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ARAB COUNTRIES 2001-2

 

 

Introduction

Developments in the year 2001 provided fertile ground for Arab Islamic antisemitism. The intifada continued to be a major pretext for incitement against Israel and the Jews, although the wave of antisemitic manifestations which typified the period after its eruption in September 2000 receded. On the other hand, the September 11 events triggered a rise in antisemitic allegations and exposed the linkage between anti-Americanism and antisemitism in the Arab world. Although it is difficult to assess antisemitic manifestations in the Arab world quantitatively, the trend toward radicalizing the discourse on Israel and the Jews, discerned following the outbreak of the intifada (see ASW 2000/1) continued. Moreover, it seemed to spread beyond political and journalistic debates. Apart from the imminent threat to Jews worldwide as part of the Islamists’ war against the West and particularly the US, revealed in the September 11 events, this radicalization was manifested in several ways:

-         Crude attacks – intertwined with antisemitic allusions – on newly elected prime minister of Israel Ariel Sharon (February 2001);

-         Popularization of antisemitic motifs, such as the blood libel and the Jewish conspiracy to control the world;

-         Equating Zionism with racism and Nazism in the struggle against Israel in international forums;

-         Embracing Holocaust denial as a means of delegitimizing Israel and Zionism;

-         Sanctioning suicide attacks against Israeli civilian targets as well as attacks on Jewish targets worldwide.

The sanctioning of suicide attacks and the equation of Zionism with racism are intended to delegitimize not only the occupation of the West Bank by Israel, but Israel’s right to exist, while resorting to the ancient motifs of the blood libel and the Jewish conspiracy to control the world is an attempt to delegitimize the Jewish people as a whole. The media has become a powerful tool in shaping the collective consciousness, exacerbating the conflict “through the projection of victimization, false statements, justification of violent actions and demonization of the ‘other’.”1 At the beginning of June, there was a short respite in Palestinian media incitement due to the prospect of a negotiated cease-fire,2 but it was revived with the escalation in violence.

 

Radicalization of Attitudes and Discourse

The al-Aqsa intifada, which entered its second year in 2001, united nationalist and Islamist forces, creating a dynamic of change in the domestic Palestinian balance of power in favor of the Islamists; this, in turn, led to radicalization of the street and of the discourse against Israel. According to surveys conducted by Khalil Shikaki, director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, for the first time since 1995 the intifada brought about a significant shift of loyalty from the nationalists to the Islamists. By July, the Islamists had increased their support by 60 percent, rising to 27 percent. Moreover, Shikaki predicted that within a few years they would become “the mainstream with a majority of the Palestinian street supporting them.”3 Although the intifada had reached an impasse even before the September 11 events, 80 percent of Palestinians supported its continuation in April, despite the suffering and destruction inflicted on them, and over 70 percent supported suicide attacks (see also below).4 Calls to impose an embargo on Israeli products and sever any normalization ties were voiced by the Palestinians. At the beginning of February Israeli produce was burnt in the center of Ramallah by activists of the Popular Committee for the Boycott of Israeli Produce.5

A similar trend of radicalization typified the general mood in the rest of the Arab world. Popular sympathy with the Palestinians, prompted by reports of the effects of Israeli military escalation in response to the violence, exerted strong pressure on Arab governments to undertake a more aggressive stand toward Israel, but they continued to combine belligerent rhetoric with practical self-restraint. The Jordanian authorities banned anti-Israel demonstrations, but could not prevent the activities of the powerful anti-normalization organizations, which have been engaged in a witch-hunt of Jordanians with links to Israel.6 This gap between popular sentiment and government behavior was manifested also in the reactions to the September 11 events (see below).

A conference in support of the intifada was convened on 23-25 April in Tehran, bringing together about 500 representatives from Arab and Muslim countries. The conference, which opened with a harsh attack on Israel and Zionism by Iranian president ‘Ali Khamene’i, adopted a final communiqué calling for the continuation of the intifada as the only option in the struggle against Israel. The conference, together with the highlighting of Hizballah’s experience in the liberation of South Lebanon as a model for the Palestinians, was part of a deliberate attempt by Iran and Hizballah to increase their involvement in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and boost support for radical elements such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. A similar conference had been held in Tehran in support of the first Palestinian intifada in October 1991.7

            Egyptian expert on Jewish studies ‘Abd al-Wahhab al-Masiri concluded that if the Palestinians managed to sustain the intifada, this would signal “the beginning of the end of the Zionist entity.” This end was determined not only due to its colonialist nature, but because the Zionist entity could neither defend itself nor secure the interests of the West, its traditional supporter, which could hardly guarantee its own security.8 Hizballah leader Shaykh Hasan Nasrallah ended his speech at the Tehran conference in April with a fiery warning: “Zionists can get their luggage and go back to wherever they came from.”9 In a Friday sermon on 21 September, Shaykh Muhammad Ibrahim al-Madhi predicted that the war between Arabs and Jews would continue to escalate “until we vanquish the Jews and enter Jerusalem as conquerors … heralding an Islamic caliphate with Jerusalem as its capital.”10 Al-Madhi, a PA official, reflects in his statements the extremist Islamist view, which represents the Jews as a threat to the entire world and the conflict as an irreconcilable struggle between Muslims and Jews.11 Hamas believes that the worse the situation gets, the quicker “salvation” will come. The solution to the problem “is the sum total of the jihad of the Palestinian people,” said Hamas political leader Shaykh Jamal Mansur in an interview.12 London-based Islamist Azzam Tamimi also foresaw the demise of the Jewish state in an interview to an Israeli magazine. However, he welcomed any Jew who wanted to stay in the Muslim entity that would be established.13 Al-Madhi, in another Friday sermon in Gaza, broadcast live on PA [Palestinian Authority] TV in June expressed a similar view.14 Acceptance of the Jews as ahl al-dhimma (religious minority) under Muslim rule, the status that prevailed from the seventh till the early 20th century, was a prominent issue in the Arab argumentation against the State of Israel. It was also specified in the covenants of the PLO and Hamas, to prove that they differentiated between Jews and Israelis and Zionists and that Muslims were traditionally tolerant toward the Jews.

 

Antisemitic Allusions in Attacks on Israel’s Prime Minister

Arabs greeted Sharon’s election victory in February with a mixture of fear, revulsion and dismay. The mere fact that he was elected was seen as proof of Israel’s belligerent and terrorist nature.15 Criticism of Israel’s retaliatory policies in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip turned into personal attacks on Sharon the man, and the acts associated with him, such as the October 1953 Qibya affair (in which innocent Palestinians civilians were killed by Israeli soldiers) or the September 1982 Sabra and Shatilla massacre (perpetrated by Christian militia men in these Palestinian refugee camps). The Arab press was unanimous in portraying Sharon as driven by hatred for the Arabs and a lust to exterminate them.16 Egyptian journalist Wajih Abu Zikra wrote that Sharon considered the Palestinians to be inhuman, “dogs that should be exterminated.” Sharon, he went on, had dreamed about their extermination since the 1960s, and planned to continue the ethnic cleansing policies of former colonial states. Further, Abu Zikra compared Sharon’s attempts to create a negative image of the Palestinians to Goebbels’ propaganda against the Jews. However, Sharon’s cruelty toward the Palestinians far outweighed Hitler’s treatment of the Jews; moreover, in contrast to the “so-called” Holocaust which was only a “myth,” Sharon actually planned to exterminate the Palestinians.17

Arab writers seemed to be competing for metaphors in which to depict Sharon’s alleged propensity for killing. “Bloodthirsty butcher,”18 “diabolical murderer,”19 “damned dog,” and “snake head,”20 “a new Hitler who surpasses the Nazi leader,”21 “Israel’s Milosevic”22 and “war criminal,”23 were common ones. Egyptian editor Muhammad Salmawi criticized Western hypocrisy for accepting Sharon while rejecting Austria extreme right leader Jörg Haider.24 According to the Islamic Jihad mouthpiece al-Istiqlal (24 May), Islamist guru Shaykh Yusuf Qardawi even ruled that a Muslim who shook Sharon’s hand should wash his own hands seventy times.

The media attacks on Israel’s prime minister were accompanied by calls for Arab governments to unify their position in order to confront Sharon’s threats and bring him, together with other “Israeli war criminals” to justice in the proposed international war crimes tribunal.25 Arab lawyers associations discussed the preparation of files on “Zionist crimes” against Arabs to be used in future trials. In Lebanon the legal aspects of demanding compensation from Israel were also discussed, especially the possibility that such claims might be interpreted as recognition of the “Zionist entity.” 26 These calls converged with the actual submission of a demand in June to the Belgian appeals court to prosecute Sharon, by the Arab-European League in Belgium, representing Palestinian survivors of the Sabra and Shatila massacre.27

 

Popularization of Antisemitic Motifs

Variations of three classical antisemitic motifs – the poisoning of wells, the blood libel and the Jewish conspiracy described in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion – emerged in the Arab anti-Israeli discourse. Israel was also accused of pursuing a systematic racist extermination policy.28 Jordan’s Islamist weekly al-Liwa’ reviewed a new book by ‘Ali Sa‘ada, entitled al-hulucust al-filastini. tarikh al-‘unf al-filastini ... al-ibada al-jima‘iya (The Palestinian Holocaust: History of Aggression against the Palestinians … Collective Annihilation) (27 June). Based on reports published in Palestinian as well as other Arab papers, the book claimed that Israel had been using depleted uranium and nerve gas in its aerial raids on Palestinian territories and south Lebanon. Palestinian representative to the UN Nasir al-Qidwa even demanded, in a memorandum to the Security Council at the end of January, that an international team be set up to investigate the Palestinian allegations. Chairman Yasir ‘Arafat made a similar allegation at the Davos economic summit on 28 January.29 The Syrian daily Tishrin charged that Israel was intentionally polluting the waters of the Mediterranean Sea with chemicals and poisonous gases,30 turning the Palestinian people into victims of a holocaust.31 Al-Liwa’ (2 May) repeated the allegation (see ASW 1999/2000 and 2000/1) that Israel had contaminated Palestinian water sources. The PA, for its part, claimed that Israel had dropped poisoned candies from planes in order to harm Palestinian children.32

Syrian President Bashar al-Asad also made antisemitic remarks. During the visit of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in January, he declared that Israel had been “a state based on loathsome racist values” since its inception by a bunch of “racist gangs.”33 At the Arab summit held in Amman in March he claimed that Israeli public opinion was more racist than Nazism,34 a view he reiterated on his visit to Spain in early May.35 His remarks at a ceremony welcoming Pope John Paul II on 5 May provoked the strongest reaction. In an effort to solicit the pope’s sympathy and support for the Palestinian cause, he attacked Israeli “brute policies” in Palestine and the Golan Heights. Seeking historical precedents that would emphasize common denominators between Muslims and Christians, he raised the centuries-old specter of the blood libel of Jews as Christ-killers – those, he said, “who try to kill the principles of all religions with the same mentality with which they betrayed and tortured Jesus Christ” and made similar attempts on Muhammad. The portrayal of the Jews as the natural enemy of Christianity is not new in Arab rhetoric, having been manifested in Arab reaction to Christian-Jewish rapprochement since the second ecumenical council in 1965. In response to the international uproar his remarks aroused, Asad noted that no one could accuse the Semite Arabs of being antisemites,36 while Syrian columnists accused the Western media of leading a campaign to distort Syria’s image before and after the pope’s visit. They also charged international Zionism with waving the sword of antisemitism against anyone who dared expose the truth about Zionism and Israel.37 Syrian historians even maintained that Pope John Paul II was “the architect of a conspiracy to undermine the Catholic Church by placing it under the control of the Jews.”38

Frequent references were made to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Articles emphasizing the importance of psychological warfare in the psyche of the “Hebrew state,” cited them to prove the Jews’ premeditated plan to control the international media and manipulate world public opinion.39 More disturbing, perhaps, was the new trend of incorporating antisemitic themes into the arts, thus popularizing them among large segments of the population. For example, a 30-part series documentary called Horseman without a Horse, based on the false Protocols was broadcast in Egypt.40

Abu Dhabi satellite TV, one of the most popular channels in the Arab world, broadcast a series during the month of Ramadan entitled “Terror Affairs,” which included a satirical sketch on the Jewish blood libel. The actor who played Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon feasted on a bottle full of red liquid, which he gleefully explained to a young man with a skullcap and side-curls, was the blood of Palestinian children. In another scene he confessed that for his twentieth birthday he had asked to slaughter twenty Arab children and “drink their blood.” A third showed Dracula, the mythical cold-blooded vampire, about to sink his teeth into Sharon’s neck, only to be reported dead, poisoned by Sharon’s “filthy blood.”41

The growing sympathy for the Palestinian cause led Egyptian as well as Syrian and Jordanian film and theater producers to promote the Arab-Israeli conflict as a major subject in their works.42 One of four new films contemplated in Egypt is an adaptation by Egyptian producer Munir Radhi of Syrian Defense Minister Mustafa Tlas’s book Matzah of Zion. One of the political goals of the project, Radhi explained, was “to provide a response to the many Zionist films distributed by the American film industry and supported by the Zionist propaganda apparatus, among them Schindler’s List, which defends the idea of the Jews’ right to Palestine.” The film will be based on the story of Father Toma, allegedly slain in 1840 by the Jew David Harari, and will expose “Harari’s hit list” of prominent personalities, as well as the link between Western imperialism and the Zionist movement.43 The last scene in the life of Father Toma was also produced as a tele-drama.44 Another film, Friends or Business, featuring a suicide bomber, was screened in August in Cairo. According to Philip Smucker of the Christian Science Monitor (CSM), “the movie was the boldest of several popular theater and movie productions this summer that focus on the bloodshed in Israel.” It aroused fears among Western diplomats that it might incite further radicalism and imitation.45

Palestinians at al-Najah University in Nablus marked the first anniversary of the intifada by opening an exhibition on 23 September which re-enacted the August 19 terrorist attack in Jerusalem, in which a suicide bomber killed 15 Israelis at a pizza restaurant. The exhibition was organized by student supporters of Hamas. Visitors trampled on Israeli and US flags to enter a room where body parts and pizza slices were strewn around. The exhibit included a large rock in front of an effigy of a religious Jew. A recording from inside the rock repeated the common hadith (oral tradition): “Oh believer, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him”.46

 

The UN Conference against Racism in Durban

Equating Zionism with racism and Nazism is not a new motif in the Arab antisemitic discourse. In 1994 the revoking of UN resolution 3379 (1975) which equated Zionism with racism was met with strong Arab protests. However, the new crisis in Israeli-Palestinian relations, which adversely affected Israel’s foreign relations, seemed to converge with Arab/Muslim assertiveness and to encourage blatant utilization of this motif in the struggle against Israel in international forums. From early 2001 Arab representatives were reportedly trying to revive UN resolution 3379.47 By March about one thousand Arab intellectuals of all political stripes had signed a petition to this effect.48 A similar call was issued by ‘Ali ‘Aqla ‘Arsan, president of the Syrian Arab Writers Association, who also suggested establishing a documentation center for Zionist crimes and carrying out studies on the relations between Nazis and Zionists.49 In mid-July, the fourth “Arab regional conference against racism,” was held in Cairo with the participation of about 70 Arab and international human rights organizations. The conference, which convened under the slogan “together we’ll put an end to the last racist regime,” dealt extensively with “Israeli racism,” and called for the establishment of a special international court for trying “Israeli war criminals. Among the European participants was the Belgian lawyer Luc Walleyn, representing the Palestinians in the possible case against Sharon.50 The main goal of an association for the struggle against racism formed in Egypt in August was defined as crystallizing an Arab cultural and intellectual response to the Zionist project. The association sent an open message to the Durban conference urging it to adopt the notion that Zionism is a form of racism.51

Indeed, the culmination of these Arab and Muslim efforts were their activities at the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, which convened in Durban, South Africa (see General Analysis) at the beginning of September. Encouraged by the declaration of the International Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations Defending Palestinian Rights adopted in Tehran on 23 April,52 Arab and Muslim delegations sought to turn the Durban conference into an international tribunal against Zionism and Israel. Hence, they attempted to expunge references to antisemitism, trivialize the Holocaust, and above all, reintroduce the equation between Zionism and racism into the conference resolutions. The Arab media supported these attempts by publishing countless articles stressing “Zionist crimes” against the Palestinian people and the Arabs.53 In keeping with Syria’s traditional emphasis on this equation (see ASW 2000/1), Foreign Minister Faruq al-Shar‘a, in his speech at the conference, described Israel as “the last racist bastion” and the Syrian delegation made a last-ditch attempt to indirectly brand Israel as a racist state in the final conference declaration.54

The American walkout from the conference was denounced by Arab League Secretary, former Egyptian Foreign Minister ‘Amr Musa, and by Arab commentators. The US step was viewed not only as “a Zionist defeat” but as further proof of American bias toward Israel and unconditional support “for its aggressive and racist practices.”55 The US positions on the issues of slavery and racism demonstrated its “double standards,” claimed a Saudi newspaper,56 as well as complete Zionist control over American decision making.57

Summing up the Arab performance in Durban, ‘Amr Musa confided that he could not say that the Arabs had achieved all they had hoped for, “especially in regard to Israeli racist practices … But we were able to shelve all references to the Holocaust, except one. We also made clear that there was hostility against Arabs and Islam.”58 Some Arab commentators took pride in the popular and NGO support for the Palestinian cause.59 However, many felt that the conference had been hijacked and had ended with another Arab/Muslim defeat.60 Nevertheless, the US had revealed its true face, wrote Walid Abu Zahr, and concluded, “Israel is a racist state whether this is stated in the Durban final declaration or not.”60

 

Embracing Holocaust Deniers

In the wake of the intifada, crude Holocaust denial re-emerged as a means of delegitimizing Israel and Zionism, along with motifs that had typified the discourse of the early years of the Arab-Israeli conflict, such as regret that Hitler had not finished the job. Egyptian columnist Ahmad Rajab thanked Hitler for taking revenge on the Israelis “in advance on behalf of the Palestinians,” but noted that it was not complete.61 The PA semi-official paper al-Hayat al-Jadida published an article on 13 April by Khayri Mansur, entitled “Marketing Ashes,” which elaborates various themes common to Holocaust deniers: alleged political and economic exploitation by Zionist propaganda, and doubting the number of Jews exterminated as well as well as the existence of the gas chambers.62 The Hizballah website disseminated “The Holocaust Lie,” from Richard Harwood’s book Did Six Million Really Die?, and referred the browser to the Leuchter Report.63 Norman Finkelstein’s book The Holocaust Industry drew considerable attention in the Arab media. It was translated into Arabic, reviewed and discussed while Finkelstein himself was a welcome interviewee.64 Although it does not deny the Holocaust, the book was perceived as an anti-Jewish/anti-Zionist tract, confirming Arab claims of exploitation of the Holocaust for Zionist political ends. At the Durban conference, Arab and Muslim representatives attempted, publicly, for the first time, to trivialize the Holocaust by denying its uniqueness and turning it into one of many holocausts.

The centrality of Holocaust denial in the Arab discourse was manifested in two events – an aborted conference of Western revisionists in Beirut, and an Arab forum on historical revisionism, which took place in May in Amman. The conference “Revisionism and Zionism,” co-sponsored by the California-based Institute of Historical Review (IHR), the leading Holocaust denial group in the world, and by the Swiss-based Truth & Justice Association, was scheduled to be held between 31 March and 3 April in the Lebanese capital Beirut. Jürgen Graf, founder of Truth & Justice, who fled to Iran to avoid a 15-month prison sentence, was a driving force behind its organization. If it had taken place, it would have been the first such conference in the Middle East. The choice of the Middle East was not accidental. Undoubtedly, the organizers had wanted to exploit the anti-Israel mood in the Arab world to promote their cause. French Holocaust deniers Roger Garaudy and Robert Faurisson and German neo-Nazi Horst Mahler were among the scheduled speakers. No Arab participant was named in the program. Suspicions that Iran and Hizballah were behind the conference were never substantiated. In fact, the conference was not even mentioned in the Arab media until the US State Department intervened with the Lebanese government at the beginning of March, at the urging of three American Jewish organizations – the Wiesenthal Center, the World Jewish Congress and the ADL.65

Recognizing the potential damage to the Arab cause, a group of 14 Arab intellectuals – North Africans, Lebanese and Palestinians, including Colombia University professor Edward Said and poet Mahmud Darwish – published an open letter to Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri calling for its cancellation. Arab Knesset member Ahmad Tibi also wrote to Hariri, urging the Arabs to reject any expression of understanding for Nazism, which had committed crimes against many peoples, including the Jews.66 Most press criticism was expressed in Lebanese papers. In a harsh editorial entitled “The Protocols of the Elders of Beirut,” prominent Lebanese writer Joseph Samaha branded the conference “a dishonor for Lebanon.” Holding a conference of “falsifiers of history” in Lebanon, he warned, would be interpreted by Israel and its supporters “as prolonging the Nazi extermination project,” which would harm the Palestinian cause and Palestinian victims.67 Indeed the international pressure bore fruit and Hariri cancelled the conference on 23 March.68 Lauding Hariri’s decision the Lebanese Daily Star editorial argued that “few moves could place this country [Lebanon] in a poorer light than to host their [the revisionists'] detestable gathering. The very real challenges posed to the Arab world by the Jewish state demand far too much attention to let a cabal of hate-mongers distract the authorities in Lebanon or elsewhere in the region … Arguments about whether the Nazis murdered six million Jews or ‘only’ five million are legitimate but essentially irrelevant in the big picture … those who deny that the Holocaust took place at all are worthy of nothing but universal scorn.”69

Hariri’s statement canceling the Beirut conference neither mentioned the organizers’ identity nor denounced their goals. Reaction in the Arab press and in the Lebanese parliament was divided: some supporting the conference and hence critical of the intellectuals’ letter and the cancellation, and others opposing the conference. Generally, the public debate – as in previous cases such as the Garaudy affair in 1996 and 1998 (see ASW 1996/7, 1998/9) – revolved around the benefits that would have accrued to Zionism and Israel if the conference had taken place70 as well as the potential damage to Lebanon and to the Palestinian cause.71 “Denial of the Holocaust … is equivalent to denial of the Palestinian right of return … Moreover, it amounts to unjust exoneration of the Nazis, and might equally lead to denial of crimes committed by Israeli war criminals,” wrote commentator ‘Abd al-Wahhab Badrakhan.72 On the other hand, the fourteen intellectuals were attacked for conceding unconditionally to the Zionist narrative and exerting pressure on Arab leaders to adopt their approach, while ignoring the adverse effects of their actions, such as infringement of freedom of speech.73 Such attacks prompted Edward Said to retract; in a message dated 2 April, he explained that he had appended his signature to the letter “on condition that there would be no appeal to any government concerning a ban on the conference.”74 Similarly, three months later Mahmud Darwish claimed that the cancellation was “a violation of human rights and of the rights of scientific research of revisionist historians.”75

In the context of this discussion, some commentators criticized the Arab attitude toward the extreme right in Europe. Lebanese writer Samir Kassir, for example, regretted that the Lebanese government had not seized the opportunity to explain to the world that the anti-Israel and anti-Zionist position had nothing to do with the racist atmosphere in Europe.76 Yet, it seemed that increased usage in the Arab discourse of alleged Zionist exploitation of the Holocaust and the equation of Zionism with racism and Nazism converged with the revisionist discourse and argumentation. “The existence of the Zionist entity itself is not only a crime against the Arabs, but against humanity as well,” concluded the statement of the Jordanian Writers Association on 10 April, denouncing the cancellation of the Beirut conference. Hence, “the liberation of humanity from neo-Nazism is its liberation from Zionism.”77

The bitter controversy aroused by the intellectuals’ letter as well as the cancellation of the conference culminated in an initiative to hold an alternative gathering in Amman. A group of Arab intellectuals, led by Ibrahim Alloush, a member of the Jordanian Writers Association (JWA) who had returned to Jordan after 13 years in the US, decided to organize a convention in Amman to discuss “what happened to the revisionist historians’ conference in Beirut?” The meeting, which was postponed twice due to the intervention of Jordan’s security authorities, finally took place, in cooperation with the Association against Zionism and Racism (AZAR), on 13 May to coincide with the commemoration of the Palestinian nakba (catastrophe – see ASW 1998/9). In contrast to the Beirut conference, where all the speakers were to have been Western Holocaust revisionists, the principal participants in the Amman meeting (150–200 participants in all) were Arab journalists and members of anti-normalization professional associations. They sought first and foremost to demonstrate opposition to the intellectuals who had called for the cancellation of the Beirut conference. The two main speakers were the Amman-based Lebanese journalist Hayat ‘Atiyya and the Jordanian journalist ‘Arafat Hijjazi. ‘Atiyya (who appeared two days later on an al-Jazira talk show dealing with the question “Is Zionism Worse than Nazism?”) emphasized the alleged parallels between Zionism and Nazism and argued that historical revisionism was not an ideology but a well-documented research project. Hijjazi dealt with common themes of Holocaust denial. The speakers also praised Roger Garaudy’s contribution to popularizing “revisionism”, outlined the speech Robert Faurisson had intended to deliver at the Beirut conference and proposed establishing an Arab Committee of Historical Revisionism.78

Although Arabs had embraced Holocaust denial in the past, the meeting in Amman may have been the first to signal a developing trend of cooperation between Arabs and revisionists. Ibrahim Alloush, who directs the Free Arab Voice site, asserted in an interview to the Journal of Historical Review that Arabs should be interested in the Holocaust and should take an active role in Holocaust revisionism. He argued that “most Arab regimes and leaders would not dare embrace “Holocaust” revisionism openly,” but “the Arab world is fertile ground for revisionist seeds.”79

 

Sanctioning Suicide Attacks

The radicalization of the Arab attitude towards Israelis and Jews was reflected in religious edicts (fatwas) issued by Islamist leaders such as Usama bin Ladin, and by Palestinian muftis, ruling that killing Jews wherever they might be was a personal duty incumbent upon every Muslim. While these rulings – also issued in the past (see ASW 1998/9, 2000/1) – did not stir up any public debate, they apparently did succeed in mobilizing Palestinians, who carried out numerous terrorist attacks, including suicide bombings against Israeli and Jewish targets. The attacks occasionally triggered public debates, especially when they became counter-productive and harmed state interests. Such a discussion, which took place following the escalation in Palestinian suicide operations against innocent Israeli civilians during 2001 and before and after the September 11 attacks in the US, questioned their Islamic legitimacy as well as their advisability. Although Palestinian suicide attacks were carried out only against Israeli targets as part of the Palestinian national struggle, Jews worldwide are potential targets, as in the bombing of the AMIA Jewish Center in Argentina in 1994 and more recently in Tunisia, where the ancient Jewish synagogue in Djerba was attacked in April 2002 by al-Qa‘ida members. Investigations of a detainee in the US, accused of participating in the planning of the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1992, revealed that the perpetrators contemplated targeting Jewish sites in Brooklyn, but assumed that the operation was too complicated. Thus, the debate on suicide attacks, which in themselves do not always constitute acts deriving from antisemitism, is of an utmost relevance, since it reflects not only the Arab perception of the Arab-Israeli conflict but also of the Jews in general.

The escalation of suicide operations within Israel was in itself an indication of the radicalized mood of the Palestinian street. Polls showed that support for these operations among the Palestinian population rose to about 80 percent in the course of the year.80 The number of volunteers willing to sacrifice themselves “as a way to open the door to paradise for themselves and for their families” also mounted.81 The recruits belonged not only to the Islamist movements – Hamas and Islamic Jihad – but also to the al-Aqsa brigades (members of the Tanzim, the secular PLO military wing) and even from among Israeli Arabs.82 Moreover, they included women and teenagers.83 Should suicide bombing be considered jihad? Were the perpetrators martyrs or simply terrorists, according to Islamic tradition? Should women and children take part in them? Did they serve Palestinian goals? What drove people to commit such acts? These were some of the questions raised in the debate, which encompassed Palestinian as well as other Arab religious scholars, intellectuals and politicians.

Traditional Islam forbids suicide and considers it to be a major sin. In addition, it forbids the killing of non-combatants, women, children and the elderly. However, from the mid-1990s Sunni Islamists adopted the Iranian/Shi’i concept of suicide missions and martyrdom. They used Qur’anic verses and Islamic oral tradition to sanction voluntary sacrifice of the self in the cause of Islam and Muslims, and to justify it as a martyrdom operation and a form of fulfilling the individual duty of jihad. Two approaches emerged in the debate: one argued that suicide bombings were “heroic acts of martyrdom” and “the supreme form of jihad for the sake of Allah,” and the other delegitimized them as contradicting the spirit of Islam, especially since they targeted women and children.84

The debate over the religious legitimacy of suicide attacks was triggered by an interview in al-Sharq al-Awsat with the mufti of Saudi Arabia Shaykh ‘Abd al-‘Aziz ibn ‘Abdallah ibn Muhammad Al al-Shaykh, who ruled that suicide operations had no basis in Islamic law and did not constitute “jihad in the path of God.” He also argued, four months before the September 11 events, that Islam forbade hijacking aircraft and terrorizing innocents.85 Egypt’s Shaykh al-Azhar Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, also a government appointee, agreed with this ruling, excluding operations carried out against enemy soldiers.86

But these views immediately drew fire from most Palestinian religious scholars as well as from Shaykh Yusuf al-Qardawi, Hizballah religious leader Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah and radical al-Azhar scholars. They decreed that, to the contrary, martyrdom operations, a euphemism for suicide attacks, against occupation forces were permissible under Islamic law and constituted jihad. Al-Qardawi stressed that suicide operations against Israel were legitimate even if they killed civilians, and maintained that such martyrs could bring victory over the Zionist entity.87 Egyptian pro-Islamist columnist Fahmi Huwaydi claimed he felt elation when a suicide bomber blew himself in a Jerusalem restaurant in August.88 Expressing his loathing for the “racist Jewish entity,” another Egyptian columnist advocated driving the Jews into the sea by acts of martyrdom, which would create “a balance of fear strategy.” 89 There seemed to be a general consensus in Arab societies in favor of suicide operations, expressed in the high esteem bestowed upon those who carried them out and the financial rewards granted to their families.

The September 11 attacks in New York and Washington reopened the debate over suicide operations. Many Muslim clerics, including Islamist scholars Husayn Fadlallah and Yusuf al-Qardawi, denounced the attacks, considering them terrorism and not martyrdom, since they were directed against innocent people who should not be held responsible for the deeds of the US administration.90 The Islamic Research Council at al-Azhar issued a statement on 4 November, stating that “Islam provides clear rules and ethical norms that forbid the killing of noncombatants, as well as women, children, and the elderly.”91 A resolution in the same vein was adopted by the emergency meeting of foreign ministers of the Islamic Conference Organization, held in Doha, Qatar, in October.92 But, a clear distinction was made between these attacks and suicide operations against Israeli targets, which were justified across the religious and political spectrum, since all Israelis were considered part of the Israeli war machine and “human bombs” were viewed as the most effective Muslim answer to the advanced Israeli arsenal of weapons.

However, a gradual shift in attitude was discerned, especially at the beginning of December, following another wave of suicide bombings in Israel. Several Arab commentators and Palestinians, such as cabinet member Ziyad Abu Ziyad and Fatah Higher Council secretary Marwan Barghuti, criticized them as counter-productive and harmful to the Palestinian cause.93 Samir Kassir warned that “the Masada complex” threatens to emerge from Jewish history and storm the history of the Arabs, “as if enough damage has not been done already.”94 Egypt’s Shaykh al-Azhar also backed down from his previous rulings, telling a group of foreign visitors that Islam condemned such attacks on innocent civilians,95 only to be reprimanded by the mufti of Jerusalem, Shaykh Sabri ‘Ikrima, who claimed that Tantawi’s declarations were made under Egyptian and international pressure. Suicide attacks, he insisted, were legitimate means.96

 As it turned out ‘Ikrima’s approach appeared to prevail, reflecting the overwhelming success of Islamist reasoning. Yet, it should be emphasized that Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad strongly opposed targeting Jews outside Israel. They claimed they were fighting the Zionist entity on the land of Palestine, or Israelis, not because they were Jews but because they were aggressors and occupiers.97

 

Antisemitic Manifestations in the Wake of 11 September

The September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington by a group of radical Islamists instigated a wave of antisemitic manifestations, which exposed the strong linkage between anti-Americanism and antisemitism in the Arab and Muslim worlds. Bin Ladin and the Islamists brought about Islamization of the anti-American and anti-imperialist polemic just as the intifada reinforced Islamization of the conflict and the anti-Israel discourse. Hostility toward the Jews and Israel is part and parcel of the worldview of Usama bin Ladin and al-Qa‘ida (the base) as well as of other Islamist movements, such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The struggle, or jihad, against “the Crusaders and the Jews” is a major theme in bin Ladin’s ideology and constitutes the first stage in a long campaign for the restoration of the Muslim caliphate and the establishment of an Islamic world order. According to this view, the Jews are not only the occupiers of Muslim lands in Palestine but are part of Western Judeo-Christian civilization, perceived as a threat to Islamic civilization and Islamic revival. Although seen also as the spearhead of the West in the war against Islam, the Jews and the issue of the Arab-Israeli conflict were not bin Ladin’s first priority. Only when he felt during America’s retaliatory war in Afghanistan that the Arab and Muslim demonstrations against the US were waning did he raise the Palestinian cause to the top of the agenda in his video addresses urging Muslims to action.98

The linkage between anti-Americanism and antisemitism was not confined to radical Islamists. It was abundantly demonstrated in Arab and Muslim reactions to the September 11 attacks. Several anti-Israel and antisemitic themes emerged in Arab press discussions of the events:

-         Israeli intelligence was allegedly involved in the attacks.

-         Jews had prior knowledge of the attacks.

-         4,000 Jews were absent from work in the World Trade Center on that day.

-         The American public had been misled by the dominant Israeli Zionists and by the strong influence of the Jewish lobby in the US.

-         The Jews/Zionists vilified and demonized Muslims and instigated Islamophobia.

-         Only Israel could benefit from such an act.

-         Israel and the Jews wanted to drag the US and the West into a war against Islam.

-         The Zionist enemy was practicing the ugliest forms of terrorism.

-         If bin Ladin was guilty, he should be punished together with other terrorists, including Israeli Prime Minister Sharon.

All these themes reflected an instinctive response, which sought to transfer the blame from themselves to “the other,” in this case, Israel. To Arab commentators the meticulously planned and executed operation seemed beyond the capabilities of an Arab/Muslim group. Conspiracy theories provided immediate explanations and answers to unresolved questions, and relieved Arab societies of self-examination and admission that they were the source of such destructive hatred and terrorism. Jews, Zionists or Israelis, the mythical conspirators, were portrayed by the Arab press – both mainstream and Islamic alike – as the masterminds behind the attacks. Upset by the blame attributed to Arabs and Muslims before any concrete evidence had been produced, some commentators argued that the international media, allegedly controlled by the Israeli/Jewish lobby, were responsible for the hatred toward them in the US and for covering up what they claimed was a Mossad operation.99 Saudi prince Mamduh Bin ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, head of the Center for Saudi-Strategic Studies, claimed that whoever had read literature such as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion would know that the Jews were behind the international atmosphere of terror, and that they had infiltrated Islamist states and organizations.100 Egyptian scholar Amira al-Shinwani also cited The Protocols as proof of the conniving Jewish character, as well as the fake document in which American President Benjamin Franklin allegedly warned of the dangers of Jewish immigration.101 The Jews were not only capable of committing such an ugly crime, argued Jordanian columnist Rakan al-Majali, but no one would dare blame them because he would immediately be accused of perpetrating “a new Holocaust.”102 They conspired, plotted and used Arabs and Muslims as pawns, charged Muhammad Jami’a, an al-Azhar representative and imam in a New York Islamic center. In an interview from Cairo, to which he returned shortly after 11 September, he accused Jewish doctors in New York of poisoning sick Muslim children, and repeated all the allegations mentioned above. The interview was published on the Internet site of al-Azhar at the beginning of October.103 “Israel drew maximum benefit from this terrorist activity,” wrote Pakistani Islamist scholar Kurshid Ahmad. “A glance at the history of Israel and the Zionist movement gives credence to the suspicion of Mossad’s role in the terrorist acts,” he added. He also insinuated that Jews had known about the attacks since no Jewish names were found on the lists of the dead.104

The goal of the operations was to coerce the US and NATO “into submitting even further to Jewish Zionist ideology,” by cultivating fears of “Islamic terrorism” and instigating a war against Islam.105 “The Israelis and their Zionist propaganda worldwide had immediately seized on the pain and sorrow of the American people as an opportunity to incite the world against Islam and Muslims,” wrote Palestinian Islamist scholar ‘Azzam Tamimi in the pro-Hamas mouthpiece Palestine Times in October.

A few Arab writers and intellectuals, such as American Lebanese Professor Fu’ad ‘Ajami, Pakistani Professor Akbar Ahmed in the US, Dean of Islamic Law at Qatar university, ‘Abd al-Hamid al-Ansari, Kuwaiti university Professor Ahmad al-Baghdadi, and Egyptian writer ‘Ali Salim, Lebanese writer Hazim Saghiya, however, not only condemned the attacks but also criticized Arab societies and regimes. They admitted that terrorist ideas fell on fertile ground in societies “ruled by a fanatic culture” which terrorizes its own citizens. They acknowledged that something has gone terribly wrong in a world where young men strap themselves with explosives, only to be hailed as martyrs. Arabs have nobody to blame but themselves for their misfortunes, and hence, should take a hard look in the mirror to mend their ways.106

 

CONCLUSION

“After the issue of terrorism, the question of ‘Arabs and antisemitism’ has returned to the headlines,” wrote Lebanese liberal intellectual Hazim Saghiya, blaming Zionist zealots, Muslim clerics who justified the murder of Jews, and the Arab media.107 Indeed, since the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinians and the war against terrorism launched in the wake of the September 11 attacks had intensified the antisemitic discourse, Saghiya admitted that Arab antisemitism existed and “that it is powerful, even dangerous – and therefore must be fought.” Books, speeches, television channels, statements and admiration for Holocaust deniers proved its existence; however, he argued, it was different from Christian antisemitism and lacked “the functional modernism of Nazism, the Nazi order, and the racist ideological adherence.”

A contrary view was voiced by Jerome Slater, research professor at SUNY Buffalo, who claimed that “there is no basis for the assertion that Palestinian outrage at, or even hatred of, Israelis is a manifestation of traditional ‘antisemitism’.” It was rather a consequence of the Zionist dispossession of the Palestinians and “over fifty years of Israeli injustice and repression.”108 However, other scholars argue that this differentiation between antisemitism and anti-Zionism, or an anti-Israel position, seems increasingly invalid. In light of overwhelming anti-Israel manifestations worldwide, it may be perceived as “nothing but the old antisemitism in disguise.”109 “We in the West,” contended senior editor Andrew Sullivan, “simply do not want to believe that this kind of hatred still exists; and when it emerges, we feel uncomfortable.”110

Jewish and Israeli organizations and institutions are at the forefront of the struggle against Arab antisemitism. They reacted strongly to the planned Beirut conference, bringing about its cancellation (see above); attempted to abort the Amman meeting;111 pressed the US administration to discuss antisemitism in the Egyptian press ‘with President Husni Mubarak during his visit to the US in April;112 and denounced Syrian President Asad’s statements as well as the antisemitic satire on Abu Dhabi TV.113 A new international forum for monitoring antisemitism launched in November and embracing Jewish and non-Jewish organizations has placed Arab antisemitism at the top of its agenda.114

 

 

notes

All references are from 2001, unless otherwise stated.

  1.   Elia Awwad, “Perceiving the ‘Other’ in the al-Aqsa Intifada,” Palestine-Israel Journal 2, p. 103.

  2.   Ha’aretz, 5 June.

  3.   Khalil Shikaki, “Old Guard, Young Guard: the Palestinian Authority and the Peace Process at a Cross Roads,” 1 Nov. – msanews.mynet/shikaki.doc.

  4.   Khalil Shikaki, “Palestinian Attitudes during the Bush/Sharon Era,” PeaceWatch 319, 20 April; Jordan Times, 2 May; Ha’aretz, 13 May.

  5.   Ha’aretz, 6 Feb.

  6.   Ha’aretz, 27 July.

  7.   Ha’aretz, 24, 27 April ; Tishrin, 24, 26 April ; al-Hayat, 25 April ; Middle East Times, 28 April ; Azzaman, 2 May ; al-Ahram Weekly, 3 May ; al-‘Arabi, 6 May ; Filastin al-Muslima, June.

  8.   al-’Arab al-Yawm, 20 Jan..

  9.   al-Ahram Weekly, 3 May.

 10. MEMRI, special dispatch no. 276, 25 Sept.

 11. al-Istiqlal, 18, 25 Feb., 8 April ; see also Itamar Marcus, Research Paper No. 37, 18 June, Palestinian Media Watch.

 12. Middle East Affairs 1–2 (Winter/Spring), p. 215.

 13. Ma’ariv, sofshavoua’, 23 Feb..

 14. MEMRI, special dispatch no. 240, 11 July.

 15. al-Ahram, 8 Feb. ; The Economist, 10 Feb. ; Yedi’ot Aharonot, 23 Feb. ; Ha’aretz, 7 March.

 16. al-Hayat, 3 Feb.; al-Usbu’ al-Adabi, 10 Feb.; Tishrin, 17 Feb.

 17. al-Akhbar, 20 April.

 18. al-’Arab al-Yawm, 14 Feb.; Akhbar al-Yawm, 17 Feb.; al-Jumhuriyya, 18 March; al-Intifada, 25 March).

 19. al-Usbu’, 12 Feb.

 20. al-Intifada, 11 Feb.

 21. al-Ahram, 26 April; Akhir Sa’a, 27 April; al-’Arabi, 6 May; R. Damascus, 7 May; Egyptian Mail, 12 May; Tishrin, 13 Sept.

 22. al-Hayat, 10 Feb.

 23. al-Ahram, 8 Feb.; al-Intifada, 25 March.

 24. al-Ahram, 12 Feb.

 25. al-Hayat, 28 Jan.; al-Ayyam, 15 Feb.; Filastin al-Muslima, Feb.; al-Ahram al-‘Arabi, 10 March; Tishrin, 9 April; Syria Times, 9 June.

 26. al-Nahar, 23 March.

 27. www.indictsharon.net.

 28. al-Hayat, 19 Feb., 31 March; al-Akhbar, 20 April.

 29. al-Hayat, 12 Jan.; al-Istiqlal, 18, 25 Jan., 29 March, 17 May; Tishrin, 20 Jan., 26 March; October, 28 Jan., 4 March; al-Quds, 29 Jan.; al-Ahram, 3, 14 Feb.; al-Ayyam, 15 Feb.; Filastin al-Muslima, March.

 30. Tishrin, 24 Feb.

 31. Tishrin, 20 Sept.

 32. al-Hayat al-Jadida, 22 May; Ha’aretz, 23 May.

 33. al-Hayat, 9 Jan.; Ha’aretz, 10 Jan.

 34. Tishrin, Ha’aretz, 28 March; al-Hayat, 28, 29 March.

 35. Ha’aretz, al-Hayat, 4 May.

 36. Tishrin, 6, 7 May; Ha’aretz, 6, 7, 8 May; Washington Post, 7 May; NYT, 8, 13 May; al-Hayat, 8, 9, 12 May; Jordan Times, 9 May.

 37. Tishrin, 15 May; al-Hayat, 21 May.

 38. Las Vegas Sun Online, 5 May.

 39. al-Hayat al-Jadida, 25 Jan.; see also al-‘Arab al-Yawm, 12 Jan.; al-Sabil, 17 Aug.

 40. Washington Post, 17 Dec.

 41. Ha’aretz, 18, 21 Nov.; Washington Post, New York Times, 20 Nov.

 42. al-Hayat, 12 Jan.; al-Qahira, 13 March; Ha’aretz, 30 March, 29 July .

 43. Ruz al-Yusuf, 24 Feb.; Middle East Times, 10 March; MEMRI, special dispatch no. 190, 1 March; Ha’aretz, 29 March.

 44. al-Akhbar, 25 March; MEMRI, special dispatch no. 201, 2 April.

 45. CSM, 4 Sept.

 46. Ha’aretz, 24 Sept.

 47. al-Ahram al-‘Arabi, 24 Feb.; Annashra, April; al-Istiqlal, 2 Aug.

 48. al-Istiqlal, 24 March.

 49. al-Usbu’ al-Adabi, 5 May.

 50. al-Sharq al-Awsat, 18, 21, 22, 23 July; al-Ahram al-‘Arabi, 21 July; al-Hayat, 23 July.

 51. al-Sharq al-Awsat, 1, 4, 27 Aug..

 52. Middle East Affairs Journal 1-2 (Winter/Spring), pp. 235–9.

 53. Michael Colson, “Durban and the Middle East: Challenges for US Policy,” PolicyWatch 548, 1 Aug.; al-Sharq al-Awsat, 10, 16 Aug.; al-Ba’th, 26 Aug.; Tishrin, 1, 3, 4, 6, 8 Sept.; al-Akhbar, 2 Sept..

 54. Tishrin, 3 Sept.; South Africa News Agency (SAPA), 8 Sept.

 55. MENA, 4 Sept.; Tishrin, 5, 6, 9 Sept.; Syria Times, 8 Sept..

 56. Jedda Arab News Online, 2, 19 Aug.

 57. Tehran Times, 5 Sept.

 58. al-Sharq al-Awsat, 3 Sept.; Ha’aretz, 4 Sept.; al-Zaman, al-Hayat, 7 Sept.; al-Siyasa al-Duwaliya, Oct.

 59. Keyhan International, 1 Sept.; al-Akhbar, 3 Sept.; al-Sharq al-Awsat, 7, 9 Sept.; al-Ahram al-‘Arabi, al-Mujtama’, 15 Sept.

 60. al-Watan al-‘Arabi, 14 Sept.; see also al-Sunna, Filastin al-Muslima, Oct.

 61. al-Akhbar, 25 April; AJC Press Release, 3 June; ADL, “Holocaust Denial in the Middle East: The Latest Anti-Israel Propaganda Theme,” nd - adl.org.

 62. Jerusalem Post, 18, 19 April; 8 June; Ma’ariv, 19 April.

 63. resistance.homepage.com.

 64. al-Ahram al-‘Arabi, 24 February; al-Sharq al-Awsat, 13 March; al-Hawadith, 16 March; al-Adab, March-April; Annashra, April; Daily Star, 3 July.

 65. US Newswire, JP, 12 Feb.; Ma’ariv, Ha’aretz, 13 Feb.; ihr.org/conference/beirutconf; Tishrin, 24 Feb.; al-Nahar, al-Safir, 3 March; Tehran Times, 4 March.

 66. Le Monde, 15 March; Ha’aretz, 19, 20, 23 March.

 67. al-Hayat, 13 March; Le Monde, 15 March.

 68. al-Nahar, 23, 24 March; JP, 23, 25 March; al-Hayat, 24, 25 March; Daily Star, 24, 26 March; Ha’aretz, 25, 29 March.

 69. Daily Star, 24 March.

 70. al-Nahar, 20 March; al-Wasat, 26 March.

 71. al-Nahar, 20, 23 March.

 72  al-Hayat, 19 March.

 73. al-Anwar, 21 March; al-Akhbar, 13 April; Ibrahim Alloush, “Between Public Relations and Self-Alienation: Arab Intellectuals and the ‘Holocaust’,” Journal of Historical Review (May/June).

 74. ihr.org/conference/beirutconf.

 75. MSANEWS, 16 July.

 76. al-Nahar, 23 March.

 77. ihr.org/conference/beirutconf.

 78. Free Arab Voice Online (FAV), 15, 28 April; JP, 17, 23 April, 22 May; al-Safir, 20 April; Jordan Times Online, 15 May; al-Hayat al-Jadida, 15 May; al-Jazira TV, 15 May – MEMRI, dispatch no. 225, 6 June; Middle East News Online, 16 May; AZAR, 18 May – MSANEWS.

 79. “Why the ‘Holocaust’ Is Important to Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims? FAV, 28 April; The Journal of Historical Review (May/June); see also Alloush’ series of articles published in Islamist weekly al-Sabil, 1–22 May.

 80. Ha’aretz, 13 May; AFP, 3 June; Jerusalem Report, 22 Oct..

 81. MEMRI, Inquiry and Analysis, no. 61, 25 June; New York Post, 9 Dec..

 82. MEMRI, special dispatch no. 260, 22 Aug.; Jerusalem Report, 19 Nov.

 83. Jerusalem Post, 15 Aug.; Independent, 22 Aug..

 84. Yotam Feldner, “The Debate over Religious Legitimacy,” MEMRI, Inquiry and Analysis, no. 53, part 1, 2 May; part, 2, 3 May; no. 65; part 3, 26 July; Los Angeles Times, 22 Aug.; David Zeidan, “The Islamic Fundamentalist View of Life as a Perennial Battle,” Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. 4 (Dec.).

 85. al-Sharq al-Awsat, 21 April; Ha’aretz, 11 May; 3 June.

 86. al-Hayat, 27 April.

 87. al-Ahram, 24, 26 April; al-‘Arab al-Yawm, 25 April; al-Hayat, 25, 27 April, 11 May; Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) News, 26 April; al-Liwa’, 2 May; al-Istiqlal, 26 April, 14, 28 June; al-Sabil, 1 May; Ruz al-Yusuf, 4 May; Filastin al-Muslima, May.

 88. al-Ahram, 14 Aug.; MEMRI, special dispatch, no.265, 31 Aug.

 89. al-Usbu’, 28 May; MEMRI, special dispatch no. 224, 4 June.

 90. al-Ahram al-‘Arabi, 20 Oct.; al-Ahram Weekly, 6 Dec.; interview with Shaykh Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah, Journal of Palestine Studies. 2 (Winter 2002), p. 80.

 91. New York Review, 17 Jan. 2002.

 92. Yedi’ot Aharonot, 11 Oct.

 93. Ha’aretz, 24 Aug.; al-Watan, 12 Sept.; NYT, 5 Dec.; al-Quds, 7 Dec.; al-Watan, 10 Dec. [Mideast Mirror]; al-Hayat, 12 Dec. [Mideast Mirror].

 94. al-Nahar, 10 Dec. [Mideast Mirror].

 95. al-Ahram, 4 Dec.; al-Ahram Weekly, 6 Dec.; Ha’aretz, 6, 7, 19 Dec.

 96. al-Hayat, 7 Dec.; Ha’aretz, 9 Dec.

 97. Ahmad Yasin, in Internet chat, Islam Online, 1 April; al-Istiqlal, 5 April; al-Mujtama‘, 22 Sept.

 98. Yedi’ot Aharonot, 16 Sept.; NYT, 9 Dec.; al-Sharq al-Awsat, 2–12 Dec.

 99. al-Dustur, al-Ra’y, al-Akhbar, 13 Sept.; al-Manar TV, 15 Sept. [BBC]; al-Ayyam, al-’Arabi, 16 Sept.; al-Istiqlal, 4 Oct.; al-Ahram, 7 Oct.; CSM, 6 Nov.

100. al-Hayat, 24 Sept.

101. al-Ahram, 26 Oct.

102. al-Dustur, 13 Sept.

103. lailatalqadr.com.

104. Kurshid Amad, “Elimination of Terrorism or Beginning of New Crusades,” Tarjuman al-Qur’an, Oct. [MSANEWS]; see also: Star, 20 Sept.; al-Sabil, 24 Sept.

105. al-Sabil, 2 Oct.

106. al-Hayat, 15 Sept.; al-Sharq al-Awsat, 17 Sept., 21 Dec.; MEMRI, no. 298, 8 Nov.; no. 302, 20 Nov.; no. 307, 4 Dec.; nos. 337, 338, 29, 30 Jan. 2002).

107. al-Hayat, 12 Dec.; MEMRI, special dispatch no. 314, 14 Dec.

108. Jerome Slater, “Israel, Antisemitism and the Palestinian Problem,” Tikkun (May–June) [MSANEWS].

109. Hillel Halkin, “The Return of Anti-Semitism,” Commentary, Feb. 2002.

110. The New Republic, 5 Nov.

111. JP, 3 May; al-Sabil, 8 May.

112. Ha’aretz, 2 April.

113. al-Hayat, 15 June; Ma‘ariv, 18 June; Jerusalem Post, 19 Nov.

114. Ma‘ariv, 19 Nov.