Accepting the reality of Islamic anti-Semitism
Dr. Charles Jacobs | 26.10.2003 23:42
October 26, 2003
Last week Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad told the world's Muslims to modernize and unite to defeat the world's Jews. At a major gathering of Islamic leaders of 57 countries, he said "the Europeans killed 6 million Jews out of 12 million. But today the Jews rule this world by proxy: They get others to fight and die for them." He got a standing ovation. None of the leaders objected to his assertion of Jewish supremacy.
Many European leaders and President Bush denounced the hateful remarks.
The emergence of the new global anti-Semitism has signaled the end of the post-Holocaust respite, where Jew-hatred as a mobilizing force, was put on the shelf. Last week's conference was indication of the growing indecency enveloping the undemocratic leadership of many Islamic countries.
Why? Bernard Lewis, the wise man of Islamic studies, writes that Islam is a civilization which feels humiliated in the face of modern progress: it cannot provide its people with decent economies, political life, democracy, women's rights. When it asks, "What Went Wrong?" (The title of Lewis's exquisite analysis) it takes the easy path, excuses itself, and blames the Jews.
Jews have known about Islamic anti-Semitism for decades: Saudi royals routinely hand out The Protocols to visitors of the Kingdom; the Syrian Defense Minister Mustapha Tlass published a book offering "evidence" Jews use blood to make matza. Throughout the Oslo years, the Palestinian Authority taught children that Jews are less than human, have no right to self-determination, and deserve to be killed. Egypt's government-controlled television last year aired a series based on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It was broadcast throughout the Islamic world. The Saudis fund the teaching of Jew-hatred in Wahabi mosques and schools throughout the Islamic world.
The increasing Muslim immigration to Europe and America raises concerns that some of the new arrivals will bring with them the culture of anti-Semitism so prevalent in their home countries.
Indeed, the Jews of Europe, now dwarfed by the Muslim immigrants, are under significant stress. Synagogues and cemeteries and Jews themselves are attacked. Some Jews in France are contemplating leaving their country.
Even in America, the Washington Post revealed that Muslim schools in Virginia teach that Judgment Day will come when Muslims kill Jews and Christians. Steven Emerson has secretly filmed meetings in several American cities where Muslim leaders call for people here to kill the Jews.
The problem of Islamic anti-Semitism is one that the Jewish community has largely ignored over the past decade, although it recently has been getting more attention.
Why? I see 4 general reasons:
1. Psychological denial. Who wants to think, 60 years after the Holocaust, that a new, religious campaign against the Jews could be taking shape? We liked to think the hatred from the Arab world was "street talk" that would dissipate "when peace came." It probably won't.
2. Media's selective reporting: The media is reluctant to discuss the religious dimensions of the conflict in the Middle East, because its preferred prepackaged view is that this is a secular struggle for national liberation. It is also reluctant to report negatively about Islam. Steve Emerson is boycotted by PBS.
3. Jewish Politics: Many in the Jewish community want very much to think that the war in Israel is primarily over borders, where compromise is possible. To think that the conflict is about the Jewish right of self-determination in the Islamic realm is daunting. They are also concerned that examples of Islamic anti-Semitism may be used to justify certain Israeli policies.
4. Political correctness: We are a liberal people and do not want to speak badly about a race, religion or a people. We seem unable to distinguish between simple factual truth and bigotry. I our multicultural society, we have not yet developed a public language to describe Islamic anti-Semitism without potentially being accused of insensitivity or prejudice.
Some Jewish organizations with a mission to protect us from anti-Semitism have been slow to deal with new global anti-Semitism. They seem to be fighting the last war. Hatred is a weapon of mass destruction; anti-Semitic rhetoric has already killed hundreds of Jews in the Middle East and Europe. We must cut through the Jewish political confusions and the political correctness that stymies an honest understanding of the situation. Moreover, the broader American population must also confront Islamic anti-Semitism because too often 'the Jews' are a proxy for the West and its values.
We have a responsibility to educate ourselves about this threat. Given today's sensibilities, we cannot always rely on the media or even on some of our secular or religious leaders, who may not feel comfortable speaking about these things, and prefer not to be labeled alarmists.
Last week Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad told the world's Muslims to modernize and unite to defeat the world's Jews. At a major gathering of Islamic leaders of 57 countries, he said "the Europeans killed 6 million Jews out of 12 million. But today the Jews rule this world by proxy: They get others to fight and die for them." He got a standing ovation. None of the leaders objected to his assertion of Jewish supremacy.
Many European leaders and President Bush denounced the hateful remarks.
The emergence of the new global anti-Semitism has signaled the end of the post-Holocaust respite, where Jew-hatred as a mobilizing force, was put on the shelf. Last week's conference was indication of the growing indecency enveloping the undemocratic leadership of many Islamic countries.
Why? Bernard Lewis, the wise man of Islamic studies, writes that Islam is a civilization which feels humiliated in the face of modern progress: it cannot provide its people with decent economies, political life, democracy, women's rights. When it asks, "What Went Wrong?" (The title of Lewis's exquisite analysis) it takes the easy path, excuses itself, and blames the Jews.
Jews have known about Islamic anti-Semitism for decades: Saudi royals routinely hand out The Protocols to visitors of the Kingdom; the Syrian Defense Minister Mustapha Tlass published a book offering "evidence" Jews use blood to make matza. Throughout the Oslo years, the Palestinian Authority taught children that Jews are less than human, have no right to self-determination, and deserve to be killed. Egypt's government-controlled television last year aired a series based on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It was broadcast throughout the Islamic world. The Saudis fund the teaching of Jew-hatred in Wahabi mosques and schools throughout the Islamic world.
The increasing Muslim immigration to Europe and America raises concerns that some of the new arrivals will bring with them the culture of anti-Semitism so prevalent in their home countries.
Indeed, the Jews of Europe, now dwarfed by the Muslim immigrants, are under significant stress. Synagogues and cemeteries and Jews themselves are attacked. Some Jews in France are contemplating leaving their country.
Even in America, the Washington Post revealed that Muslim schools in Virginia teach that Judgment Day will come when Muslims kill Jews and Christians. Steven Emerson has secretly filmed meetings in several American cities where Muslim leaders call for people here to kill the Jews.
The problem of Islamic anti-Semitism is one that the Jewish community has largely ignored over the past decade, although it recently has been getting more attention.
Why? I see 4 general reasons:
1. Psychological denial. Who wants to think, 60 years after the Holocaust, that a new, religious campaign against the Jews could be taking shape? We liked to think the hatred from the Arab world was "street talk" that would dissipate "when peace came." It probably won't.
2. Media's selective reporting: The media is reluctant to discuss the religious dimensions of the conflict in the Middle East, because its preferred prepackaged view is that this is a secular struggle for national liberation. It is also reluctant to report negatively about Islam. Steve Emerson is boycotted by PBS.
3. Jewish Politics: Many in the Jewish community want very much to think that the war in Israel is primarily over borders, where compromise is possible. To think that the conflict is about the Jewish right of self-determination in the Islamic realm is daunting. They are also concerned that examples of Islamic anti-Semitism may be used to justify certain Israeli policies.
4. Political correctness: We are a liberal people and do not want to speak badly about a race, religion or a people. We seem unable to distinguish between simple factual truth and bigotry. I our multicultural society, we have not yet developed a public language to describe Islamic anti-Semitism without potentially being accused of insensitivity or prejudice.
Some Jewish organizations with a mission to protect us from anti-Semitism have been slow to deal with new global anti-Semitism. They seem to be fighting the last war. Hatred is a weapon of mass destruction; anti-Semitic rhetoric has already killed hundreds of Jews in the Middle East and Europe. We must cut through the Jewish political confusions and the political correctness that stymies an honest understanding of the situation. Moreover, the broader American population must also confront Islamic anti-Semitism because too often 'the Jews' are a proxy for the West and its values.
We have a responsibility to educate ourselves about this threat. Given today's sensibilities, we cannot always rely on the media or even on some of our secular or religious leaders, who may not feel comfortable speaking about these things, and prefer not to be labeled alarmists.
Dr. Charles Jacobs
Comments
Hide the following 7 comments
trying to confuse the issue again.....
27.10.2003 00:21
More importantly, we have here a repetition of the old cry - all criticism of Israel is born of racial or religious prejudice and even hatred.
THIS IS NAIVE CHILDISH AND SIMPLY WRONG.
Current criticism of Israel, and of those who support its current policies, is growing stronger all over the world. As evidenced by the virtual unanimity in the United Nations the other day.
This growing anger and antipathy is NOT directed at Jews, or at Jewishness.
Many Jews are as opposed to what is happening as everyone else. It is directed at the actions of this apalling state, which is increasingly clearly scene as breaking all the norms of the civilised world. The growing anger and antipathy would be the same if it was Switzerland, or any other country which claims the right to belong to the civilised democracies.
The sell-by date is now long past on the old cry of "we are the victims and can do no wrong" based on the holocaust.
There have been too many other (bigger) genocidal massacres since, and that one is now too long ago.
Besides, anyone with half an eye can see that the Israelis are no longer the victims, but the perpetrators.
But what masters of spin, and for how long ?
fred
Dr Jacobs, may I ask you a question ?
27.10.2003 00:25
bb
Q & A
27.10.2003 01:02
Personally, I find it inconceivable that any group has a divine relationship with anything.
I also find it inconceivable that the horrific rhetoric of Jew hatred now commonplace in the Islamic world can be tolerated or ignored by anyone with an ounce of human decency.
We all know the difference between Jew hatred and anti-Zionism. Saying Jews use the blood of human infants in recipes is not anti-Zionism. Nor is saying that Jews invented socialism, democracy and communism, or saying the holocaust was faked to gain sympathy.
The question you should be asking is - how many Muslims believe they have a relationship with Allah that requires them to slaughter 'the sons of apes and pigs'? How many believe that Allah hates the Jews and that the Quran foretells the annihilation of the Jews and the ascendancy of Islam?
John (not Dr. C. J.)
interesting
27.10.2003 02:36
I hope we can agree then that we should all be working towards the dignity, safety and freedom of all humankind, and that questions of rights to land are subject to the normal questions of morality, fairness and justice.
I am surprised to hear the views you are ascribing to adherents of Islam. You put them forward as though they are widely held, so that it is fair to level this as a criticism on the whole group of people.
I am sure there are people saying these things, but I have not come across one such person, and I would suggest that these views belong to a small, ill-educated minority, and probably are expressed this clearly usually only at times of upset and anger.
On the other hand, I am aware of equally objectionable views expressed by a similar minority of Jews. I have read, and discussed with Jews, authentic Jewish religious writings which ascribe to non-Jews a permanent and ineradicable moral and spiritual inferiority which positions them part-way between the jew and the animal, and which can only be slightly alleviated by faithful subserviance to Jewry.
I do not consider it appropriate that I should give attention to either of these sets of extreme and unacceptable viewpoints, or use them as guidance in forming my attitudes, or framing my actions, toward either Jew or Muslim.
It is true that in times of stress and conflict the voice of the extremists becomes louder and more strident, and this is the case at present.
It should surely be the duty of those of us who see more clearly to seek to improve the situation, not to inflame it. Surely this is best done by reducing the stress and conflict, removing the causes of frustration and anger, and supporting education. The more extreme views are usually related to lack of education, and this applies to both sides.
In the muslim middle east, and particularly round palestine, lack of education probably correlates with poverty, and more recently, with the actions of the IDF in destroying infrastructure and disrupting daily life and attendance at school.
In Israeli society, it seems to be more wilful, in that I understand the religious schools for young men (who escape from military duty) deliberately and as a matter of principle exclude all education except memorising, analysing, and discussing religious writings.
In both cases, this lack of education lays the groundwork for extremism, and for people to accept as true the most bizarre accusations one can imagine, with regard to both actions and intents.
We need both sides educated to see their religion as relating mainly to things spiritual, and that where it gives guidance on action in the material world, that guidance is towards tolerance, justice, and mutual respect.
I see good evidence that neither of these two great religions is fundamentally at odds with these principles, and the vast majority of adherents want just that.
My recipe is to calm, to reassure, and to educate. To avoid inflamatory and accusatory rhetoric like the posting above, which while describing something partly real, exaggerates and causes further tension.
My fear is that it looks more likely every day that Israel is playing a double game in Palestine. That it actually is seeking to consolidate, extend, and cement its domination, and that inflaming tension, crippling education, encouraging hatred, is in fact deliberate and directly valuable in that cause.
The worse they can get the muslims to behave, the less likely the world will intervene on the palestinians behalf, or object to further US military adventures.
I hope I am wrong, but it begins to look like that to me.
Do you have any words of reassurance, John ?
bb
islamaphobia
27.10.2003 02:41
If it wasnt for Muslims protecting Jews in medieval Spain and North Africa, there wouldnt be any Jews today- fact. The oldest Jewish communities still live in Arab countries and do not associate themselves with the cult of zionism www.jewsnotzionists.org Perhaps today Muslims despise "Jews" because of their continual support of a murderous terrorist regime that occupies,murders and tortures with impunity the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine.
shlomo ben ami
erroneous and damaging nonsense
28.10.2003 00:09
Q... What is a definition of 'anti - semitic'...
A.. A person hated by jews.
ISLAM ISLAM
Sorry... an old trick, but it doesn't wash
28.10.2003 15:36
Instead of sophistry, why not tell us your opinion on Jews? The sons of apes and pigs, or human beings?
John