The old man, who symbolized the out-going century, passed on to the youth, who symbolized the 21st century, the "Sickness of the Century", (as the caption reads). Several months ago, a Lebanese newspaper published an article written by an Egyptian writer under the title of "We hate Israel...and we do not hate the Jews". In an apologetic article, the writer tries hard to differentiate between the Arabs' hatred of Israel and their attitude towards the Jews. "There are those", he writes, "who say that Israel means Jews and that the Jews are Israel". However, he goes on to explain that the Arabs do not hate Israel because its people are Jews, but because its rulers are Zionists, and the Arabs are against world Zionism and its expansionist aspirations. To lend support to his claims, he says that he, himself, carries positive memories in his heart of his Jewish neighbors in Cairo. Thus anyone who lived among Jews before the Palestine war knows that while they were moneylenders who controlled retail trade and were known for their love of money, they did keep their word and there were no problems with them.

These two anecdotal examples incorporate prevalent antisemitic stereotypes and characteristics, in the past and at present, abundantly woven into the Arab-Islamic dialogue on Israel, Zionism and the Jews. However, the task of those keeping track of and analyzing Arab antisemitism is not easy or clear cut. Just as that Egyptian writer finds it difficult to separate the hatred of Israel from the attitude towards Jews thus it is difficult to isolate expressions of antisemitism from the anti-Israel and anti-Zionist rhetoric. This difficulty in separating the antisemitic motifs from those of hatred of Israel and nationalistic incitement deriving from a national-territorial conflict, quite often results in distortions in the Arab dialogue. What converts rhetoric of confrontation into antisemitism? Have the images changed in the course of confrontation years? Is there any affinity between the images and the stages of the conflict's development? Why have the antisemitic images been so successfully internalized, so that even when they try to speak well of the Jews, as in the case of that Egyptian writer, that deep-rooted stereotypical images emerge? Could this possibly be some indication that this dialogue is so firmly fixed in other sources, separate from the actual nationalist conflict? Of the plethora of antisemitic behavior, a number of recurring motifs clearly stand out in the Arab-Islamic dialogue:


Jews are the source of evil and corruption - they spread AIDS, drugs, prostitution and destructive thoughts.

There is a Jewish-Zionist master plan to take over the world.

There is a Jewish-Western/Christian collusion against Islam.

The Bible and Talmud are the source of the Jewish/Zionist personality and mentality, which is basically racist because of the belief in "Thou hast chosen us" and the attitude towards the "goyim" (non-Jews).

The Koran offers the first evidence of Jews being scoundrels, bloodthirsty, greedy and conspirators.
To reinforce this image intensive use is made of the blood libel, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" and the image of Shylock. Several years ago a survey was conducted in Egypt by the head of the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Al-Shams, and he presented his findings at a conference under the heading of "The Image of the 'Other'"held in Cairo. The survey dealt with the image of the Israeli as reflected in Egyptian eyes. In order to acquire more authentic data, the professor explained, he had chosen his respondents randomly from the population. The results of the survey were published in the weekly Ruz al-Yusuf and they constituted a classical Jewish stereotype.



The Israeli is repulsive, talks in a nasal voice and is sly.

The Israeli male is bald and bearded, has a long nose and big ears. He is short and tends towards obesity.

He whispers conspiratorily, while the Israeli woman knows how to be attentive and speaks fluently and therefore she is frequently employed in espionage.

The Israeli bargains and he comes to Egypt mainly in order to sell drugs and to engage in business that is not always legal.

Thus, a Jewish stereotype is created having its own autonomous entity, as was the case in Europe throughout the years. The outgrowth of this is the concept of the Jew as a universal problem and a symbol of all that is negative. These motifs in the presentation of Israel, the Zionists and the Jews began to appear from the earliest days of the conflict, and have continued to appear in literary polemics, in sermons in mosques, in the media, in caricatures and even in belle lettres and poetry, albeit in varying forms, levels of sophistication and contexts. Nevertheless, the presentation of the Jews incorporates several contradictions. For example, the Jews are presented on the one hand as weak and evil and as strong and omnipotent on the other. In an effort to undermine the Zionist claim of affinity between Jews and Israel, some of the literature dealing with Jews claims that the Jews are not a people, and that the Jews of today are not the descendants of the ancient People of Israel. In the same breath, however, they claim that Jews have not changed throughout the generations and recruit Islam's past as proof.

These contradictions were very well described by the Egyptian poet and journalist Ahmad abd al-Mu'ati Hijazi, and the Palestinian journalist Hasan Khadar. In his column in Al-Ahram, al-Hijazi attacked the generalizations about the Jews in the Arab dialogue saying "We think about the Jews in Israel and our eyes are on the Jews of Yathrab (Arabian Peninsula in Muhammad's time); we speak of Jews and we mean Israelis; we say Zionists and we are referring to Jews". Khadar, on the other hand, in the very midst of the intifadeh, attacked the political use, in his view, of the call "Haybar, Haybar, Oh Jews! Muhammad's army will return"! He went on to explain that the attempt to plant the seeds of delusion that the historical precedent will once more be realized, is a fallacy, especially since the use of this slogan only strengthens the Zionist claim of the continuity of the Jewish race and poses a threat to the Muslims' moral superiority.
Tracing the phenomena of antisemitic incidents reveals that they increase in keeping with poltical developments and incidents in local, regional or international arenas. Moreover, there have apparently been changes in this monolithic presentation over the years, which has yet to be researched properly. The Palestinian journalist Hasham al-Dajani, who for many years carried out research in Palestinian research centers, characterized the Arab approach to Zionism and to Israel as having two trends: One was the trend characteristic of the period until the Six-Day War, where Israel was dwarfed and the masses educated to believe that they were going to "drive Israel into the sea". The other was of aggrandizement to the point of exaggeration. This was characteristic of the period after 1967, which gave rise to the belief in the strength of a hidden hand, or hidden power of Judaism and the Jewish-Zionist lobby being, behind historical phenomena and processes all over the world. "If the world cannot beat this hand, how much harder must this be for the weak Arab world". This, he claims has served to justify conceptual, political and economic failure and stagnation.

For example, perusal of political caricatures before 1967 and after that date lends support to what al-Dajani has said, and reflects very well not only the change in the Israeli image, but also in the Arab concept of self. Before 1967, Israel is portrayed as a collapsing, miserable entity dependent on the kindness of foreigners. In a booklet published by the Egyptian Ministry of War, two illustrations are juxtaposed comparing the relative strength of Israel to the weakness of the UAR in various spheres: demographic, economic, agricultural and military. The illustrations were definately not antisemitic, but very obvious were the enormous differences between the security and power of the one, as opposed to the poverty and want of the other. This served as the background to the deep shock generated by the defeat in the Six-Day War. In the wake of that defeat a convincing explanation for failure was needed. This, then, lent impetus to the theory of conspiracy and the expansionist ambitions of the Zionists. The Israeli is portrayed as an ugly, aggressive Nazi soldier, as a hairy diaspora Jew, or as an animal in a human body. As opposed to this demonic image, the Arab is portrayed as being helpless and na?ve, and, at the outset of the peace process as peace loving and trusting of Israel which time and time again violates this trust.

The question of the continuity of these images leads us to the new Palestinian textbooks, especially in light of the media's recent interest in them. This also brings us back to articles published by Dr. Hava Lazarus-Yaffe and Avner Gil'adi in the 1960s and 1970s about Jordanian and Egyptian textbooks, which were used on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip from 1948 to the Six-Day War. As a matter of fact to this day new editions of these books are used in the Palestinian Authority, since it has completed the preparation of text books only up to the fourth grade. Lazarus-Yaffe found, for example, that in 1966 books were removed from the curriculum after Israel had complained about them in international forums. These included the reader [by Khaled Qatrash, 1960] portraying the "Jewish coward" in both prose and caricature. Avner Gil'adi, who examined Egyptian textbooks before and after the Yom Kippur War, found that the subject of the conflict in all its aspects - the image of the Jew, Zionism, Israel, the history of the conflict - did not occupy a prominent place before the War. After the War, it seemed that more importance was attached to the conflict and to the position of the Arabs, and Zionism was presented in a far more severe light. Although the Jews were portrayed in various contexts as infidels, cowards, in conflict with each other, aggressive, devious and as traitors, in the end there were no insulting illustrations. Lazarus said: "The Israeli daily press generally exaggerated in describing these books and their attitude towards Israel and Judaism, because despite the expressions of hate in them - hatred of Israel is not the main or central subject in this literature. Many books, even books dealing with civics, with history and with the religion of Islam, do not mention Israel at all". She added that "in relation to textbooks, the reins were not loosened regarding antisemitic statements as they were in the inflamatory adult literature and in the press".

Special attention should be paid to what Lazarus has said, since it would appear that it is relevant to what is happening today. Firstly, in the course of the discussion, the differences have been blurred between the new books and the Jordanian books that were introduced into the system and in which parts that had been expunged in the past by the administration and the army administration have been restored. These include motifs portraying Jews in a negative light, motifs that date back to the early days of Islam. On the other hand, in the new text books the blatant antisemitic expressions have been removed. In fact, there is no direct reference to Israel and the Jews as might have been expected. In presenting the Palestinian story some references are made that do not present the Jews in their best light, especially, for example in discussing the conquest of 1948 or in fostering a love of homeland and encouraging sacrifice in its name. There can be no doubt that in these books there is no mention of our right to this country or any recognition of this right. Unlike the Palestinian books, the Syrian textbooks, for example, do not refrain from comparing Zionism to Nazism, of from emphasizing that the Jews are an alien element in the region or from stating that uprooting Israel is inevitable.

Anita Shapira, in a review of the history book by Eyal Naveh and Esther Yogev, said that "The importance of teaching history has been emphasized far beyond its true significance". Things in a similar vein can apparently be said regarding reference to Palestinian textbooks. Statements in the press and in the sermons in the mosques are far more radical than what is written in textbooks, and their cumulative influence is possibly far greater. Moreover, theoretic research on the formation and durability of stereotypes reveals that changes in images can be effected only if surrounding circumstances change. Can one point to any such change when the sides have reverted to a rigid militant dialogue? Moreover, Arab societies have not experienced any openness and democratization that have laid the groundwork for new narratives in Israeli society. Without these one may assume that no change can be expected in the Arab's image of Israel and the Jews.

The proliferation of antisemitic phenomena, has brought into sharper focus the questions that have troubled research on Arab antisemitism from the outset. This refers mainly to the question of whether this is a new phenomenon growing out of the conflict or, perhaps, an endemic phenomenon reflecting deeper cultural and social roots that had been embedded in Arab societies before the advent of the conflict.

Following Harkabi's initial research, and later that of Bernard Lewis, on Arab antisemitism, the commonly accepted idea among the researchers is that antisemitism exists under the shadow of the Israeli-Arab conflict. "Antisemitism is not the cause of the conflict but rather its result", Harkabi stated. "However, since the conflict exists and antisemitism has been created, it has become one of the elements lending the conflict its character". Lewis, Daniel Pipes and Martin Kramer also viewed it as a relatively new phenomenon that had been imported into the Arab world and began to take root especially since the early stages of the Israeli-Arab conflict.

Daniel Bar-Tal, in the study he conducted on how the Israeli-Arab conflict is reflected in Israeli textbooks showed that "Societies involved in intractable conflicts develop fitting psychological conditions allowing them to successfully deal with the conflict situation". The beliefs assisting in the development of psychological conditions include the belief in the justification of its objectives, delegitimization of the enemy, a positive self-image and the concept of oneself as a victim. "These beliefs together consitute an ethos supporting the continuation of the conflict", and they are reflected in language, stereotypes, images, myths and in the collective memory. Similar trends may be found in Arab societies, which raise historic, theological, nationalist, existential, political, social and cultural causes to justify the objectives in their conflict with Israel. Along with that, antisemitism has also been recruited as one of the means of deligitimizing and dehumanizing the "other".

There can be no doubt that in the wake of the creation and entrenchment of these beliefs, as Rivka Yadlin has shown in her study of Egypt in the first decade following the signing of the peace agreement with Israel, anti-Jewish beliefs have become an organic part of the various kinds of world view. Furthermore, they developed against the background of a certain social-cultural reality, and were shaped by instruments drawn from this reality in order to direct its future existence. "Thus, antisemitism has also become part of the broader public dialogue and of the argument between the agents of change, liberalization and peace in the Middle East and of those nationalist and Islamist circles who totally reject these processes".

On the other hand, there are those who believed that Arab antisemitism was not the result only of the establishment of the State of Israel and of the conflict with it, but rather that it was nourished by a long cultural and religious tradition. Thus, for example, Robert Wistrich claimed already in 1975 with the adoption of the United Nations Resolution equating Zionism with racism, that in the Muslim world there was a long tradition of discrimination against the Jews, which reached its peak in the 20th century with the change that took place in the balance of power between Jews and Arabs. The Arab-Muslim determination to create a monolithic religious, cultural and political sovereignty over the region stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Persian Gulf, according to him, is the root of the antagonism against Israel. Regarding Zionism as a racist colonial power and the source of all evil, while viewing the Jews in the Arab states as "semitic" brethren is nothing more than an indication of ethnocentricity and xenophobic tendencies growing out of Arab nationalism.

A new study by a young German researcher, challenges the accepted assumption that antisemitism was imported from Europe. He tries to prove that as in Europe, where antisemitism was not the result of the Jews' behavior, in the Middle East it too has grown out of historic and social contexts. According to him, the Holocaust denial should not be seen as part of the anti-Zionist rhetoric in connection with the Arab-Israeli conflict, but rather as a specific expression of antisemitic thinking. The same as Wistrich, he points to nationalism in the Middle East and its unique characteristics and to the revival of Islam as the fertile soil for the growth of autonomous antisemitic ideas. However, it appears that nationalism is not free of ethnocentricity and of the fashioning of the "other" for the purpose of crystalizing the self.

In the wake of the 11th September events, thoughts have arisen regarding who the ultimate "other" is in the concept of the Arab-Islamic self definition. It appears that according to things that have been written and said by Arab intellectuals, and certainly in keeping with the Islamic world view, the ultimate "other" is none other than the West because of the challenge it places before the Muslim world in its culture, superiority and its wealth. There is a historic continuity of Islam's animosity towards the West and the relations with the "other" are based on the principle of Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb. In the process of the Islamization of anti-Westernism, the United States is viewed as the Big Devil as Khomeini defined it, while Israel and the Jews are none other than the Little Devil. The Jews occupied an important part in the Arab dialogue concerning 11th September. They continued to play the role of conspirator, the trouble-maker encouraging the war of the West against Islam and as the only one to benefit from the event. Some of the articles criticizing Arab society, and there were such, bore witness to the depth of negative feelings vis-?-vis the West and vis-?-vis Israel. "Anyone who is familiar with textbooks in the Muslim countries knows what a distorted picture of the world and what hatred are presented and encouraged. Anyone who follows the media in the Muslim world and listens to the sermons in the mosques, including in the West, will discover the magnitude of anti-West, and especially anti-American hatred Muslims express and nurture", explains an Iranian journalist in exile. Thus, we are not alone. Small comfort.