 million killed, but precise scientific research demonstrates that there were no more than 400,000."
  • "Zionists forged Holocaust claims." On September 3 1997, the PA newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadidah featured an article by Palestinian Arab author Nabil Salam, which declared: "Since its establishment, the racist Zionist entity has been implementing various forms of terrorism on a daily basis which are a repetition of the Nazi terror. This proves the shared roots of Nazi and Zionist thought. This also explains the cooperation between the Jews and Nazis during World War II, through which was revealed the forged claims of the Zionists regarding the alleged acts of slaughter perpetrated against the Jews during the same period."
  • "Zionists were partners with the Nazis in the Holocaust." Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), the number 2 official in the PLO and architect of the Oslo Accords, authored and has refused to retract a book claiming that "the Zionist movement was a partner in the massacre of the Jews." The book is entitled The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and the Zionist Movement, and uses the statements of German Jewish Zionists who supported Hitler to suggest that they supported the Nazis, and thus the Holocaust. The book also claims that the Nazis may have really killed less than one million Jews, and that the rest were killed by Soviets. (Jerusalem Post, 26 January 1995)
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Jewish-Arab dialogue

There are a number of projects working for peace among Israelis and Arabs, and projects which include Jewish-Islamic theological dialogue. One of their goals is to reduce Jewish-Arab tensions and to foster coexistence.

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See also

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External links

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Examples of anti-Semitism in the Arab press provided by MEMRI

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