ARAB COUNTRIES 2004

No particular event in 2004 in the Middle East or in the world in general prompted an upsurge in antisemitic manifestations in Arab countries. Arab states were preoccupied with their own internal affairs and with regional political upheavals, especially the war in Iraq, the war against terror and the process of democratization enforced by the US vision of the world. However, reactions to these events revealed a prevailing belief in conspiracy theories and in the long, unseen hand of Jews and Israelis, allegedly driven by their traditional enmity toward Islam, Muslims and Arabs and their desire to control the world. American columnist Thomas Friedman’s assertion that the trend identifying Jews, Israel and America as a single threat had widened since 11 September 2001[1] was supported by a survey conducted by the Washington-based Pew Research Center in Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan and Turkey as well as by other surveys. Thus, 93 percent of people surveyed in Jordan had a somewhat or very unfavorable view of the US, while in Morocco the figure was 68 percent. According to Andrew Kohut, the director of the Pew Center, this tendency, reflecting anger rather than hatred and distrust, was confined not only to the US but to all outsiders. The enduring popularity of Usama bin Ladin – rated positively by 55 percent in Jordan, 65 percent in Pakistan and 45 percent in Morocco – underscored the gulf between Muslim and western attitudes. The center considered the invasion of Iraq and US support for Israel in the conflict with the Palestinians as the prime causes of this trend.[2]

Ibrahim Nafi’, editor of the mainstream Egyptian daily al-Ahram and author of the book The Phobia of the Green Danger, accused the West, “and specifically those that are at the helm of their empire of evil,” of being the “real terrorists” who had launched an anti-Muslim campaign “ in order to impose their value systems on the Arab and Islamic world.”[3] A wave of anti-Americanism also swept Cairo’s entertainment world. Movies, plays and songs portraying American characters, such as Alexandria… New York, by leading Egyptian film director Yusuf Shahin, which “was brimming with resentment toward the US,” were very popular, reported David Williams in the Washington Post. Two stage productions lambasted US foreign policy, and the songs “Attack on Iraq” and “Road Map,” by popular Egyptian singer Sha’ban `Abd al-Rahim, notorious for his hit “I Hate Israel,” criticized Arab subservience and accused the US of perpetrating the September 11 attacks and of being an Israeli clone.[4]

Similar views on the US intertwined with a negative portrayal of Zionists and Jews were expressed by other Arab writers, especially Syrians and Islamists. The Arab Writers Association in Damascus held a series of lectures in January 2004, at which the Jews were depicted as racists who patronized the Arabs.[5] The history of the Jews and “their Talmud,” wrote Marwan al-Khalidi in the Jordanian Islamist weekly al-Sabil “are full of blood, treason, falsehood, deceit, killing and destruction.” These characteristics were conspicuous in the works of many writers such as Shakespeare, Gogol, Karl Marx and Roger Garaudy, claimed Fatina Salih al-Kurdi in an article in the Kuwaiti weekly Majallat al-Kuwait.[6] Likewise, demonization of Prime Minister (PM) Ariel Sharon continued, especially following Israeli military retaliations against the Palestinians when he was depicted in cartoons as a bloodthirsty Dracula, or as Hitler with blood dripping from his hands.[7]

Jews and Israelis were blamed for every disaster which befell Arabs and Muslims, as well as for terrorist attacks, such as the March 11 bombings in Madrid and the October attack in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Taba. The sudden deterioration and death of Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Yasir Arafat in November prompted charges that Israel had poisoned him.

Several other issues, among them the 25th anniversary of the Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement, the Holocaust, the controversy over Mel Gibson’s film The Passion, the American act against antisemitism and the European campaign to combat antisemitism triggered commentaries and discussions which revealed the extent to which traditional antisemitic prejudices and beliefs are entrenched in Arab thought. However, it should be noted that a few voices denounced extremism, terrorism and the resort to conspiracy theories, not only because they damaged the Arab cause but also because they obfuscated the Arabs’ ability to tackle their own problems.

This chapter consists of six parts:

a.       Blaming the Jews – an Arab and Muslim perspective of events

b.      Diminishing incitement in the Palestinian Authority

c.       The Egyptian view 25 years after the peace agreement with Israel

d.      Saudi Arabia on the defensive

e.       Reactions to international efforts to combat antisemitism

f.        References to the Holocaust in the Arab discourse

Blaming the Jews – An Arab and Muslim perspective of events

The continued state of war in Iraq, and the accompanying bloody resistance of Islamist rebels, was a major cause of the deteriorating attitude toward the US and its identification with Israeli/Jewish interests in the Arab world. To indicate their distrust and rejection of the troops of the “Nazi American-Zionist occupation,” Iraqis reportedly refer to American soldiers as “the Jews.”[8] Jews were blamed for the sectarian war raging between Sunnis and Shi`ites. Cartoons in the Bahraini paper Akhbar al-Khalij and Omani al-Watan depicted them as gnawing at Iraqi territory or collaborating with the devil in igniting sectarianism and civil war. Der Stürmer-like caricatures of Sharon enjoying the Iraqi bloodbath or encouraging American President Bush to drink Iraqi blood personified the Jew in Egyptian and Jordanian mainstream papers.[9] Reports on Jewish infiltration of Iraq as soldiers or settlers typified the Islamist discourse. Claiming that America was fighting in Iraq on behalf of Israel, Sudanese preacher Shaykh `Abd al-Jalil al-Karuri alleged in a Friday sermon broadcast on television on 19 November that there were 1000 Jewish soldiers fighting in Falluja, together with 37 rabbis sent there to raise their morale. In another sermon transmitted in August, he branded the Jews “mosquitoes” and “malaria microbes” who were hastening America’s death.[10] The Egyptian Islamist paper al-Sha`b repeatedly referred to the judaization of Iraq and the settlement of 150,000 Jews in the northern Kurdish zone with the intention of establishing a “second Zionist state”’ it also attacked Iraqi PM Ayyad `Alawi, claiming he was a Mossad agent and a traitor with Zionist blood in his veins.[11] The mainstream Egyptian paper al-Akhbar even alleged that the Jews were orchestrating the killings and kidnappings in Iraq in order to spread anarchy and sedition.[12]

Allegations that the Jews or the US had masterminded the 9/11 events persisted in the Arab media, especially in Egyptian papers. Army officers, scholars and commentators, such as General Mahmud Khalaf, economics professor Jalal Amin and al-Akhbar editor Jalal Dawidar, continued to maintain that there still was no conclusive proof regarding the identity of the perpetrators, and reiterated claims made immediately after the attacks that the Israeli Mossad had perpetrated them in an attempt to divert attention from Israel’s barbaric operations against the Palestinians; that 4000 Jews did not report to work in the Trade Center’ that 101 Jewish businessmen supposedly holding tickets did not board the four hijacked planes because of prior knowledge of the plan; and that several Israelis were arrested by the American authorities after they were caught with maps showing the routes of the planes.[13]

Similar reactions were expressed after each of the terrorist attacks carried out during the year by Muslim extremists who either belonged to al-Qa`ida or identified with its views. On 11 March explosions at two train stations in Madrid killed about 200 passengers and injured many more; at the beginning of September Chechen militants raided a school in Besalan, Russia, held hundreds of children hostage and caused scores of casualties in the course of the rescue operation; in October an attack on the Egyptian resort of Taba claimed the lives of over 30 tourists, including Israelis; and a wave of suicide bombings took place in May and December against western companies and housing complexes in Saudi Arabia. Zionists or the Jews were blamed, despite statements by Islamist groups taking responsibility for the actions as well as admissions by bin Ladin or his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri. “It is the Jews and their filthy unseen hands who play their role expertly in order to harm the Arabs and Muslims and to intensify hatred toward them,” claimed al-Jumhuriyya deputy editor `Abd al-Wahhab `Adas after the Madrid bombings.[14] Some commentators saw the incident in Besalan as part of a power struggle between Russian President Putin and Jewish oligarchs. “The most important goal of the wanted Jewish gang was to distort Putin’s public image,” wrote George Haddad in Jordan’s daily al-Dustur. “Zionism has been the source of terror in the past and in the present,” claimed a Russian site quoted by a Kuwaiti weekly.[15] Likewise, the attacks on the Taba Hilton and two other Sinai resorts on 7 October were attributed to Israel and the Mossad. Only Israel, which is interested in embarrassing Egypt and in hurting Egyptian tourism, stood to gain from the bombings, it was argued. “Sharon and his ilk are responsible for what happened,” insisted pro-Islamist writer Fahmi Huwaydi in al-Ahram. In the same article he described Israeli operations in Gaza as “a war of annihilation,” and claimed that Arabs felt “distaste and hatred” toward Israelis.[16] Al-Qa`ida, which called to intensify jihad during the month of Ramadan, considered the attack in Taba as “an offering to Allah before Ramadan” because “a dozen” Jews were killed.[17]

Israel was even accused of involvement in the genocide in Darfur. Al-Ahram journalist Sa`id al-Lawundi pointed to “Israeli fingers meddling” in Darfur, and turning it into an Israeli weapons market, whereas Mu`tazz Ahmad, another Egyptian journalist, argued that Israel was attempting to split the Sudan into communities of races and minorities.[18] Even the tsunami which struck southeast Asia in December, causing mass death and destruction, was perceived as punishment for the oppression and corruption caused by America and the Jews, who according to Palestinian Shaykh Ibrahim Mudayris “bring Muslims and others to prostitution.”[19]

All these conspiracy theories were designed to explain the chaotic and inferior situation of Arab and Muslim societies which consider themselves victims of a dominant Judeo-Christian West. ‘Successful’ acts of terrorism were intended to lift the head of the Muslim nation, declared the British-based Islamist group al-Muhajirun in its call to celebrate the third anniversary of September 11 at a rally in London.[20]

However, alongside these beliefs was a growing sense of realization among Arab intellectuals, politicians and religious scholars of the harmful effects of terrorism and of the state of denial of Muslim involvement in it. Following the Madrid bombings several writers issued condemnations, emphasizing that Islam forbids random killing of innocent people. Although some linked the attacks to American policy, others recognized them for what they were − an illicit massacre of innocent passengers − detrimental first and foremost to Muslim immigrant communities in Europe.[21] Criticism was even more blatant after the incident in Besalan. Egyptian President Mubarak and Jordan’s King `Abdallah denounced it, and even Egyptian Shaykh al-Azhar Muhammad Tantawi, the highest religious authority in the Sunni world, emphasized that the perpetrators were criminals unconnected to Islam. “Obviously not all Muslims are terrorists,” wrote liberal columnist `Abd al-Rahman al-Rashid in al-Sharq al-Awsat, but “the painful truth is that all terrorists are Muslims,” and “Islam is discredited because of the new Muslims [extremist fundamentalists].” Acts of violence and barbarism, added columnist Sulayman al-Hatlan in the Saudi daily al-Watan, are the natural consequence of instilling in generations of Muslims hostility and hatred toward others.[22] Qatari scholar `Abd al-Hamid al-Ansari regretted Arab unwillingness to admit to Muslim involvement in terrorist attacks. After publication of the findings of the commission that investigated the September 11 events, he wondered whether Arabs would have the courage to review their erroneous beliefs and their religious, cultural and media discourse which pushed their youth toward a collision course with the world. Stressing that these convictions were deeply rooted in religion, in historical causes and in political circumstances, he pointed to the negative depiction of the Children of Israel in the Qur'an and in the oral tradition, nourishing the belief that the Jews are the cause of all evil in the world and that the conflict with them would last until Judgment Day.[23]

Diminishing Incitement in the Palestinian Authority

By the end of the year, Israeli PM Sharon was reportedly satisfied that anti-Israeli incitement in the Palestinian media had diminished. Yet, this decline was seen by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook, who monitor the Palestinian media, as a tactical measure which did not erase “widespread and deep-seated beliefs within the PA leadership and society.” Marcus and Crook provided examples of the ongoing indoctrination of schoolchildren in textbooks and TV programs which taught them to hate Jews and deny Israel’s right to exist. They cited, for example, a program broadcast on 10 September, ‘Resurrection Day’, during which Muslims are called on to avenge the Jews and pursue and kill every one of them. Another program, transmitted in mid-December, compared Israel to “parasitic worms in the oceans that eat snails and then retreat to their shell.”[24]

In a television interview broadcast on 6 February, Secretary of the Palestinian Legislative Council Ahmad Nasir described Israel as a “Satanic offspring,” based on “racism, biblical concepts, death, killing and destruction.” Notorious Palestinian preacher Shaykh Ibrahim Mudayris continued to portray the Jews in his Friday sermons as “serpents” and “cancer,” sparking war and civil strife. Referring to the oft-quoted episode of the encounter between the Jews and the Prophet Muhammad in Medina, their alleged betrayal and the war which brought about their banishment from the Arab Peninsula, he claimed on 12 March: “The sons of apes and pigs [the Jews],” were defeated because of their evil deeds, but today they are avenging their ancient forefathers and some of the extremists are even demanding their property in Medina.[25]

The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center in Herzaliya published in September a report exposing antisemitic manifestations in PA schools and on TV, pointing to themes such as rejection of Israel’s right to exist, encouraging jihad against the Jews and portraying them as snakes and octopuses strangling the Palestinians.[26] These messages were no different from the ideas appearing in the Hamas’ online children’s magazine al-Fatih (The Conqueror), also surveyed by the center, although Hamas tended more to glorify suicide attacks.[27]

Despite continued suicide bombings in Israel and against Israeli targets in the West Bank, there was growing criticism among Palestinians and discomfort regarding the ongoing intifada. This was demonstrated in public opinion polls and in the discussion following the suicide operation carried out on 14 January at the Erez crossing by Rim Salih al-Riyashi, a mother of two and the first female bomber sent by Hamas. Palestinian columnists not only criticized the dispatch of women to such missions, but questioned the advisability of such “pointless death.”[28] The assassination on 22 March of Shaykh Ahmad Yasin, founder and spiritual leader of Hamas, threatened to ignite further attacks and suicide bombings against Israel. Fugitive al-Qa`ida leader Usama bin Ladin and other Islamist scholars, such as Yusuf al-Qardhawi and the Muslim Brothers’ general guide Mahdi `Akif, called for revenge and for intensified jihad against Israel and the US.[29] The Israeli act was seen as “state terrorism,” “a barbaric, base, cruel” and unprecedented crime, which would exacerbate hatred and lead to a new wave of escalation and confrontation.[30]

`Abd al-`Aziz al-Rantisi, who succeeded Yasin as the movement’s leader in Gaza, and `Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, vowed to take revenge and declared an open war with “the Zionist Jews.” Shaykh Yasin’s assassination, al-Rantisi said, was “a cowardly crime,” and an attempt to assassinate the right of return of the Palestinian people. In his statement, published on the Hamas electronic site on 25 March, he used typical Islamic antisemitic motifs, referring to the Jews as “the killers of the prophets,” and “despicable monkeys,” who had further damaged their image and reputation by this act. He also blamed President Bush “the enemy of God, Islam and Muslims” for giving his blessing to the attack. Similar motifs appeared in Ibrahim Mudayris’ Friday sermon on 26 March, broadcast by PA TV.[31]

A month later, after the killing of al-Rantisi on 18 April, similar sentiments and threats were expressed across the Arab world and Hamas renewed its vow to wreak bloody havoc. Writing in the leftist daily al-Ahali, Egyptian journalist Ahmad `Abd al-Ghani branded Sharon a “Nazi war criminal” “who had launched a war of extermination against the Palestinian people,” while `Abd al-Wahhab `Adas in al-Jumhuriyya and others claimed that the assassination had not diminished Palestinian determination to resist the occupation. This time, however, the Arab voice was more muted, wrote Yasmine el-Rashidi in al-Ahram Weekly.[32]

The death of PA chairman Yasir Arafat after a sudden deterioration in his health on 11 November gave rise to another conspiracy theory. The inconclusive report on the cause of death led to speculations that he was poisoned by Israel, reinforcing rumors that had begun during his illness and the secrecy surrounding it. Hamas political leader Khalid Mash`al, who himself barely escaped a poisoning attempt by Israeli agents in 1997, as well as other Palestinian leaders, decisively blamed Israel: 80.3 percent of Palestinians interviewed for an opinion poll conducted on 19 November by the Center for Opinion Polls at al-Najah University in Nablus agreed. This conviction was shared by Arab commentators such as Ahmad Nawfal of the Jordanian Islamist weekly al-Sabil and Mahmud Bakri of the Egyptian opposition weekly al-Usbu`. Bakri claimed that while Israeli PM Sharon was declaring that Arafat would disappear from the Palestinian scene, Israel had injected biological and chemical substances into Arafat’s water and surroundings. It was not a conspiracy theory, maintained `Adli Sadiq in al-Hayat al-Jadida, but a “one hundred percent crime.”[33] Although it might be argued that this belief derived from political rather than antisemitic motives, the deep suspicions it revealed reflected a prevailing mindset among the Palestinians, despite repeated refutations by both Israel and Palestinian officials. Moreover, it provided an opportunity to attack Sharon and his “fascist government.”[34]

The Egyptian views 25 years after

the peace agreement with Israel

The Egyptian media continued to attack Israel and its policies, often in antisemitic terms. Stressing the ‘symbiotic’ relationship between the US and Israel in regard to developments in Palestine and Iraq, as well as the Zionist/Jewish influence in shaping the negative US attitude toward Arabs and Muslims, commentators looked for ‘the unseen hand’ behind these events in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and in the equation of Zionism with racism or Nazism and the employment of classical Jewish stereotypes.

Referring to the new Arabic translation of Pascal Bonifas’ book, Who Dares Criticize Israel?, Egyptian scholar al-Sayyid Yasin pointed to “secret censorship” in France and “secret plans” of the Zionist lobby in the US, meticulously carried out by the American administration.[35] According to Egyptian commentator Hazim al-Bablawi, common explanations for unconditional US support of Israel included the influence of the Jewish lobby and its control over political decision-making centers at all levels; Jewish control of the media and public opinion; Jewish interests in the banks and the financial world; and the strengthening of Christian fundamentalist currents in the US. Yet, above all, he maintained, there was the American people’s strong identification with Israel based on similarities in their history, pioneering experience, success and values.[36] Egyptian scholar Anwar `Abd al-Malik, attributed the source of Jewish power to the Jewish pattern of immigration to the US. Whereas other European immigrant communities, Italian, Polish, or Irish, had settled in particular centers and districts, he claimed, Jewish immigrants had spread throughout the country, first establishing networks of banks, finance, real estate, insurance and entertainment, and then infiltrating the press and the media.[37]

American contempt for Islamic symbols and for Muslims derived from Zionist teachings which originated in the Protocols, asserted al-Shafi`i Bashir in the Egyptian opposition paper al-Wafd. This text confirms that the Elders of Zion will “ride on the back of the strongest country in the world,” establish an international government and take control of the minds of its military generals, which indeed they have done.[38] In an article published by the pro-Islamist paper al-Sha`b and entitled “Corrupt Zionism and the Destruction of Human Values,” Nasir al-Fadhala wrote of “the invisible presence of Zionism, the enemy of mankind” in every corrupt act in the world, as instructed by the Protocols.[39]

In addition to countless caricatures depicting PM Sharon in Nazi uniform and relishing bloodshed, crucifying peace and admired by Hitler,[40] the equation of Zionist Jews with Nazis was repeated in numerous articles. In “Zionazism,” published in al-Ahram, `Abd al-Malik Khalil enumerated the similarities between Zionist and Nazi conduct, including concentration camps, the use of internationally banned weapons and means of torture; expansionism, violation of international agreements and arrogance, the notion of supremacy, spying and terror, false propaganda, and turning their countries into “closed, racist, isolated and hated” states.[41]

Intensified clashes between the Israeli army and militant Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip, which culminated in IDF incursions into Rafah and in the assassination of Hamas leaders Yasin and Ranitisi, not only further inflamed anti-Israel sentiments and caused the suspension of an Egyptian delegation’s visit to Israel for the commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty in 26 March 1979,[42] but gave rise to classical antisemitic motifs. Khalid Amayreh created a link between the military operation and the celebration of Purim in the same week. “The Israeli army,” he contended, “saw to it that the Purim rituals were re-enacted more authentically and that as much ‘enemy blood’ as international public opinion would allow was shed.”[43]

Especially venomous were articles published by Islamist writers, such as columnist Husam Wahba who, in the Egyptian religious weekly `Aqidati, depicted the Jews as bloodsuckers, and as violent and full of hatred toward non-Jews, pointing to the Talmud and the Ten Commandments as the source of Jewish racism. Even the word ‘Jew’ in English denotes “trickery, deceit…cunning and slyness, he concluded.”[44] In an online chat room, former head of al-Azhar Fatwa Committee Shaykh `Atiyya Saqr explained that according to the Qur’an, their evil traits outweighed their good ones. Among the former, he mentioned: distorting divine revelation; rebelling against the Prophets; deceit; hypocrisy; arrogance; and blood shedding.[45] Elaborating on Qur’anic verses, columnist Kamal `Abd al-Ra’uf foresaw the Muslims’ extermination of the Jews. Contrary to the commonly held perception, the idea of a Jewish homeland, as formulated in the Balfour Declaration, only served the Islamic cause, he continued, because by gathering the Jews in Israel it facilitated their extermination.[46] The notion that Israel has no right to exist was also explicitly expressed in interviews by the new general guide of the Egyptian Muslim Brothers Shaykh Muhammad Mahdi `Uthman `Akif. However, he stressed that a distinction should be made between Jews and Zionists.[47]

A similar view was pronounced by Egyptian Islamist expert on Judaism and Zionism `Abd al-Wahhab al-Masiri, who criticized the tendency to explain Zionist behavior by alluding to the Torah, the Talmud and the Protocols. Zionism and Israel were not “Jewish phenomena,” he maintained. “They are two western colonial phenomena which use Jewish styles.” It was in the Arab interest to protect the rights of Jewish communities worldwide, he opined, since Zionism and antisemitism were two sides of the same coin. Neither considered the Jews as part of the homeland in which they lived and sought to get them out, but while antisemites did not care where they went to, Zionists strove to bring them to Palestine.[48]

The annual Cairo Book Fair in January and the Arab publishers' display at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October exhibited books containing antisemitic, Holocaust denial and conspiracy theory texts. Whereas the Cairo Fair drew only the attention of the ADL, which surveyed some of the books in its Arab Media Review, the display of a dozen books with “strong anti-Zionist themes” at the Frankfurt Book Fair and the appearance of Egyptian editor of the French al-Ahram hebdo, Muhammad Salmawi, to present Nobel laureate Najib Mahfuz’s address, drew strong criticism from Jewish organizations such the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the International Jewish Rights Organization, inter alia, because Salmawi had supported Holocaust deniers Roger Garaudy and David Irving. The Wiesenthal Center representative submitted a complaint to the Frankfurt prosecutor’s office concerning 13 books which reportedly contained negative depictions of the Jews according to the Qur’an or alluded to Jewish involvement in conspiracies. The complaint was rejected on the grounds of that the evidence was insufficient to determine whether the books in question violated German laws which prohibit publications denying the Holocaust or inciting hatred or crime. Representatives of the Arab delegation refuted the center’s criticism, denying that they promoted anti-Jewish views and claiming that while some books contained anti-Zionist arguments, they were not racist.[49]

Saudi Arabia on the defensive

Saudi attitudes toward Zionists and Jews were highlighted following two incidents: the launching of the Saudi Tourist Commission website at the beginning of March; and the terrorist attack on the port city of Yanbu` on 1 May. Among those prohibited from entering the kingdom the website listed the “Jewish people,” as well as Israeli passport holders and “those who do not abide by the Saudi tradition” or are under “the influence of alcohol.” A few days later, reference to the Jews was removed after strong American criticism embarrassed Saudi ambassador to the US Prince Bandar bin Sultan. However, the ambassador’s father, who serves as the secretary general of the Tourism Commission, accused the American press of seeking to portray the kingdom as antisemitic in order to tarnish its image.[50]

After the terrorist attack in May, Crown Prince `Abdallah bin `Abd al-`Aziz claimed that the Zionists were responsible, and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Sa`ud al-Faysal explained that “extremist Zionist elements” were engaged in a vulgar smear campaign against the kingdom. Saudi ambassador to the UK Prince Turki al-Faysal also asserted that the Zionists were behind the al-Qa`ida attacks on his country. Saudi Arabia, he claimed, had been “the butt of attacks by Zionists” for the past fifty years and particularly since 11 September 2001.[51]

On 1 May the Saudi armed forces journal al-Jundi [soldier] al-Muslim published an article on the Jews in the modern era in its “Know your Enemy” section. Combining classical and Islamic antisemitic motifs, it accused the Jews of fabricating the Torah, acting according to the Talmud and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, instigating revolutions and wars, aspiring to control the world, spreading corruption and annihilating all non-Jews.[52] Steven Stalinsky, executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute, asserted that “leading members of the Saudi royal family have been at the forefront of espousing an extreme position of hatred toward Jews, influencing the Kingdom’s educational system, press, mosques, and its foreign and domestic policy.” In response, Princess Fahda bint Sa`ud claimed the alleged references had been taken out of context. The people of Saudi Arabia, represented by their leaders, she said, were anti-Zionists but not antisemites. Quoting Jewish anti-Zionist author Alfred Lilienthal, who maintained that Arabs constituted the overwhelming majority of Semites, she concluded that “Saudi kings can hardly be anti-Semites. They can’t be against themselves and their [own] people.”[53]

Recurring terrorist attacks in the country coupled with American criticism led to growing realization that the Saudi educational curriculum was a breeding ground for extremism. Khalid Batarfi, managing editor of the daily al-Madina, even published an article criticizing Muslims who misrepresented Qur’anic verses in order to justify hatred of Christians and Jews. The Qur’an does not condemn all Christians and Jews, he wrote, but in their attempts “to serve their own interests and support predetermined convictions,” those sophists looked for laws and precedents reinforcing their cases while ignoring those that contradicted them.[54]

Reactions to International Efforts to Combat Antisemitism

The discussion of antisemitism which began in 2003 in the wake of the situation in Europe, continued to dominate Arab public discourse in early 2004 (see ASW 2003/4). The inclusion of anti-Zionism and denial of Israel’s right to exist in the definition of the ‘new antisemitism’ (see article “Defining Antisemitism”) drew harsh Arab criticism. Antisemitism was a term “far too widely used and abused by Israelis and Jews alike to answer any accusations of Palestinian maltreatment and charges of anti-Arab American policy,” claimed journalist Alasdair Soussi.[55] The American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee contested the definition of antisemitism in the unabridged version of Webster’s Third New International Dictionary: “… opposition to Zionism: sympathy with opponents of the State of Israel,”[56] whereas Joseph Massad, a Palestinian professor of modern Arab politics and intellectual history at Columbia University, argued that the term was “anachronistic and ahistorical.” He contended that the main victims of antisemitism today were Arabs and Muslims. “It is not Jews who are being murdered by the thousands by Arab antisemitism,” he wrote, “but rather Arabs and Muslims who are being murdered in the tens of thousands by Euro-American Christian antisemitism and by Israeli Jewish anti-Semitism.”[57]

While many writers did not deny the existence of hatred toward Jews or Israel in Europe or in the Arab world, they insisted that it did not derive from antisemitism but from the “war of extermination” against the Palestinians carried out by Sharon and his government and seen nightly on television screens. Zionism and the Jews whose racist beliefs about their racial supremacy guided Israel’s policies of oppression and destruction antagonized the world. Hence, the accusation of antisemitism had become a “sword” threatening whosoever criticized “aggressive racist Israeli policies.”[58]

There were similar reactions to the international conference on antisemitism held in Berlin in April under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), as well as to other international and state efforts to combat antisemitism. The OSCE conference was described by Palestinians as a “red herring” and a “sly distraction” aimed at diverting attention away from Israeli behavior. In an interview to al-Jazira, Palestinian author Mahmud Namura asked which crime was more serious: “desecration of a Jewish grave in some French town, or destroying an entire neighborhood in Rafah? Scrawling a swastika on the wall of a Jewish synagogue in Italy or turning Palestinian towns and villages into virtual concentration camps?” Comparing Jews with Nazis, he claimed, was not a “sweeping condemnation of Jews, but rather rejection of evil actions, behavior and dogmas.”[59] This kind of conference, contended Jordanian scholar George Haddad, was taking place in accordance with a plan devised by “international Zionism” in the wake of the European opinion poll which revealed that Israel and the US were considered the states most threatening to world stability and peace. “It aims at fighting by law and punishment whoever criticizes or denounces an Israeli crime or a Jewish movement,” he said.[60] It would have been more appropriate, asserted an Egyptian journalist in Berlin, if the conference had dealt with negative attitudes toward the Arab and Muslim communities in Europe or at least with Israeli violations against the Palestinian people.[61] The Jewish sense of victimhood was “a political game” for exploiting others and deepening the sense of guilt in the West, which was responsible for past persecution of the Jews, argued Egyptian commentator Rajab al-Bana.[62]

Columnist Jihad al-Khazin considered that the new antisemitism was not comparable to that of the 1930s. Traditional antisemitism, which led to the Holocaust, was state directed whereas the new antisemitism was expressed by individuals, mainly from the margins of society. It should be denounced, he declared, but not used as an excuse for Israeli crimes.[63] Conferences and decisions would not eliminate antisemitism; the only way was to deal with its causes, which were embedded in Israeli policies.[64]

In July Arab states opposed efforts to introduce a General Assembly resolution condemning antisemitism. ADL director Abraham Foxman stressed that this stand, which went beyond habitual anti-Israelism, demonstrated that antisemitism had become part of mainstream Arab society. A few months later, in November, Egypt succeeded in convincing the OSCE at its 10th Mediterranean seminar, which took place at Sharm al-Shaykh, to expand its focus to include monitoring of Islamophobia as well as antisemitism.[65]

The US enactment into law of the Global Antisemitism Review Act in October 2004 renewed discussion over the issue. Arab writers and commentators reiterated that the Jews who had taken over the legislative and executive authorities in the US had promoted the act in order to prevent criticism of Israel. The law was also perceived as an attempt by Republicans to curry favor with traditionally pro-Democratic US voters.

According to the act, the US committed itself to “support[ing] efforts to combat antisemitism worldwide through bilateral relationships and interaction with international organizations such as the OSCE, the European Union, and the United Nations.” Moreover, a special section on acts of antisemitism and antisemitic incitement worldwide was to be added to the annual reports on Human Rights and on International Religious Freedom. Principally, the Arab press argued that the law:

• interfered in the domestic affairs of states and violated freedom of expression;
• was hostile to Arabs and Muslims and ignored the fact that Arabs, who were also Semites, were victims of discrimination and persecution;
• was a form of ‘intellectual terrorism’ through which the US was trying to impost its hegemony and values on the world;
• was a political and not a humanitarian act, which blurred the line between Judaism and Zionism in order to protect Israel from legitimate criticism and provided it with a license to continue its terrorist policies against the Arabs. Moreover, it allowed the Israeli security apparatus to instigate acts of antisemitism in countries with Jewish communities, such as France, in order to force immigration to Israel.

Some writers conceded that antisemitism was a deplorable phenomenon, but considered that Arabs too were its victims because they were paying the price for antisemitic crimes perpetrated in Europe. Arab countries were called upon to unite against the law and publicly reject it. It should be noted that the American law on religious freedom was also seen as directed against Arabs and Muslims. Critics warned that it would polarize the globe into the Muslim world, Europe, Latin America and China, which allegedly perpetrated antisemitism, and Israel and the US which opposed it. This situation would cause an escalation of hatred toward the latter two countries.[66]

While voices expressing support for the law were rare, not surprisingly one of these was `Abd al-Rahman Rashid, director general of al-`Arabiya satellite TV and former editor of the London-based al-Sharq al-Awsat. Rashid has persistently pursued an anti-fascist line, warning the Arabs against aligning with antisemites and Holocaust deniers. The act should be understood for what it was, he explained, a law for monitoring antisemitism, and instead of condemning it, Arabs should encourage it and seek to expand it to include incitement to racism against Muslims, blacks and other minorities. “We must not confuse Israel with Judaism, or extremist nationalist Zionist thought with the Jewish religion,” he continued, lest it be considered blatant racism, “no different than the racism of those hostile to Arabs and Muslims.”[67] Former Middle East correspondent for the New York Times Youssef Ibrahim welcomed the act in view of continued antisemitic abuses. However, he also criticized it for being shortsighted and incomplete. “Why stop at Jews?” he asked, referring to Colin Powell’s alleged objection to the law for giving preferential treatment to Jews over other religious or ethnic groups in human rights reporting. Limiting the concept of anti-bigotry to the Jewish people marks “a further descent toward a bizarre sort of ‘amorality’,” which went beyond the pro-Jewish and pro-Israeli bias of the American Congress, he claimed. Protecting Jews should be the first step to protecting everyone.[68]

France was criticized for a report published in mid-October calling to adopt a law defining anti-Zionist expressions as antisemitism and for the Council of State’s decision on 13 December to ban the television channel al-Manar, the official mouthpiece of Hizballah, for violating the country’s hate laws and broadcasting antisemitic statements. In 2003, the channel provoked intense criticism when it aired the Syrian-produced series al-Shatat (The Diaspora) which invoked the blood libel and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The French court had taken issue with programs shown in November which accused Jews of spreading AIDS. A week later the US followed suit and added al-Manar to the Terrorism Exclusion List. These steps were seen as a manipulation of the Jewish lobby in France and the US, and as political terrorism and violation of freedom of thought and expression, aimed at giving immunity to “the Zionist entity” and covering up its aggression and “war of extermination” against the Palestinian people.[69] Support for the Arab stand was lent by French Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson, who told Iran’s Mehr News Agency on 18 December that Jewish influence in France was even stronger than in the US and that nobody dared to speak out against the Jews because of their “alleged Holocaust.”[70]

References to the Holocaust in the Arab Discourse

The debate on antisemitism prompted some Arab writers to re-introduce motifs characterizing the Arab discourse on the Holocaust, such as alleged Zionist exploitation of the Holocaust; denial; and equation of the Palestinian tragedy with the Holocaust and Zionism with Nazism. Palestinian writer and historian `Arif al-`Arif pointed out in the English-language daily Syria Times that Israel and its supporters were “highly experienced in marketing Zionist casualties and in posing before the world as victims.” They relied on an “extremely sophisticated propaganda machine… the product of more than sixty years of holocaust-related [sic] campaigns aimed at making non-Jews pay Zionism and Israel for what Hitler did to his Jewish as well as non-Jewish victims in Europe.” He added that “a country which continually uses, and all to often manipulates, Holocaust imagery to justify its policies of self-defense and ‘never again’, cannot complain when the rest of the world uses those same standards to make judgments concerning those policies.”[71]

The Jews, wrote George Haddad in the above mentioned article on the Zionist exploitation of antisemitism, have succeeded in more than one European country to establish that querying the “Holocaust deceit” is a convictable crime.[72] Egyptian columnist Salah Salim considered the Holocaust “a myth,” invented and inflated by Zionists. Although he conceded that historical research had proved its occurrence, three issues were still being contested: the number of victims, their national and religious identity, and the means of extermination. However, he claimed, western culture was so dogmatic in relation to the “Holocaust myth” that it violated freedom of research and forbid questioning it.[73]

“Israel, which is creating a worldwide hue and cry about the so-called Holocaust that the Nazis perpetrated in the past,” contended Jordanian commentator Mustafa Muhammad al-Far, “exempts itself from the Palestinian holocaust which it has been carrying out since 1948.”[74] All the acts perpetrated against the Palestinian people, explained `Ali `Abbud Ma`di in the Saudi daily al-Riyadh, confirm that Zionism and Nazism are similar ideologies based on legends and racist claims, such as racial superiority and purity of blood and land.[75]

Commemoration of Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January in Europe elicited analogous Arab reactions. According to `Abd al-Wahhab Badrakhan, Lebanese editor of al-Hayat, the Jews were continuing to exploit European feelings of guilt in order to mobilize support and mute criticism of Israel’s policies. It was an occasion for Jewish writers to settle scores with revisionists and brand as antisemitic any description of a Jew as a Nazi. The Jews, he maintained, prefer “the Holocaust affair” to remain between them and the West, despite its human and universal aspects, and reject Arab and Muslim participation in shouldering this human responsibility; yet they continue to persecute the Palestinians, ignoring the lessons which should have been learned from the Holocaust.[76]

A two-part article by the head of the Jaffa Research Center in Egypt, Rif`at Sayyid Ahmad, on “the lie about the burning of the Jews” published in the weekly al-Liwa’ al-Islami on 24 June and 1 July, stirred up particular outrage and protest by Jewish organizations. Ahmad made all the allegations mentioned above and attacked European countries which participated in the April Berlin conference on combating antisemitism for evading basic questions, such as whether the Holocaust really happened and the truth about the numbers of victims? Moreover, he asked, how could they compromise their integrity and their alleged defense of human rights while ignoring “the new Nazism” embodied in Israel’s attitude toward the Palestinians. Ahmad introduced so-called evidence produced by Holocaust deniers Paul Rassinier, Arthur Butz and Roger Garaudy, which the West had refuted because it considered the Holocaust and “its lie” above criticism. Following US pressure on Egypt, the minister of information apologized, the weekly’s editor-in-chief was dismissed and the author banned from writing in it. The paper also published an apology, stating that the article expressed only the author’s opinions and did not stem from Islamic values. However, in a discussion on Egyptian television on 28 August, Ahmad repeated his claims, insisting that they lay in European and scientific sources. He was backed by the former editor of the paper, Muhammad al-Zarqani, who revealed that since their childhood, he and his generation had been taught that that the Holocaust was “a big lie.”[77]

In the same vein, a book on “Zionism and Nazism and the issue of peaceful co-existence with the other” was published in Jordan by Nadia Sa`d al-Din, based on an MA dissertation submitted to the Department of Political Science at Aal Bayt University. The author traced supposed ideological and operational similarities between the two movements.[78]

The Holocaust was also invoked in the discussion of Mel Gibson’s film The Passion, which was a hit in Arab countries. Jews and Israelis persisted in holding both past and present generations of the German people responsible for the Holocaust, wrote `Abduh Mubashar in al-Ahram, yet this reasoning did not apply to the Jews themselves, who rejected responsibility for the killing of Jesus by their forefathers and exerted pressure on the Vatican until it exonerated them in 1965. Why then did they insist on making the new German generations accountable for the Holocaust, he asked.[79] Rejecting the claim of antisemitism made by Jewish organizations and Holocaust survivors, Arab commentators emphasized the film’s importance as a victory over Jewish control of Hollywood’s movie industry and the similarities between Jewish behavior then and its conduct now, represented by the ongoing ‘crucifixion’ of the Palestinian people.[80] Likewise, Egyptian writer `Adil Hammuda in al-Ahram and `Aysha Sultan in the UAEs’ daily al-Bayan considered the film a challenge to the political, financial and media power of the Jews and the Jewish lobby,[81] while `Abd al-Wahhab al-Masiri noted that “some Arab members of the audience compare Christ’s suffering in the film with that of the Palestinians now.”

Jordanian journalist Rakan al-Majali argued that the film “violated the taboos imposed by Jewish intellectual terrorism, which sanctified all Jewish beliefs, acts and crimes and naturally failed to mention not only the crucifixion of Jesus but the crucifixion of the world, above all the Christian world and specifically the US by the Jews.”[82] Lebanese journalist Salim Nassar added that Arab viewers deduced from the film that awareness of the “Palestinian holocaust” should be increased, while PA chairman Yasir Arafat reportedly saw the crucifixion of the Palestinians as a re-enactment of the crucifixion of Christ, and others recalled ‘Sharon’s crimes’ and the Jews’ alleged callousness toward the memory of others.[83]

Although the film contradicts the Islamic account of Jesus’ death and Islamic jurisprudence prohibits personification of the prophets, it was not criticized on these grounds. Islamist scholar Yusuf al-Qardhawi provided Muslim viewers with an excuse by claiming that it was not a Muslim production and that even if the Jews did not actually kill him they did so by intent and killed other prophets.[84] However, a few writers pointed to the vindictive message of the film. From a historical and artistic point of view, wrote Egyptian columnist and scholar `Abd al-Mun`im Sa`id, it is a pleasure but from an intellectual, political and social point of view it distorted the prophet’s message which was based on compassion and clemency. The film is not a message of peace, stated Dalal al-Bizri in al-Hayat, who compared the warm reception of the film to that given by the Arab public to Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy – both deriving from the evil presentation of the Jews by a western ‘authority’.[85]

Conclusion

Despite apparent concurrence with denial of the Holocaust by the public at large, a few voices criticized both denial and its comparison with the Palestinian tragedy. Arabs who question the Holocaust, asserted Joseph Massad, “accept the Zionist logic as correct.” “The attempt by Holocaust deniers to play down the number of Holocaust victims is obscene,” but “it is hardly different from Zionist Jewish denial of the Palestinian nakba…While the nakba and the Holocaust are not equivalent in any sense, the logic of denying them is indeed the same.” Those who deny the Holocaust, he stressed, have no position within the PLO or any legitimacy among the Palestinian intelligentsia.[86] Some Arab intellectuals have begun to acknowledge the Holocaust and sympathize with the Jewish people, wrote Hashim Salih in al-Sharq al-Awsat. This does not mean surrender to Zionist ideology or Israeli propaganda but “admitting the truth … and condemning organized crime against humanity whenever and wherever it takes place.”[87]

The discourse on the Holocaust in the Arab world is still weak and apprehensive, claimed Muhammad Haddad. The Arab intellectual is either silent or fails to distinguish between the Holocaust and the Palestinian issue, resorting to denial, antisemitism and the myth of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which do not serve Arab interests. It was about time, concluded Haddad, that Arab intellectuals adopted a clear view, namely: the Holocaust was a historical fact and not an invention; neither the Arabs nor the Palestinians took part in it, and Arab sympathy with Hitler during World War II had nothing to do with the Holocaust; the West has no intention of renewing persecution of the Jews and encouraging antisemitism in its midst. At the same time, it sought to atone for its guilt about the Palestinians by finding a just solution to their problem.[88]

Antisemitic manifestations in the Arab discourse and antisemitic acts perpetrated by Muslims in France were also denounced by journalists and writers, although they were sometimes considered a corollary of a critical attitude toward Islamism and its destructive messages. “Zionism and imperialism have nothing to do with our culture of violence,” claimed former Kuwaiti Communications Minister Sa`d al-Din bin Tifla. “Slaughter, destructive abuse, anarchy and bloodshed” in no way resembled jihad in Islamic jurisprudence.[89] Former dean of the Faculty of Islamic Law at the University of Qatar `Abd al-Hamid al-Ansari supported this view in an article published in al-Sharq al-Awsat. Yet he blamed Islamic scriptures and tradition for shaping the way Arabs perceived the world around them, including the belief in conspiracy theories and the role of the Jews behind every disaster befalling them.[90]

Arab intellectuals in France signed a petition in April denouncing antisemitism and other forms of racism and discrimination in the name of Islam and called for a separation between racism and political conflict. The petition pointed to the link between the crisis of modernity and Islamization among some Muslim youngsters and a negative attitude toward the Jews, stressing that this tendency did not represent the silent majority of diaspora Arabs.[91] Racism, explained journalist Firas Zibib, had become the identity of those who had lost theirs in the country of migration. It was a way to integrate into a world which was not theirs and “a fashion” to express disagreement, “like a third world war started in the streets of Paris, New York and occupied Palestine.”[92] In October another petition was submitted to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan by over 2,500 Muslim intellectuals from 23 countries, calling for an international treaty to ban the use of religion in incitement to violence and asking the Security Council to set up a tribunal to try “the theologians of terror,” such as Shaykh Yusuf al-Qardhawi. Among the signatories were former Iraqi Minister of Planning Jawwad Hashim, Tunisian writer `Afif al-Akhdar and Jordanian academic Shakir al-Nabulsi.[93]

Lebanese columnists Joseph Samaha and Jihad al-Khazin, and Egyptian liberal scholar and activist Sa`d al-Din Ibrahim, writer `Ali Salim and academic scholar in Leipzig `Umar Kamil were among those who criticized antisemitic manifestations in the Arab discourse, including Holocaust denial. These were detrimental to the Arabs’ demand for their legitimate rights and in their relations with the world, and could not be justified despite Israel’s deplorable ‘crimes’ against the Palestinians. While Kamil called upon Arab intellectuals to liberate themselves from this futile approach and devise a new one more agreeable to ‘the other’, Salim urged the Arab League to play a role in changing Arab attitudes to the Arab-Israeli conflict and to peace in the Middle East.[94]