ARAB COUNTRIES 2007

After a year spent in Syria, from July 2006 to August 2007, journalist David McAvoy reported in "Letter from …Damascus" that when he first arrived many people told him that they were against Zionists not Jews. Yet, "the extent and ferocity of the antisemitism hits you like a slap in the face." He noticed that all the classics, from Mein Kampf to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, could be found in any Damascus bookshop, and that it was common knowledge that the Jews were behind the 9/11 attacks and controlled the mass media, international banking, the UN, and Washington. Moreover, the Holocaust had never happened, or if it did, the Jews had orchestrated it in order to exploit public sympathy for their "entity" in Palestine.[1]

McAvoy's report was not exceptional. Ph.D. candidate at Georgetown University Chris McClure found abundant copies of Mein Kampf on sale in well-known Cairo bookstores as well as at street stands. Egyptian journalist Salwa Muhammad admitted that it was normal to see Mein Kampf on sale, "but it is not as popular as one might imagine." She claimed that many read it out of curiosity, others out of admiration for Hitler's accomplishments in uniting a people and his strength as a leader. The book is reportedly obtainable in the Palestinian Authority (PA), as well as in Jordan.[2]

The split in the Arab world between moderate and radical states in relation to the conflict with Israel, as well as the schism in Palestinian society, dominated the Middle East scene in 2007. The radical or resistance camp promoted a boycott of Israel. They held a four-day conference in Damascus at the end of April, and the Islamist movements continued to take the lead in the struggle against "American hegemony and Israeli aggression."[3] Yet, the antisemitic discourse was not confined to the radical camp. Although the year witnessed a decline in expressions of blatant antisemitism in the Arab media, following a peak of antisemitic manifestations in 2006 in the wake of the Second Lebanon War, antisemitic themes continued to be part of the Arab public agenda, consolidating the negative image of the Jew and its usage as a metaphor for absolute evil. Most conspicuous was Fatah’s equation of Hamas with the Jews (see below). Similarly, Syrian papers, reflecting the government's conflict with moderate Arab states, described Lebanese who reject the policy of resistance and Syria's interference in Lebanon's affairs as "Judas Iscariot," and "Jews [from] within," who wanted to crucify Lebanon and Arab identity in order to serve the old-new American-Zionist order in the region.[4] Jews were even implicated in the rift between Sunnis and Shi‘is. Sunni writers such as Jala' Jaballah in the Egyptian daily al-Jumhuriyya and Wasam Sa‘ada in the Lebanese daily al-Safir accused the Shi‘is of historical cooperation with the Jews against the Sunnis and of a joint Persian-Jewish plot against the Arab nation.[5] Syrian historian Mahmud al-Sayyid al-Dughaym even considered, in an interview to al-Jazira, that Iranian aspirations to regional hegemony were more dangerous to the Arab nation than the Zionist plot.[6]

            A poll conducted for Terror Free Tomorrow (a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization in Washington, DC) among a random sample of 1,004 Saudis and released in December found that 81.7 percent of the respondents held a "very unfavorable" opinion of Jews (2.1 percent "very favorable"; 3.9 percent "somewhat favorable"; 7 percent "somewhat unfavorable"; 4.1 percent refused to answer and 1.1 percent "did not know"). As for attitudes toward Israel, 51.3 percent supported continuing the Arab struggle until "there is no State of Israel."[7]

Themes such as Jewish plotting to dominate the world, Jewish incitement against Muslims, demonization of Israel and Zionism, and the Jews as Nazis, as well as trivialization or denial of the Holocaust, appeared frequently in articles, caricatures, television programs and religious sermons.[8] As in previous years, antisemitic manifestations were closely related to international and Middle East events, and especially developments in the Israeli-Palestinian arena. Israel was perceived as conspiring with the US to impose a new order in the region and as the major instigator of islamophobia and the global war against Islam. Consequently, commentators continued to argue that the 9/11 attacks and the assassination of Lebanese PM Rafiq al-Hariri were perpetrated by Mossad agents or their proxies for Israel's benefit, and to implicate Israel in all the problems of the Middle East and the Muslim world.[9]

The Jews' aspirations in the region and their plans to control the Arab world were still valid, despite the Arab peace initiatives and quest for normalization, claimed Salah al-Khalidi in the Jordanian Islamist weekly al-Sabil. Alleging "Jewish" economic penetration of the Arab world, he warned of secret Jewish files that revealed schemes to build settlements in Arab countries.[10] Evoking the European negative image of the Jewish usurer portrayed in The Merchant of Venice, Jordanian journalist Rakan al-Majali also referred to Israel's planned economic expansion under the umbrella of globalization, as part of its ambitious scheme to establish a "Greater Israel."[11] The Syrian daily al-Thawra recalled the false statement warning Americans of the Jewish threat attributed to the American statesman Benjamin Franklin, in order to claim that his prophecy had come true, and that one hundred years later the Jews indeed controlled American society through their secret government.[12]

Particularly in Syrian papers, Israel was accused of infiltrating Iraq. The biblical text testified to the Jews' aspirations in Iraq, claimed Taysir Shihab Hamza in al-Thawra, and the Talmudic texts confirmed their desire to destroy that country and massacre its people. In accordance with the old biblical dream to expand its borders to the "land of the Euphrates and the Tigris," he continued, the current Zionist infiltration was being carried out under the umbrella of the American occupation.[13] Writing on the occasion of the anniversary of the 1917 Balfour Declaration, on November 2, Jordanian columnist Muwaffaq Muhadin ascribed American support for Israel to the supply by the "elders of Zionism" of weapons of mass destruction for the war in Iraq. Muhadin detected a historical continuity, since the "elders of Zion" allegedly gained support for the Balfour Declaration and the establishment of the state of Israel in return for their contribution to the Allies’ victory in both WWI and WWII, providing Britain with poisonous gas during the first and the US with the atomic bomb in the second.[14]

Israeli/Jewish dabbling was also said to have extended to the Darfur crisis (see also ASW 2006). Sudanese president Omar Bashir declared in a conference held in Khartoum on November 13 that the unholy alliance between "the extreme Christian right and global Judaism" was inflaming the Darfur conflict. Earlier, in August, Sudanese Defense Minister ‘Abd al-Rahim Husayn accused Jewish organizations of fuelling the struggle, "making the largest amount of noise… and using the Holocaust in their campaigning."[15] Similar allegations were voiced by Arab columnists, who also resorted to conspiracy theories to prove alleged Zionist/ Jewish maneuvering in Darfur in coordination with the US. ‘Adil ‘Abd al-Rahman ‘Umar in, al-Dustur, claimed that the "Zionist lobby’s" meddling was part of a plot to divide the Sudan, whereas former al-Hayat editor Jihad al-Khazin claimed that the Israel lobby was exploiting the Darfur victims in order to divert the world's attention from crimes committed in Palestine and Iraq. Quoted by al-Ba‘th, Egyptian expert on international affairs and al-Ahram deputy editor Sa‘id al-Lawundi agreed that "Zionist Jews" had penetrated Darfur in order to destabilize Sudan and "spread their poison in the body of the umma."[16]

Another event that aroused suspicion, especially among Palestinian Islamists, as well as strong negative reactions in the media, was the peace conference held in Annapolis, Maryland, on November 27-28. Although most Arab states participated, it was perceived as "a total catastrophe for the Palestinians" and the Palestinian-Israeli “joint understanding” had failed to take any of the Palestinian demands into account.[17] This criticism, and particularly the Israeli conditioning of any agreement on its recognition as a Jewish state, expressed by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzippi Livni on the eve of the conference, was articulated in antisemitic terms in numerous commentaries and caricatures. In addition to attributing suspicious motives to Israel's participation in the conference, motifs of Jewish control of the US and the world and of conniving Jews featured in some of the caricatures. For example, the United Arab Emirates’ al-Bayan depicted a hairy, hooked-nose Jew using a missile to stamp the document with a peace dove, whereas the Qatari daily al-Sharq portrayed Olmert as a snake with an olive branch in its mouth wound around al-Aqsa mosque.[18] The deputy head of Hamas Political Bureau Musa Abu Marzuq called on the Palestinian public to withstand "the Annapolis conspiracy."[19] His view was shared by many commentators, who saw the Palestinian resistance as the only guarantee for obstructing official Arab acquiescence to and normalization with the Jewish state and for implementing the Palestinian refugees' right of return. The conference was "another step on the road in the attempt to uproot the Palestinian people" and sacrifice their basic rights, said Nasr Shimali in the Syrian daily Tishrin.[20]

            Recognition of Israel as a Jewish state was considered by Arab writers anathema to the Palestinian right of self determination. Jamal Juma‘, coordinator of the Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, explained that recognition "would legitimize the Zionist ideology of colonialism, racism and ethnic cleansing, and effectively exonerate Israel from the crimes of the nakba [Palestinian catastrophe]."[21] The demand to recognize the Jewishness of the state was ultimate proof of the Zionist movement's racism, and made it the successor of Nazism, wrote Badi‘ Abu ‘Ida in Jordan’s al-‘Arab al-Yawm. Contending that they were the people that had been most persecuted by the Nazis, the Jews had imposed sanctification of their "persecution," to the extent that its denial was punishable; yet this same people pursued German methods to the letter in the name of security and the Jewishness of the state, asserted Ibrahim Badran.[22] Syria’s ‘Umar Jaftali emphasized that "hatred of the other" was part of the Zionist mentality and recalled the 1975 UN resolution defining Zionism as a form of racism which he claimed was abolished due to American control of he UN since the early 1990s. Olmert's government, he maintained, had entered the second phase of the Zionist scheme when he began talking about the Jewishness of the state, which was aimed at putting an end to the remnants of Arab existence in Israel and particularly in Jerusalem, with the support of US President Bush in Annapolis.[23] Egyptian Jewish affairs expert ‘Abd al-Wahhab al-Masiri reportedly asserted in his book Zionism and the Spider Web, that Arab recognition of Israel as a Jewish state would turn deportation of the Palestinians and the occupation of their lands into an issue of national liberation, justifying continuation of the killings and expulsions as an act of defense.[24]

The most alarming event, perhaps , was the evacuation in January of 45 Jews from their homes in Sa‘da, north west Yemen, to San‘a, due to threats by a group of Shi‘i Islamist rebels, said to receive financial support from Iran. President ‘Ali ‘Abdallah Salih, who vowed to quell the rebellion, provided them with shelter and after a few weeks they returned to their homes.[25] In Annaba, a village in East Algeria, Bernard Haddad a native Algerian Jew visiting the country for the first time after leaving it in 1956, was devastated to discover that thousands of Jewish tombs had been destroyed and the cemetery turned into a drug dump.[26]

The Shaked Spirit and Egyptian Anti-Israel Rhetoric

Demonization and de-legitimization of Israel and the Jews continued unabated in Egypt during 2007. Calls to abrogate the peace treaty with Israel and expel the Israeli ambassador to Egypt were voiced on several occasions, particularly in response to events of the moment. Such was the case in February when Israel sought to conduct excavations at the Mugrabi Gate near al-Aqsa mosque (see below). Screening of the internationally acclaimed Israeli film The Band's Visit at the Cairo film festival in December was banned. Although a few contested the ban for artistic reasons, most Egyptians, echoing the sentiments of the festival's organizers, claimed that an "Israeli film had no place in Egypt due to the policies of the Jewish state."[27] Similarly, accusing it of continuously killing, liquidating and deporting innocent Palestinian civilians, Egyptian Mufti Nasr Farid reportedly ruled on October 26 that the implementation of economic, commercial and cultural ties with "the Hebrew state is not permitted by divine law."[28]

On October 20, the organizing Committee of the Cairo International Conference and Liberation Forum, an allegedly anti-war and social forum, issued a call for a conference in March 2008, as part of the "international campaign against Zionism and American occupation." Among the goals specified were: "absolute opposition to Zionism as a racist movement and an imperialist settler project while simultaneously rejecting antisemitism”; unconditional support for all forms of armed struggle and resistance to imperialism and Zionism; opposition to globalization policies; and establishment of a link between the struggle of Arab peoples for freedom and democracy and their struggle against imperialism and Zionism. The forum brought together strange bedfellows, including Islamist parties such as the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Wasat and al-‘Amal, on the one hand, and civil and human rights organizations, such as Kefaya, the popular movement for change, and the Center for Freedom of Thought and Expression, on the other.[29]

The annual international book fair in Cairo, held January 24-February 4, exhibited, alongside Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, numerous other antisemitic books that combine Islamic motifs with the Protocols and classical Christian antisemitism. Among those was The Attributes of the Jews according to the Torah and the Talmud (2003; al-Zahran – publisher of Islamic books), by al-Azhar scholar of comparative religion Ahmad Hijjazi al-Saqa. In 2003 Al-Saqa published a new edition of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Also displayed were The Jews and the New Crusaders: The Religious and Political Deceit (2005, dar al-Ibda‘ lil-Sahafa wal-Nashr wal-Tawzi‘), by Muhammad Yunis Hashim; and The Divine Vision and Its Contradiction. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the Qur'an (2006, Madbulli), by Baha' al-Amir.[30] A new edition of a popular Commentary on the Holy Qur'an for children by seven al-Azhar scholars, inciting against Jews and Christians, drew criticism from reformist Islamic scholar Jamal al-Bana, the younger brother of the founder of the Muslim Brothers movement in the late 1920s Hasan al-Bana, and journalist Asma' al-Nassar, who were appalled by the inculcation of religious extremism and hatred.[31]

Asked about the popularity of Mein Kampf, Egyptian journalist Salwa Muhammad, who described herself as "very liberal," denied that it had any connection to Hitler's torturing of the Jews, since Egyptians did not believe in the Holocaust. Many people were killed, tortured and assassinated during WWII, she said, and war crimes were committed, but “that is what happens in war.”[32]

Yet, the event that triggered the strongest Egyptian reaction was the Shaked Spirit – an Israeli documentary televised in the country in early March, claiming that Israeli Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer ordered the killing of 250 Egyptian PoWs during the June 1967 war. The denunciation of Israel in Egyptian and other Arab papers was accompanied by defamation of Israelis as racist war criminals, equation of their deeds with the Holocaust, and calls on the Egyptian government to sever relations with Israel and bring the perpetrators to trial in the International Court of Justice at the Hague. Editor of the Egyptian daily al-Akhbar Jalal Dawidar urged the Egyptian People’s Assembly, on March 6, to denounce the crimes and bring the Israelis responsible for "this massacre" to trial. A similar position was taken in several other editorials of this and other dailies. In two consecutive articles appearing in al-Akhbar, columnist Ibrahim Sa‘da used the Holocaust and its alleged instrumentalization by "international Zionism" to describe the extent of Israel's crime. Jews pursued war criminals from WWII, to extort compensation and to hound those who questioned the annihilation of six million Jews sixty years after the crime, he asserted, concluding that Egypt should continue to investigate the affair. According to Salama Ahmad Salama, in al-Ahram, Ben Eliezer's[33] crimes were no different than those of Himmler, “the Gestapo leader… who ordered the killing of POWs in the last days of war in order to destroy evidence that might incriminate him." “The history of the Arab-Israeli conflict is full of such atrocities, all the way from Deir Yassin to Jenin, Sabra and Shatila, and Qana," wrote Ibrahim Nafi‘, former editor of al-Ahram in al-Ahram Weekly, concluding that there was enough evidence to build a case and start legal action. Dina Ezzat reported in the same weekly that the non-government organization Arabs Against Discrimination (AAD), was already involved in compiling a file with considerable legal evidence for the Egyptian authorities.

Papers in other Arab countries joined the condemnation of Israel. Syrian columnist Hanan Hamad in Tishrin and Palestinian commentator Yihya Rabbah in PA's daily al-Hayat al-Jadida, for example, considered Israel’s deeds racist, part of a long series of crimes against Arabs, while the Saudi al-Watan reminded Israel and the international community that the same criteria should apply to Arabs and Israelis alike without accusing the Arabs of antisemitism.[34] 

In this context, cartoons increasingly became a means for expressing virulent antisemitic opinions. For example, the leftist Egyptian weekly al-Ahali published a cartoon depicting two hooked-nose Israeli soldiers wearing helmets with a Star of David and carrying a banner with a swastika. One of them said to the other, "We are not murderers, we are Nazis." Another al-Jumhuriyya showed Zionism as a fat soldier with blood dripping from his hands, raising a banner with a skull, a Star of David and a swastika, while Tishrin portrayed an Israeli soldier reading The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.[35]

It should be noted, on the other hand, that despite the hostile media attitude toward Israel, a poll among 400 young male and female students held by Ruz al-Yusuf weekly found that only 47 percent of respondents considered Israel Egypt's chief enemy, a surprisingly low figure which would have been inconceivable ten years previously.[36]

Continuous Palestinian Indoctrination against Israel and Jews

The Hamas takeover in Gaza in June 2007 after its victory in the legislative elections in January 2006 was an additional phase in the fragmentation of Palestinian society and in the schism between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Expressing his shame, journalist Mahmud al-Habbash wrote in al-Hayat al-Jadida that instead of concentrating their efforts against "the Israeli Dracula which enjoys sucking our blood," the Palestinian house was on fire, offering a great gift on a silver platter to the Zionist occupation. A caricature published in al-Akhbar depicted a hairy hooked-nose man in a tall hat smiling at two fighting figures and wondering who would end up being Cain and who Abel.[37] Israel was presented not only as the major beneficiary of the internecine war but as the party that instigated it. Syrian columnist Muhammad Khayr al-Jamali wrote in al-Thawra that the civil war in Palestine was part of a Zionist-American plot aimed at generating "creative chaos" and paving the way for the implementation of the new Middle East plan. Muhyi al-Din Titawi, in the Qatari daily al-Sharq, accused Fatah of acting in the service of the Crusader-Jewish War on Islam, whereas Ahmad Amurabi claimed in al-Watan that Hamas was merely defending itself against an Israeli-American front.

In contrast, Jordanian daily al-Ra’y columnist Fahd al-Fanik rejected the notion of a joint Israeli-American conspiracy against the Palestinian people in the. Criticizing both Hamas and Fatah, Palestinian academic Nadir Sa‘id condemned the culture of violence and "denial of the other" instilled in Palestinian children.[38] In response to accusations of collaboration with the Zionist regime, Fatah posted on the Palestine Press Agency site a ruling by Shaykh Shakir al-Hiran, sanctifying the killing of Hamas members. In justification, he used the Jews as a metaphor of evil, quoting Qur’anic verses reflecting prevalent antisemitic beliefs − sectarianism, hypocrisy, violation of agreements, greed and lying.[39]

Nevertheless, incitement and indoctrination against Israel and the Jews were clearly more pervasive in statements by Hamas officials as well as in the Hamas-controlled media, especially children programs. The Hamas Internet site Palestine-info, which appears in eight languages, posts propaganda encouraging terrorism and preaching hatred of Israel and the Jews. In May it disseminated antisemitic cartoons, taken mainly from the Iranian site Irancartoon.ir, in its Russian version. Themes included the equation of Jews with Nazis; representation of the Jews as bloodthirsty; Holocaust denial and minimization; and exploitation of the Holocaust to justify the Palestinian tragedy.[40] In an analysis of anti-Israel/antisemitic incitement published in May, the American-Israeli monitoring group Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) identified four guiding principles: Islamic supremacy over the world; the destruction of Israel; demonization and extermination of the Jews; and promoting terror, suicide attacks and violence.[41]

At a rally marking the movement's 20th anniversary held on December 14, Hamas legislator Mushir al-Masri reiterated the Hamas vow to continue jihad against Israel and never to recognize its right to exist. "Jews, we have already dug your graves,” he declared while Hamas supporters burned Israeli flags.[42] Author Kana‘an ‘Ubayd explained in an article  dealing with suicide operations published in the Hamas weekly al-Risala that Hamas was fulfilling the will of Allah because the extermination of Jews was Allah's will and was for the benefit of humanity.[43] The hadith referring to the rocks and the trees calling on the Muslim to come and kill the Jew hiding behind them was reiterated by Hamas spokesman Isma‘il Radwan on Palestinian TV.[44] Acting Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Hamas member Ahmad Bahr, was quoted as saying in a sermon on Sudanese television and on PA TV, that the Jews were “a cancerous lump” and citing the Qur’an, which defined them as the enemies of the Prophet, asked Allah to kill them until the very last Jew.[45]

Palestinian Islamist journalist Khaled Amayreh persistently branded Israel a "Nazi state par excellence,” and accused it of systematic persecution policies, de facto enslavement, land theft and cunning mendacity. Claiming that the Holocaust did not begin with Auschwitz but with the book Mein Kampf, racist laws and Kristallnacht, he believed humanity should pressure Israel before it "annihilate[ed] the Palestinians." In an article published in al-Ahram Weekly, he compared Israeli prisons to "concentration camps minus gas chambers," and Gaza to a large concentration camp, "very much like Auschwitz." Israel, Amayreh concluded, did not want to take sole responsibility for exterminating the people of Gaza, hence it exerted pressure on Egypt to seal its border with Gaza, "so that the concentration camp can be perfected."[46]

Messages inculcating hatred of Israel, Jews and Zionists and glorifying resistance and martyrdom were also conveyed in children’s TV programs.[47] In April, Hamas al-Aqsa satellite TV in Gaza aired the program "Tomorrow’s Pioneers," in which a Mickey Mouse character, Farfur, encouraged the annihilation of the Jews in a conversation with a little girl. When the host asks the girl, "What will you do for the sake of the al-Aqsa Mosque?" she replies that she will become a martyr, "defending al-Aqsa with our souls and our blood." The reports triggered a massive international media campaign against Palestinian use of the American icon, and Palestinian Information Minister Mustafa al-Barghuti, instructed Hamas TV to shelve the show. Farfur was indeed removed from the program but was converted, on June 29, into a shahid (martyr), and replaced by a bee named Nahul, who presented itself as Farfur’s cousin and vowed to continue in his path of Islam, heroism, martyrdom and jihad. In the name of Farfur, he says, “we shall take revenge on the enemies of Allah, the murderers of the prophets, the murderers of innocent children, until al-Aqsa is liberated from their filth.”[48]

On another program screened on Hamas Al-Aqsa TV, children declared that the Zionist entity was "the enemy of Allah and the enemy of Islam,” that it knew nothing “but injustice and killing Palestinians," and that they would wipe out the people of Zion, and not leave a single one.[49]

In addition, Palestinian caricaturist and Hamas sympathizer Umayya Juha, whose cartoons appear in al-Hayat al-Jadida, portrays Israel and its leaders as bloodthirsty and rejects any kind of normalization with the Jewish state or a two state solution. Her signature consists of an old key, one of the Nakba symbols, representing the right of return of the Palestinians.[50] According the PMW, PA schoolbooks and media organizations continue to promote hatred of Israel through denial of its right to exist. In a report on new 12th grade textbooks released at the end of 2006 in the PA, the PMW found that they included Holocaust denial in the form of omission of the persecution and murder of the Jews in chapters dealing with the events of WWII, and references to "Zionist gangs" who conquered Palestine and established the State of Israel. Moreover, the fact that Israel does not appear on maps indicates that there is no recognition of Israel’s right to exist. The textbooks, he said, encouraged students to see Israel, the US and the West as enemies, and portray the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as an existential religious struggle. The report was presented to the Knesset Education Committee and to the American Senate. Knesset Education Committee Chairman Michael Melchior called on the Israeli government "to place sanctions on" the PA and pressure international donors to suspend aid as long as such incitement continued. Senator Hilary Clinton convened a press conference on February 8 to deplore the indoctrination of children to hatred.[51]

In February Israel's plan to construct a ramp at the Maghrebi Gate in the old city of Jerusalem, triggered a vociferous reaction among Palestinians and Arabs, who accused Israel of attempting to destroy the nearby al-Aqsa Mosque and build the Third Temple in its place. Palestinians clashed with Israeli forces and angry demonstrations erupted in the PA. Khalid Mash‘al, head of Hamas political bureau, Prime Minister Isma‘il Haniyya and other Hamas officials warned that the "Israeli occupation" was plotting another crime against Jerusalem and the mosque, and urged Palestinians to abandon their internal quarrels, close ranks and turn against Israel. Palestinian president Abu Mazin, who was visiting Saudi Arabia, was also quoted as saying that Israel's actions were premeditated, aimed at the destruction of Islamic places, and constituted an obstacle to peace.[52] Senior Palestinian cleric Taysir al-Tamimi, in an interview to al-Jazira, appealed to Palestinians to protect al-Aqsa from the bulldozers of the Israeli occupation and to all Muslims to rise in its defense. The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the armed wing of Fatah, threatened on February 7 to attack synagogues if work on the site continued. Jordan’s King ‘Abdallah, Morocco's King Muhammad VI and Egypt’s foreign minister also warned that the excavations posed a threat to regional security. MP Muhammad al-Katatni, a member of President Mubarak’s National Democratic Party (NDP), warned that nothing would work with Israel except for a nuclear bomb "that wipes it out of existence."[53]

Particularly vocal was Shaykh Ra’id Salah, head of the northern faction of the radical Islam movement in Israel, who led a campaign to raise Muslim awareness to "the danger facing al-Aqsa Mosque." In a Friday sermon delivered at Wadi Joz, an East Jerusalem neighborhood, attended by thousands of Palestinians who were forbidden from entering the al-Aqsa premises for security reasons, he called upon them to launch a new intifada and for all Arabs and Muslims to rise against Israel in support of al-Aqsa and Jerusalem. Alluding to the medieval blood libel against the Jews, he declared: "We did not allow ourselves to eat bread soaked with children's blood," sending those who did not understand what he meant to inquire what happened to children in Medieval Europe. On February 22, the Israeli prosecutor’s office called for a police investigation of Salah for alleged provocation to violence, racism and rebellion, while Likud Knesset member Israel Katz submitted a draft law to ban Salah's movement. In August the prosecutor’s office issued a writ against Salah for incitement to violence and racism.[54]

Cartoons were a popular tool of expression in this affair, too. In Qatar, al-Sharq portrayed an Israeli digging hrough a big swastika tunnel under the mosque, while al-Watan depicted the Israeli as a stereotypical Orthodox Jew burrowing under it. Tishrin, on the other hand, depicted the US and Israel proceeding toward two swastika arms, one leading to Iraq and the other to al-Aqsa. To mark forty years of the Israeli occupation of Jerusalem in June, al-Jumhuriyya published a caricature depicting "the fascist occupation" as a threatening soldier with a beard and a hook-nose standing in front of al-Aqsa Mosque on a bomb set to destroy it.[55]

In response to the Arab, Muslim and international outcry, Jerusalem Mayor Uri Luplianski suspended the work. The issue of al-Aqsa was again on the Arab public agenda in mid-August, on the 39th anniversary of the burning of the mosque in 1969. In the name of the Islamic umma, on August  21, Secretary-General of the Saudi-based Islamic Conference Organization Akmal al-Din Ihsan, denounced Israeli violations in the occupied Arab lands and especially in Jerusalem and al-Aqsa, and decided to convene "al-Quds International Forum" in Istanbul in November. The meeting, held on November 15-17, brought together thousands of representatives of various Islamic countries and Islamist organizations, among them the Qatar-based Islamist scholar Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Shaykh Ra'id Salah and Khalid Mash‘al. The final statement expressed support for the resistance against the attempts of the racist Zionist occupation to erase Islamic traces in Jerusalem and destroy al-Aqsa Mosque.[56]

The Holocaust - a Major Issue in the Arab Public Discourse

The Holocaust denial conference held in Tehran in mid-December 2006 (see ASW 2006) and international Holocaust Memorial Day, marked on 27 January, ensured continued discussion of the Holocaust in the Arab media in early 2007. The major motifs remained unchanged, but became more diversified, showing greater awareness of its significance. Yet, according to historian Robert Wistrich, this understanding "has boomeranged with a vengeance."[57] Not only has it led to analogies and false equations but to active ideational denial.

Analyzing the achievements of the Tehran conference, Khalid al-Hurub in the Qatari daily al-Sharq, concluded that it had only brought more troubles to Iran, giving further justification for Israel to strike at it, and lending “an inhuman image to the Muslims in the world by declaring cooperation with all racists worldwide." Ahmadinejad's denial of the Holocaust confirmed the attribution of "genocidal extremism" to Arabs and Muslims, and endorsed Israel’s sense of victimhood. It was this logic that had sustained it over long decades, despite its crimes against the Arabs and Palestinians. Al-Hurub also made several comments that reveal the complexities of Holocaust representation in the Arab world in recent years. When dealing with this subject Arabs should display humanism, and acknowledge and condemn the extermination of the Jews by Hitler during WWII, he wrote. The Jews murdered were not "Israel's Zionists” and were neither responsible for Israel’s establishment nor for its racist policies in the occupied territories. Therefore, there should be absolute separation between their attitude toward Nazi crimes and their position on Israel and Zionism. Denial of the Holocaust by Arabs and Muslims or attempts to prove this claim scientifically and historically was beyond their priorities and capabilities, and only gave rise to feelings of historical persecution among Jews; the crime was perpetrated by racist Europeans and Europe was responsible for the establishment of Israel in the heart of the Arab and Muslim world. Further, the Holocaust was been exploited by Zionism and Israel, creating an entire industry aimed at justifying Israel's policies and supporting its claim to represent all the Jews in the world. Denouncing the Holocaust was a clearly humanistic stance that did not affect the just Palestinian cause and did not lend legitimacy to Israel and its crimes, he concluded.[58]

In addition, Hamza Yusuf, a US-based Muslim scholar writing in the monthly Tikkun , thought that convening the so-called conference in a Muslim country undermined “the historicity of the faith of the people of that state." By acknowledging the pain of others, he concluded, Muslims could better help the Jewish community understand current Muslim pain in Palestine. In mid-February, 23 prominent Iranian intellectuals, mainly from Iran and the US, published an open letter to Ahmadinejad, condemning denial and asserting that "Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians do not lend legitimacy to denying genocide." Moreover, such “conferences,” more than anything, harmed the academic image of Iranian universities, and inevitably led to moral degeneration. Similarly, one hundred Iranian intellectuals published a statement in the New York Review of Books, deploring denial as an Iranian propaganda tool to further its own agenda. This brand of antisemitism, they asserted was “rooted in European ideological doctrines” and had no precedent in Iranian history.[59]

These views, however, were confined to a small group of intellectuals and journalists. Articles with revealing titles such as "The Holocaust between a Myth and a Lie," "The Holocaust a Historical Issue or a Sacred Religious Affair?" and "The Big Lie," [60] related to the conference and to other issues pertaining to the Holocaust , among them the deportation of David Irving from Austria after his prison term (see Austria) and international Holocaust Memorial Day. The adoption on the latter occasion of a UN General Assembly resolution initiated by the US calling to incriminate Holocaust deniers was criticized in Arab papers for singling out the Jewish tragedy. Quoting Roger Garaudy, Egyptian writer Ahmad Bahjat attacked the US initiative in al-Ahram, contending that the number of 6 million Jews slaughtered by the Nazis had been contested and proven baseless. Ibrahim Sa‘da in al-Akhbar and ‘Abdallah Rashid in the Libyan paper al-Shams claimed no other tragedy had captivated the world as the Jewish one had, and that the Jews had succeeded in manipulating and exploiting it to their benefit. Yet, unlike Sa‘da who did not deny the Holocaust, Rashid called it a myth, reiterating that there was no mass Nazi extermination policy against the Jews; that there were no gas chambers; and that six million Jews did not die. Moreover, he accused the Zionist movement of collaborating with Hitler and sacrificing Jews for the sake of its political goals. The Iranian Kayhan, also branded the Holocaust a myth, which served the West as an excuse to establish "the illegal Zionist regime," and described the UN resolution as an additional attempt to protect "the collapsing Zionist entity." Nawaf al-Zaru in al-Dustur and Majid al-Shaykh in al-Hayat chose to emphasize the alleged linkage between the Holocaust and the Palestinian tragedy and "Israeli holocausts,” complaining that whereas the international community was constantly preoccupied with the preservation of the memory of a doubtful historical event, it completely ignored the Nakba which was still happening in front of its eyes.[61]  

In April, when Israel commemorated its own Holocaust Memorial Day, which preceded the date marking the Palestinian Nakba (May 15), several articles linked the two, reiterating that the Nakba was "a bigger human catastrophe than the Holocaust whether [the latter] really happened or not"[62] and that the "Jewish executioners” were imitating “their persecutors and tormentors."[63] The Holocaust had paved the way for the Palestinian Nakba, practically, politically, morally and psychologically, and therefore, it was important to keep the Holocaust file open and to raise questions about its agenda.[64] Palestinian Hasan al-Batal, repeated the traditional Arab approach that the Holocaust did not concern the Arabs, whereas Israeli Jews had “a long hand in the Nakba."[65] According to a poll conducted by prominent sociologist Sami Smoocha, of Haifa University, about 27 percent of Israeli Arabs saw no justification for holding Holocaust Memorial Day and about 33 percent believed the Holocaust had never happened. Doubting these findings, MK Ahmad Tibi described the Holocaust as the worst crime ever against humanity.[66] The founder of Israel's Islamic Movement, Ahmad Nimr Darwish, also condemned Holocaust denial in the Muslim world in a speech at the Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism held on February 9 in Jerusalem. Lawyer Khalid Mahamid, who opened a small Holocaust museum in Nazareth, published a notice − which was rejected by other Arab newspapers − in the local weekly Hadith al-Nas, expressing sympathy for the Jewish people on the occasion of international Holocaust Memorial Day. The ad, he said, was intended to stir Arabs into speaking seriously about the subject and arouse awareness of the Palestinian Nakba among Jews.[67]

In January, Khalid ‘Abd al-Wahhab, a wealthy Tunisian landowner who died in 1997, was nominated for the title Righteous among the Nations, granted by Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum, Jerusalem. During WWII, when Tunisia was under German occupation, ‘Abd al-Wahhab saved the lives of two dozen Jews and was the first Arab ever nominated for this title (some 60 Muslims are among the more than 20,000 Righteous Gentiles already honored).[68] Expert on Arab and North African studies Robert Satloff initiated the process following his research on the reaction of North African Arabs to the persecution of the Jewish minority from 1940-43, when the German and the pro-Nazi Vichy regimes took over France’s colonial rule of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, while fascist Italy ruled Libya. He published his findings in the book, Among the Righteous − Lost Stories from the Holocaust’s Long Reach into Arab Lands, in 2006. Satloff found Arab behavior little different from that of Europeans when the Germans and their allies were in control. Some played a supporting role in the persecutions and a smaller group did what they could to protect Jews.

            Satloff visited Egypt in mid-January, where he participated in a meeting sponsored by Al-Ahram Center for Strategic and Political Studies, evoking varied reactions in Egyptian papers. Former editor of al-Ahram Ibrahim Nafi‘ questioned the center’s invitation to "a radical neo-conservative," who came to promote the Jewish Holocaust. While acknowledging the fact of the Holocaust and honoring the memory of its victims, he argued that Satloff ignored Palestinian suffering, and that crimes against the Jews did not justify Israel’s crimes. Salah al-Din Ibrahim in the opposition paper al-Wafd expressed his anger that Zionist propagandists were allowed to spread their poison in Egyptian society; Sulayman Jawda, on the other hand, criticized his fellow journalist from the same newspaper for rejecting Satloff’s visit to Egypt because he was a Jew. "The Jew is innocent until he is proven a Zionist," he concluded. In a comprehensive report on the visit published in al-Ahram, Walid Ramadan presented Satloff's claims and quoted several intellectuals, among them Palestinian Muhammad Khalid al-Az‘ar, who stated that Arabs should research the issue of the Holocaust, especially since the UN had dedicated a day for it – although it should be acknowledged there were other holocausts, too. He dismissed Satloff's attempt to turn Arabs that came to the help of Jews into heroes, claiming that historically relations between Jews and Muslims had always been positive. ‘Abd al-Ghaffar Shukri, member of the central committee of the leftist National Progressive Unionist Party, criticized Satloff for being one-sided and ignoring over fifty years of "Israeli aggression" against the Palestinians. For Egyptian intellectuals, he contended, the Holocaust was history “which does not justify converting the victim into executioner."   Philosopher Murad Wahba, however, suggested in the same forum that after September 11 it was imperative to change the approach toward the Holocaust and toward the Arab/Palestinian-Israeli conflict due to the new role of religious extremism.[69]

Conclusion

The accusation that Israel and Zionism were racist continued unabated in Arab publications, particularly Syrian newspapers. A UN human rights report published in February accusing Israel of human rights violations in the West Bank was used by Syria to reinforce their claim that Israel was pursuing apartheid policies, and that the 1975 UN resolution defining Zionism as a form of racism should not have been abrogated. Ahmad Burghul in the daily al-Thawra connected these policies to the notion of the "Chosen People,” which he charged was basically a racist concept. The alleged religious roots of Zionist and Israeli racism and aggression were discussed by other writers as well, among them Ahmad ‘Ali Ahmad in al-Ba‘th, ‘Abd al-‘Alim Muhammad in al-Ahram, Jurj Haddad in al-Dustur, Haytham al-Sadiq in al-Watan and ‘Isam Dari in Tishrin. The policy of ethnic cleansing, deportation and extermination, asserted Sulayman Salih in al-Sharq, would inevitably lead to a full-scale uprising against Israel and to its extinction.[70] ‘Abd al-Wahhab al-Masiri, who writes extensively on Israeli society and Zionism,[71] also predicted in an interview to al-Sabil that Israel was on the verge of annihilation and was crumbling from within. The Jewish experience, which had begun over fifty years ago, had failed, he maintained, and the scheme of a "Greater Israel" had come to an end.[72] 

In addition to continued Arab interest in critical publications of Israel and Zionism published in the West by both non-Jews and Jews (such as Walt and Mearsheimer’s report[73] and Carter's book[74] [see ASW 2006], as well as Israeli post-Zionist Israeli scholar Ilan Pappe's The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine[75] and former Knesset Speaker and Chairman of the Jewish Agency Abraham Burg's Defeating Hitler[76]) books in a similar vein and with blatantly antisemitic themes were published by Arab writers and scholars throughout the year. Among these were Muhammad Fadil's The Jewish State: Theodor Herzl, which gave an account of the Zionist project and religious, secular and racist myths around it[77]; and Usama Jum‘a al-Ashqar and Hasan ‘Adil al-Rifa‘i's (Israel) [sic], the Leaders: Knesset Speakers, Prime Ministers since the Beginning till 2006. The latter compilation of names published in Syria is, according to al-Thawra, "an important document and identification card" that proves the extremism and racism of all Israeli leaders.[78] In addition, Hasan Zaza's Israeli Religious Thought and Jewish Religious Thought,[79] Mazin Hanna's Capitalism and Ethnic Cleansing in the Torah,[80] and Fu'ad al-Butayna's Biblical Satanism and the West's Historic Mistake,[81] link alleged Jewish religious perceptions of aggression and annihilation to present day Israeli policies. In Egypt, `Abd al-Wahhab al-Masiri's Zionism and the Spider Web (2006; see General Analysis) contained virulent criticism of Zionism and Jews.[82]

Several books dealt with the Holocaust, including Muhammad Abu Sa‘ra’s The Nazi Holocaust: Between Berlin's Reich and Palestine's Jews (Amman). According to the review in al-Dustur, it discusses the history of the Jews and their infiltration into the Arab world and the Ottoman Empire; their role in the Crusader wars; the emergence of "international Zionism"; WWI and the Balfour Declaration; the Jews' relations with communism, fascism and Nazism; The Protocols of the Elders of Zion; and the “truth” about the Holocaust and Zionist massacres of the Palestinians. In Damascus Muhammad Nimr al-Madani, who already wrote a book denying the Holocaust in 1996, published another one, The Forbidden Holocaust – Reading the Holocaust and the Annihilation Philosophy of the Jews. Madani reportedly reveals hidden aspects that created the "myths of the lie," and provides proof of links between religious Jewish beliefs and rituals and Zionist fabrications.[83]

The United Nations and Antisemitism: 2004-2007 Report Card, published by UN Watch on November 1, highlights the practice of antisemitic propaganda, incitement to hatred against Jews and demonization of Israel in Arab and Muslim societies.[84] Yet, there were only a few initiatives during the year to alleviate tensions and create an interfaith dialogue between Jews and Muslims. There was a one-day conference "Tolerance between Religions: A Blessing for All Creation," co-sponsored by the LibForAll Foundation, the Wahid Institute and the Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance and held in Bali, Indonesia, on June 12, in response to the Tehran denial conference in December. In an article published in the Wall Street Journal, former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid, who was the driving force behind it, denounced Holocaust denial and the distortion of historical facts as well as the dissemination of the Protocols and Mein Kampf. The event was attended by high ranking Indonesian officials, Holocaust survivors and rabbis. Indonesia, the largest Muslim country, with Muslims comprising about 90 percent of its population, has no diplomatic relations with Israel. Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Wiesenthal Center said in his presentation that Indonesia was a target for Holocaust deniers, since most of the population had no knowledge of the Holocaust.[85] In December a delegation of Muslim religious leaders from Indonesia and India arrived in Israel for a visit in Israel under the auspices of the American Jewish Committee.[86]

A few initiatives took place in the US. Imad Malik, a fellow at the Center for Islamic Pluralism and the Family Security Foundation, was considering establishing a Judeo-Islamic Peace Movement to fight antisemitic bigotry among Muslims,[87] while Eboo Patel, who believes that Islamic antisemitism "is a violation of the ethos of Islam,"  founded the Interfaith Youth Core in Chicago.[88] In mid-December, two major Jewish and Muslim organizations – the Union of Reform Judaism and the Islamic Society of North America – launched an interfaith dialogue curriculum, urging their members to use it. The manual and video are built around five sessions covering topics such as the place of Jerusalem in Jewish and Muslim tradition and history.[89]

The publication of Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and the War on Terror, by Egyptian-American author Nonie Darwish, which focuses on her visit to Israel and the interviews conducted with her, sheds light on another American-based organization, Arabs for Israel, which seeks dialogue with Israel, an end to incitement and misinformation that result in Arab street rage and violence, and reformation of how Islam is taught and channeled.[90] Darwish was one of a handful of Arab intellectuals living in the West and the Middle East who raised their voices against Muslim extremism and terrorist, the culture of death and the strong belief in conspiracy theories. Former Dean of Islamic Law at Qatar University ‘Abd al-Hamid al-Ansari spoke of the disappearance of critical thinking and accountability, whereas Batir Muhammad ‘Ali Wardam wrote in al-Dustur of "The Protocols of anaesthetizing the Arab mind." Wardam highlighted Holocaust denial and the belief in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as symptomatic of Arab self-deceit. He concluded that until the Arab world concentrated on solving its own problems, it would not be able to confront Israel. Hussein Haqqani, director of Boston University's Center for International Relations, also criticized contemporary Muslim fascination with conspiracy theories and the propensity to accept rumors. This tendency, he explained, reflected "pervasive insecurity coupled with widespread ignorance." It was time for discussion “of the Ummah's decline in the context of failure to produce and consume knowledge and absorb verifiable facts," he said. Similarly, Hassan Barari, a senior fellow at the US Institute of Peace in 2007, condemned Arab scholarship on Israel "as beset by subjective projections, ideological distortion, bias and the necessity to expose rather than to understand the 'other'." Arab regimes, he contended, used anti-Israel rhetoric as a political tool to counter the opposition or to secure regime legitimacy.[91]