ISLAMIC ANTI-SEMITISM
AS A POLITICAL INSTRUMENT
by
Yossef Bodansky

ISLAMIC ANTI-SEMITISM
AS A POLITICAL INSTRUMENT

ISLAMIC ANTI-SEMITISM
AS A POLITICAL INSTRUMENT
by
Yossef Bodansky
ISLAMIC ANTI-SEMITISM
AS A POLITICAL INSTRUMENT
is published by
The Ariel Center for Policy Research (ACPR)
in cooperation with
The Freeman Center for Strategic Studies
Copyright © April 1999 - Yossef Bodansky
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form
or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior
permission of the publishers.
The opinions expressed in this book are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily reflect the views of the members of the
Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, US Congress,
or any other branch of the US Government.
ISBN 0-9671391-0-4
Additional copies of this book may be obtained from the publishers.
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Yossef Bodansky is the Director of Research of the International
Strategic Studies Association (ISSA), and is also the Director of the
Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare
of the US House of Representatives. As well he is on the Board of
Directors of the Ariel Center for Policy Research and a Special
Consultant on International Terrorism for the Freeman Center for
Strategic Studies. He is also a Senior Editor for the Defense &
Foreign Affairs group of publications. He is the author of six
previous books (Target America, Terror, Crisis in Korea,
Offensive in the Balkans, Some Call It Peace and Arafat's "Peace
Process"), as well as several book chapters, entries for the
International Military and Defense Encyclopedia, and numerous
articles in several periodicals, including Global Affairs, Jane's
Defense Weekly, Defense & Foreign Affairs: Strategic Policy, and
Business Week.

Contents
Executive Summary..........................................I
Introduction...............................................3
Chapter 1:	Roots..........................................7
Chapter 2:	The Modernization of the Muslim World
and the Jews.............................................19
Chapter 3:	Jews and the Modem Muslim State - 1950s-1970s.32
Chapter 4:	Jews and the Modem Islamist Vision - 1950s-l 970s...51
Chapter 5:	Jews and Post-Khomeyni Arab States - 1980s-1990s..81
Chapter 6:	Jews And Post-Khomeyni Militant
Islamism - 1980s-1990s...................................118
Chapter 7:	The Specter Of Intensifying Hatred...........165
Endnotes.................................................179

Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument
1
Executive Summary
Anti-Semitism, that is, anti-Jewishness and anti-Judaism, is intensifying
throughout the Muslim World. The significance of this virulent
anti-Jewishness and anti-Judaism is in that this type of anti-Semitism goes
beyond the hatred it espouses. In the contemporary Muslim World,
anti-Jewishness and anti- Judaism constitute a major political instrument in
the hands of both state governments and Islamist terrorist organizations to
mobilize the entire region for the destruction of Israel - irrespective of
diplomatic treaties, including the current peace process. Both governments
and terrorist leaders are using anti-Semitic incitement as a most effective
instrument of populist agitation in order to reach the grassroots - the Arab
street - and get results. This instrument is most effective particularly when
state governments need to ignore and reverse declared policies (imposed by
international conditions). Therefore, with the spread and expansion of
militant radical Islam, anti-Jewishness and anti-Judaism will continue to
intensify in the Muslim World. Anti-Jewishness and anti-Judaism will thus
continue to be a most potent instrument of governments throughout the
Muslim World.
Among the Islamists, presently the most vibrant and rapidly expanding
segment of the Muslim World, the very existence of an independent Jewish
state called Israel constitutes a contradiction of major Qu 'ranic tenets. On
the most basic level, the mere existence of an independent political entity run
by the Dhimmi, particularly on a land claimed by Islam, is a profound
challenge and affront to Islam's claim for supremacy that is political and not
only religious in essence. Thus, modern-day Israel, just like the Crusaders
state in medieval times, is unacceptable under any circumstance. Indeed,
modern Arab/MusHm propaganda stresses the political aspects of the
historical enmity and worsening conflict between Jews and Muslims.
2 Yossef Bodansky
Significantly, the Islamists have brought their relationship with the Jews a
full circle — back to their Qu'ranic roots where relationship is based on
enmity and confrontation. After centuries of Dhimma - of co-existence in
Muslim-ruled states based on the Jews' recognition of the superiority of
Islam - the quintessence of Jewish-Muslim relations is once again based
solely on the Qu ’ranic perspective, that is, the golden age of Islam. Having
been the greatest enemies of Prophet Muhammad, the Jews are today once
again the greatest enemy of the modem Islam. And, the Islamist luminaries
reason, just as Prophet Muhammad's defeat and annihilation of the Jews of
Arabia was the catalyst for Islam's unprecedented surge and conquests, so
will the annihilation of Israel be the catalyst for a new surge of contemporary
Islam. And herein lies the quintessence of the uncompromising struggles to
come.
In the practical world, such a perspective is being used by the leaders of
Iran, Sudan, Pakistan and numerous Islamist terrorist organizations to justify
their own actions and give weight to their cause. That last point is
significant because it means that, far from being a mere intellectual exercise,
the new anti-Jewish doctrine of radical Islam has a popular appeal and will
therefore set the stage for perpetual waves of international terrorism and
Arab-Israeli wars. And as history should have taught the Jews, wherever
they are, in Israel or in the Diaspora, - the anti-Semites mean what they say
and would do their utmost to implement what they preach*
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 3
ISLAMIC ANTI-SEMITISM
AS A POLITICAL INSTRUMENT
INTRODUCTION
Anti-Semitism, that is, anti-Jewishness and anti-Judaism, is intensifying
throughout the Muslim World. The significance of this virulent
anti-Jewishness and anti-Judaism is in that this type of anti-Semitism goes
beyond the hatred it espouses. In the contemporary Muslim World,
anti-Jewishness and anti-Judaism constitute a major political instrument in
the hands of both state governments and Islamist terrorist organizations to
mobilize the entire region for the destruction of Israel - irrespective of
diplomatic treaties, including the current peace process. Both governments
and terrorist leaders are using anti-Semitic incitement as a most effective
instrument of populist agitation in order to reach to the grassroots - the Arab
street - and get results. This instrument is most effective particularly when
state governments need to ignore and reverse declared policies (imposed by
international conditions). Therefore, with the spread and expansion of
militant radical Islam, anti-Jewishness and anti-Judaism will continue to
intensify in the Muslim World. Anti-Jewishness and anti-Judaism will thus
continue to be a most potent instrument of Governments throughout the
Muslim World.
Among the Islamists, presently the most vibrant and rapidly expanding
segment of the Muslim World, the very existence of an independent Jewish
state called Israel constitutes a contradiction of major Qu’ranic tenets. On the
most basic level, the mere existence of an independent political entity run by
the Dhimmi, particularly on a land claimed by Islam, is a profound challenge
and affront to Islam’s claim for supremacy that is political and not only
religious in essence. Thus, modern-day Israel, just like the Crusaders’ state
in medieval times, is unacceptable under any circumstance. Indeed, modern
Arab/Muslim propaganda stresses the political aspects of the historical
enmity and worsening conflict between Jews and Muslims.
4 Yossef Bodansky
Meanwhile, the Arabs and their apologists continue to insist that Jews, and
Christians for that matter, have lived peacefully under Islam until the
emergence of modern Zionism and the establishment of the State of Israel on
a piece of Muslim land (WaqJ).' Israel, as a political affront to the Arabs,
they argue, is the root cause for the flare-up of anti-Semitism throughout the
Muslim World. For example: Maryam Jameelah, an American Jewish
woman who converted to Islam and now lives in Pakistan, stresses this point:
The rise of the modern Zionist movement brought more than a
thousand years of friendly Muslim-Jewish relationships to an abrupt
end, with the result that since the days of the Holy Prophet never has
Jewish hatred towards Muslims nor Muslim hatred for Jews been
more bitter than at the present time.2
But this is no accurate depiction of history. Jews and Muslims have been
living close to each other and interacting since the very first days of Islam.3
As Islam rose in Arabia at the beginning of the 7Ih Century and spread
throughout the region that would become the Hub of Islam, the Arab-led
armies encountered well established, developed and relatively affluent Jewish
communities wherever they reached. The Muslim occupiers could neither
ignore nor reconcile with these communities - they had to either annihilate or
vanquish them. Hence, there developed complex and usually hostile relations
between the Jews and their Muslim rulers and neighbors. Professor Bernard
Lewis observed that under Islam, Jews “were never free from discrimination,
but only rarely subjected to persecution; that their situation was never as bad
as in Christendom at its worst, nor ever as good as in Christendom at its
best”.4
The law of Islam - Shari'a law - explicitly stipulates the inferiority of Jews
and Christians - the state of Dhimmitude. Moreover, because of the religious
connotations of Islamic governance, the law gives the Muslim ruler free hand
to implement the law as he wishes?
The profound changes in Islam’s attitude toward Jews and Judaism are a
direct result of Islam’s encounter with Western modernity. The impact of the
establishment and endurance of the State of Israel is but one aspect of this
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 5
profound crisis. Consequently, radical militant Islam, the response to
Westernization, is on the march, getting ready for what its leaders consider to
be a fateful struggle for the future of Islam. The accumulating frustration and
rage throughout the Hub of Islam is about to burst out in a wave of rage and
revenge against the Western civilization that is perceived to be the source of
all evil. These trends were recognized early on by Ayatollah Muhammad
Baqer al-Sadr. He emphasized that the contemporary world as shaped by
infidels [“others”] was unacceptable to Islam: “The world as it is today is
how others shaped it,” he explained. “We have two choices: either to accept
it with submission, which means letting Islam die, or to destroy it, so that we
can construct the world, as Islam requires.”6
Presently, the intensifying anti-Jewishness and anti-Judaism incitement plays
a crucial role in political Islam on two distinct levels:
I. The Global Conspiracy: The Jewish conspiracy is the most effective
excuse and justification of Islamist leaders about the backwardness of the
Muslim World - the loss of power and economic failures vis-a-vis the
West. All of these calamities, they argue, are because of a
Jewish-dominated global conspiracy aimed to eradicate Islam. Being a
divine way of life, Islam is expected to have an answer to everything.
Therefore, the troubles from which the contemporary Muslim society is
suffering must be due to nonbelievers and to plots - primarily by Zionists.
Addressing these issues, attacks against Jews and Christians now appear
in the neo-fundamentalist media throughout the world.7 This development
follows a classic pattern in political Islam, for as a rule, Muslims attribute
their calamities and failures to external enemies - International Zionism
and, to a lesser degree, the Christian West. A factor unifying all Islamists
is the perception that there is a huge global conspiracy by the
Judeo-Christian world in order to erase or eradicate Islam from the face of
the earth.8 Indeed, throughout the Muslim World, both governments’ and
populist opposition to the West are expressed in religious terms - outright
criticism of Judaism and Christianity - which accounts for the marked
increase in anti-Semitism.9 Furthermore, the Islamists single out the Jews
as their main enemies because of the religious and political aspects of the
confrontation between Jews and Muslims. Indeed, Jameelah states, “the
Jews are the most implacable enemies of an Islamic revival.”10
6 Yossef Bodansky
2. In Arab-Israeli Connotations: Anti-Semitism serves as a major political
instrument to mobilize the entire region for the destruction of Israel. The
noted Egyptian journalist and confidant of numerous Arab leaders,
Mohammed Heikal, stresses that the attitude toward Israel cannot be
described but by an “inchoate blend of fury and revulsion”. For the vast
majority of Arabs, Israel is “taboo”11 - the acceptance and legitimization
of which is simply inconceivable irrespective of diplomatic treaties. The
current “peace process” is no different. In principle, the current state of
affairs is no different from the fledgling Islamist conceptualization in the
wake of the Naqbah. Abd-Allah al-Thal, a former Jordanian General
during the War of Independence, stresses that the Arab-Israeli conflict is
an extension, or aspect, of the profound struggle between Judaism and
Islam. “It is only natural for Jews and Muslims to clash in the wake of
the clarification that Islam aspires for higher values that contradict what
the Jews call for.”12
Taken together, governments and leaders of organizations throughout the
Muslim World are using anti-Semitism as a most effective instrument of
populist agitation in order to reach out to the grassroots - the Arab street -
and get quick results. The use of blatant anti-Jewishness and anti-Judaism is
most tempting particularly when these leaders need to ignore and/or reverse
declared policies (imposed by international conditions). Therefore, with the
spread and expansion of militant radical Islam, anti-Jewishness and
anti-Judaism will continue to grow in the Muslim World, and will continue to
be a most potent instrument of governments and other political organizations.
WWW
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument
7
CHAPTER 1:
ROOTS
Jews and Muslims have been living close to each other and interacting since
the very first days of Islam.13 Islam rose in Arabia at the beginning of the 7,h
Century, and spread throughout the region that would become the Hub of
Islam by force of arms. In less than 50 years - 630 to 680 AD - the Arab
armies not only conquered and established a huge empire spreading from the
African coast of the Atlantic to the Indus river, but also began the systematic
transformation of society by imposing Islamic civilization. This was also
accomplished through the use of force and coercion - for throughout their
campaigns, the Arab-led armies encountered well established, developed and
relatively affluent Christian and Jewish communities wherever they
reached.14 As Bat Ye’or explained, the Muslim occupiers could neither
ignore nor reconcile with these communities. While a great effort has been
put into forced conversion of the local population, the new Arab rulers had to
rely on resources, assets and expertise of the local elites many of whom,
particularly the Jews, refused to convert to Islam. Consequently, there
developed complex and usually hostile relations between the Christians and
Jews and their Muslim rulers and neighbors that were institutionalized in
Dhimmitude. The specific hatred of Jews was derived from the legacy of the
experiences of Prophet Muhammad who fought the Jewish tribes of Arabia.1’
Still, Muslim-Jewish relations have been a hostile constancy that never
reached the hostility toward, and violence against, the Hindu minorities on
the eastern boundaries of the Hub of Islam. In this respect, the Hindus, not
being people of the book, were subjected to extreme cruelties by the Muslim
rulers.16
Ultimately, the complexities and inherent hostility in the relations between
Jews and Muslims are a direct outcome of Muhammad’s own experience
with the Jews during the formative era of Islam in Arabia. Initially,
Muhammad sought to gain the support of, and legitimization from, the
Jewish tribes of western Arabia for religious, financial and military power
reasons. However, Muhammad was rebuffed by the Jews who refused to see
in him a Prophet - a reincarnation of Biblical traditions. This led to a series
of clashes between Muhammad’s growing armies and the Jewish tribes. At
g Yossef Bodansky
first, Jewish military might constituted a viable threat to Muhammad’s armies
and, thus, the fate of Islam. With time, the Arab armies prevailed and the
struggle for the fate of Arabia ended with the slaughter and defeat of the Jews
- the irreversible destruction of their presence and posture in the Arabian
peninsula. A turning point in this fierce struggle was the Treaty of Hudaibiya
between the Muslims and the Jewish tribe of Qu’raish. Although signed for
ten years, it was unilaterally abrogated by the Muslim armies after two years,
once they had amassed the power to overwhelm and slaughter the Jewish
tribes. This experience is still considered precedent and justification for
unilateral breaking of agreements and treaties.17 Moreover, the legacy of
Islam’s early fights against the Jews still dominates the institutional approach
to contemporary confrontations. Brigadier S.K. Malik stresses this point in
his book The Qu ranic Concept of War “We see that, on all these occasions,
when God wishes to impose His will upon His enemies, He chooses to do so
by casting terror into their hearts.”18
And this observation continues to serve as the justification for Islam’s
approach to fighting the Jews through the use of terrorism.
The personal experience of Muhammad still dominates the institutional
approach of Islam to the Jews. Most of the numerous references to Jews in
the Qu'ran are hostile. Professor Bernard Lewis explains:
There are many passages in the Qu'ran, and in the biography and
traditions of the Prophet, in which hard words are used about the Jews.
These passages are concerned, for the most part, with the Prophet’s
own conflict with the Jews, in which he was completely victorious.
They are to some extent balanced by other passages speaking more
respectfully of the Jews as the possessors of an earlier revelation, and
prescribing a degree of tolerance to be accorded to them. Most
important of all, there is no tradition of guilt and betrayal, such as has
colored popular and sometimes ecclesiastical Christian attitudes to the
Jewish religion and those who profess it.'9
Taken together, the Qu’ranic depiction of the Jews and Jewish issues stresses
that the main power struggles and fights the Prophet had to endure before
Islam consolidated its prominence and power, were against Jews. Moreover,
even when the Children of Israel are mentioned positively, it is in the context
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 9
of having been God’s chosen people before the empowerment of Muhammad
- God’s last and ultimate Prophet, “the seal of the Prophets”. Indeed, the
Qu'ran stresses that both Jews and Christians tampered with their own Holy
Books so that the text of the Bible is corrupt and cannot be relied upon for
religious reasons. Indeed, the Qu’ran includes very intense efforts to debunk
Judeo-Christian traditions and historical events as described in the Bible in
order to divert people’s beliefs away from the Jerusalem and the Holy Land
and into believing in the Ka'ba in Mecca - as a focus of prayers and
pilgrimage - and Arabia as a whole as the legitimization of Arabness and the
early conquests of the Arabs.20
The Holy Qu’ran leaves no doubt about both the unique posture of Islam -
the supreme and unchallengeable religion - and its hostile discriminatory
attitude toward the Jews. The Qu’raris attitude toward Judaism, as well as
other religions, is anchored by the verse: “He it is who hath sent His
messenger with the guidance and the Religion of Truth, that He may cause it
to prevail over all religion, however much the idolaters may be averse.” [9:33
also 48:28 & 69:9]
Thus, no religion can even be equal to Islam. Hence, all
religious-nationalistic defiance by non-Muslims must be crushed. It is in this
context that the Jews - who resisted Muhammad and the forced
Islamicization - are accorded special treatment. The Qu’ranic derision
ranges from the simple discrimination of non-Muslims - “Take not the Jews
and Christians for friends.” [5:51] - to the determination that the Jews “are
accursed” for not recognizing the Prophet. [5:64] The Jews’ punishment was
most severe. “Worse (is the case of him) whom Allah hath cursed, him on
whom His wrath hath fallen! Worse is he of whose sort Allah hath turned
some to apes and swine, and who serveth idols.” [5:60]
The Qu'ran clarifies the handing of the mantle of the chosen people from the
original Children of Israel to the Muslims and the implications for
Muslim-Jewish relations. Although Allah had made a covenant with the
Children of Israel, they ultimately refused to recognize His latest messenger-
Prophet Muhammad.
1 о Yossef Bodansky
Those of the Children of Israel who went astray were cursed... That
was because they rebelled and used to transgress. They restrained not
one another from the wickedness they did. Verily evil was that they
used to do! [5:78-79]
Therefore, the Qu’ran stipulates, the Jews are Islam’s worst enemies. “Thou
wilt find the most vehement of mankind in hostility to those who believe (to
be) the Jews and the idolaters.”[5:82] Thus, the Qu’ran leaves no doubt that
although they are ‘People of the Book’, the Jews nevertheless have virulent
hatred toward Islam and Muslims, and therefore are implacable enemies who
must be punished severely - both as individuals and as a community/people -
for their transgressions. Moreover, the Believers are ordered to wage war
against those who rejected God’s message - the Jew's. “Fight against such of
those who have been given the Scripture as believe not in Allah nor the Last
Day... Allah (Himself) fighteth against them. How perverse they are!”
[9:29-30] And Islamdom has obeyed the Qu 'ranrx
Significantly, there were pragmatic reasons for the inclusion of, and emphasis
on, the bitter and hostile relationship between Prophet Muhammad and the
Jewish tribes of Arabia in the Qu’ran. The Qu’ranic approach to the Jews
and Judaism is derived from the compelling urgency felt by Prophet
Muhammad to prove the supremacy of Islam over the predecessor
monotheistic religions. Since Islam is an all encompassing way of life -
Church and State in one - Islam’s supremacy includes the prerequisite that
Muslims rule others as well. The Qu’ran therefore explicitly stipulates that
the inferior and discriminatory state of Jew’s must be enforced, that no
friendly relations between Believers and both Jews and Christians are to be
permitted with emphasis put on institutional hostility, if not outright hatred,
toward Jews.22
Ultimately, over the years and with the consolidation of Muslim political
culture and traditions, there has been a distinct institutionalization of a regime
of inherently hostile patronage of Jews and Christians. Dhimmitude
constitutes a legal formulation preventing equality that remains valid and
viable to this day.2’ Meanwhile, the popular notions based on folklore and
interpretations of traditions have become increasingly hostile to, and
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument j ]
discriminatory against, Jews. Taken together, the Hadith, as well as other
historical and traditional Muslim writings, portray hostile approach to Jews
and Judaism. The themes stressed are disloyalty, treachery, slyness, and
other attributes that exclude Jews from any acceptable social norms.24
The existence of these traditions has direct bearing on the Islamic political
culture in the modem era. At the beginning of the 20th century, with the
ascent of political Islam, several “traditions” of attempts by Jews to
assassinate Prophet Muhammad were resurrected and given prominence. The
Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood highlighted these traditions and accusations as
justifications for their nationalist struggle.2’ It was not long before
Palestinian Islamists adopted these traditions as part of the instigation for the
riots against the Jews starting in the late 1920s.26
Little wonder that with the ascent of Islamism, the traditions of Jewish plots
against the Prophet are increasingly used as justification for inciting hatred of
all Jews. Presently, several Islamist authors describe the plots against
Prophet Muhammad in their analysis of the growing hostility toward Jews.
“Immediately after the settlement, the leading Jews conspired against the life
of the Holy Prophet.” A Jewish cook in Muhammad’s household tried to
poison him. Maulana Muhammad Ali stresses that this attempt on the
Prophet’s life should be considered an all-Jewish plot and an expression of
the relationship between Jews and Muslims.
Treacherous and mischievous as they [the Jews] were, the generous
treatment accorded to them by the Muslims had no effect. It failed to
extinguish the fire of enmity in their hearts. They proved a source of
perpetual trouble, ever plotting treachery to injure the Muslims.27
Back in the 7,h century, according to the traditions of Islam, this behavior and
attitude led Caliph Umar ibn Abd-al-Khattab (634-644) to adopt a hostile
approach to the Jews, including their mass eviction (ethnic cleansing) from
Arabia.
Muslim historians have charged Jewish hypocrisy and treachery under
Abdullah bin Saba as responsible for the disturbances during the rule
of Hazrat Uthman [Caliph Uthman ibn Affan (644-656)] which finally
12 YossefBodansky
ended in his martyrdom and the downfall of the pious Khalifate after
the assassination of Hazrat Ali [Ali ibn Abi Talib (656-661)] five
years later.28
Contemporary Islamists also attribute their anti-Jewish vehemence and hatred
to the legacy of the early relationship between Prophet and the Jews of
Arabia. For example, Maryam Jameelah explains that
God tells us in Holy Qu’ran that for the sake of nationalism and racist
pride, the Jews were guilty of the unpardonable sin of deliberately
distorting their scriptures with interpolations and false interpretations
and persecuting every prophet who was sent to redeem them. When
the Jews of Medina rejected the mission of our Holy Prophet
[Muhammad] with an intense vehemence because they could not
accept as their religious guide an unlettered Arab, the Holy Qu’ran
warns us that together with the idolaters, they will always be the
fiercest and most treacherous of all our enemies. Holy Qu'ran then
curses them with exile, persecution and every kind of wretchedness
until Resurrection Day when the disbelievers among them will be
condemned to eternal punishment in Hell!29
This approach still governs the Muslim World’s approach to both Jews and
Israel.
Meanwhile, discrimination of, and hostility toward. non-Muslims were
institutionalized under the rule of Islam. The basic relations were codified in
the Umariyah - under Caliph Umar (634-644) - which set the legal
framework for the discrimination of Jews and Christians living under the rule
of Islam. As Dhimmis, Jews and Christians were never accorded equal
rights. As Bat Ye’or stresses in her ground breaking research, the most
important aspect in this relationship is that Dhinunitude is a state of
patronage. In other words, the extent of freedom and prosperity accorded to
the Dhinuni population is an act of charity of the Muslim ruler, not an
obligation, and definitely not a right of the Dhinuni themselves. The Sharia
law - the traditional Islamic law - only stipulated the inferiority of Jews and
Christians. Moreover, because of the religious connotations of Islamic
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument |3
governance, the law gave the Muslim ruler free hand to implement the law as
he wished. Consequently, the extent of the discrimination against Jews varied
from period to period and from ruler to ruler - at times better conditions, at
times oppression, but NEVER equality or complete civil rights. Moreover,
the essence of the special taxation - Jizya - imposed on Jews and Christians
is an expression of complete surrender to the supremacy of Islam - a loss of
all freedoms. By its definition, the Jizya is essentially a ransom for
permission to maintain hold over property (never a permanent right, but a
situation that can be abolished at will by the Muslim ruler) and the
permission to practice their own religion.
Significantly, from the very beginning, Islam has been not just a religion, but
a way of life that encompasses statehood. Determined to relentlessly
demonstrate and prove Islam’s supremacy over all other religions and
civilizations - the occupation of a vast empire and the ensuing destruction of
the Eastern Christendom was not sufficient - it has become imperative to
demonstrate supremacy on a daily basis and at all levels of life. Hence,
Dhimmis, particularly Jews, were compelled to be distinct and different in
their dresses, looks, shape and size of houses, etc. All of these steps were
undertaken to perpetually demonstrate to Muslim and Jews alike, through
public humiliation, the inferiority of the Jews and their being under the
patronage of both the Muslim leaders and the community as a whole.10
That these traditions and laws were enacted during the reign of Muhammad
and the first Caliphs of Islam is of unique importance to the contemporary
political Islam and Islamic revivalism as a whole. The first four Caliphs are
known as the Rashidun - the Rightly Guided Caliphs - and their activities
constitute the most important precedents for the contemporary Islamists. The
Rashidun Caliphs were not prophets but disciples of the Prophet who were
selected by him as close confidants. They were also military leaders who, in
less than 40 years (623-661), occupied vast lands, defeated and began the
destruction of Eastern Christendom, and established the Muslim Empire that
will dominate Islamdom until the beginning of the 20Ih century.11 No other
Muslim ruler has been able to duplicate these achievements, and, given the
piety and direct relations with Prophet Muhammad, the activities and
legislation of the first four Caliphs are considered the building blocks of
political Islam to this very day.
14 Yossef Bodansky
Furthermore, the mere existence of Dhimmi communities in the midst of the
Muslim World tended to be perceived as affront and challenge to Islam. The
Shari'a encourages the peoples of the book to recognize Islam’s supremacy
and convert. Hence, the mere fact that Christians and Jews maintained their
own religions and refused conversions has been interpreted as an insult to
Islam by both individuals and their communities. Hence, David Pryce-Jones
notes, the tenuous relationship between the Muslims - both authorities and
communities - and the Dhimmi population in their midst has been:
More a matter of shame-honor than of religious persecution. The
unbeliever, Christian or Jew, had only himself to blame for his refusal
to convert to Islam; and therefore he merited his shame. Subject
peoples had to be publicly and openly shamed in order to certify their
inferiority to the conquering and honor-bearing Muslims. ’2
This distinction is of great importance for here lie the foundations for the
contemporary character of anti-Jewishness and anti-Judaism in the Muslim
World - the expediency as instrument of expediting and enhancing the power
of the authorities - be they military rulers or Islamist Mullahs.
Of importance to clarifying these complex relationships is the fate of Jews
during Islam’s Golden Age. This era is pointed to by apologists as the era in
which Jews in Muslim lands reached unprecedented levels of education,
acculturation, influences and affluence. This is true to a point. Omitted from
the apologists’ description is the basic premise that these Jews were never
accorded equal rights, that Dhimmitude was never abolished. The fortune or
plight of non-Muslim minorities, particularly Jews, under the rule of Islam
varied from province to province. More often than not, the easing up in the
discrimination against the Jews was a factor of the rulers’ need for, let alone
dependence on, the Jewish professional elite (doctors, scientists, merchants,
financiers, etc.) for the efficient running of their domains and fiefdoms.
Irrespective of their contribution to society, Jews lived as protected,
subservient, non-equal and discriminated against communities whose future
was in the hands of the ruler of the day.33
Crucial to the understanding of the hostility and discrimination encoded in
the Dhimmitude during the Golden Age of Islam are the writings of
contemporary luminaries. For example, an Arab historian in 1065 lamented
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 15
about the negative influence Jews had on medicine and other. “Look at
medicine, a noble art, which since she has been practiced by vulgar Jews has
been infected by their vulgarity while they have by no means acquired her
nobility.”34
Another example of the centrality of Dhimmitude irrespective of a Jew’s
contribution to society is provided by the great medieval Muslim scholar and
writer Ibn Battuta (I304-C.I377). Here is his description of an incident from
his journeying in Anatolia:
While we were sitting with the Sultan, a shaykh came. On his head
was a turban with a tuft of hair. The Sultan greeted him. The Qadi
and faqih rose in his honor. The shaykh sat in front of the Sultan
above the bench, while the Qu’ran readers were beneath him. Then I
said to the faqih: “Who is this shaykh?" He laughed and grew silent.
So I repeated the question. He then said to me: “This is a Jewish
doctor. All of us need him. This will explain the way we paid honor
to him - as you saw.”
What happened gripped me and made me furious. So I said to the
Jew: “Oh you accursed, son of an accursed! How dare you sit above
the Qu 'ran readers when you are a Jew?”
Then I vilified him and raised my voice. The Sultan was astonished
and asked what was the meaning of my words. The faqih explained it
to him. And the Jew became angry and left the meeting in the foulest
mood.
When we had dispersed the faqih said to me: “Bravo! May Adah
bless you! Nobody else would have been bold enough to talk to him
in that way. You certainly taught him who he is.”3’
In a remote corner of Islamdom, Ibn Battuta witnessed and reacted to a
microcosm of the general attitude toward Jews. The honor and respect
accorded the Jewish doctor not only were the exception, but, as the faqih
himself justified the infraction of the rules of Dhimmitude to Ibn Battuta:
“We all need him.” In contrast, the great medieval Arab historian Ibn
Khaldun (1332-1406) described the effects of the Muslim rule on the rise of
weakness and humility, as well as penchant for deceit, among the Jews.
16 YossefBodansky
[Injury has been done] to every nation that has been dominated by
others and treated harshly. The same thing can be seen clearly in all
those persons who are subject to the will of others, and who do not
enjoy full control of their lives. Consider, for instance, the Jews,
whose characters owing to such treatment had degenerated so that
they are renowned, in every age and climate, for their wickedness and
their slyness. The reason for this is to be found in the causes
mentioned above.36
Other contemporary and subsequent Arab writers identified this frequent
resorting to trickery and deceit as inherently Jewish - further justifying their
hostile discrimination.
Meanwhile, the self-freezing and intellectual-cultural suicide of Islam as of
the I2lh Century has transformed the role of the anti-Jewish struggle into a
legitimizing excuse for the failures of Islamdom. The 12,h Century was a
turning point in the history of Islam. Subsequently, the Muslim World would
not return to its Golden Age even so briefly. There were great intellectuals
and scientists - like Ibn Battuta and Ibn Khaldun - but they were few and
isolated. Islam had great military triumphs - particularly the expansion of
the Ottoman Empire. However, unlike the spread of the Arab Empire, when
military victories led to an intellectual flourishing, the consolidation of the
Ottoman Empire created no comparable intellectual revival. Fereydoun
Hoveyda argues that the blow that blocked the Islamic civilization landed in
the 12th Century. The magnitude of the shock caused a real regression. The
Muslim World has frozen since then. The Muslim World’s intellectual and
cultural self-destruction, or suicide, can be attributed to the rise of religious
extremism. Aspiring for power, new generations of extremist and militant
forces have repeatedly demonstrated their supremacy by ordering the
destruction of cultural treasures of previous generations. Mysticism,
militancy, and the quest for perpetual Jihad have thus become the rallying cry
of the new generation of Muslim militant leaders. Leaders elected to
demonstrate their Islamic credentials by professing extremist interpretation of
Islamic law and by oppressing the non-Muslim minorities they ruled.
Hoveyda laments that the Muslim World emerged from the 12,h Century
frozen and closed against any new development. Islamdom has thus deprived
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument ] 7
itself of the intellectual and scientific achievements earlier generations had
accumulated and created. The zealot extremists amputated the Muslim
civilization from its future and condemned it to an eternal closure.37
The hey days of the Ottoman Empire testify to the enormity of this
self-closure of Islamdom. Islam and sheer military power constituted the
means holding together an empire made of diverse ethnic and national
groups. Islam served as a common bond - a major factor as local leaderships
were being empowered throughout the empire on behalf of the Sultan and
Turkish elite. The imposition of an Islamic way of life - in which
Dhimmitude is a central factor demonstrating Islam’s supremacy despite the
continued oppression of the local population and low standard of living - has
thus become crucial to sustaining the empire. The aggregate impact of this
approach led to the dual and self-contradictory stance toward Jews - the
generalization of the phenomenon described by Ibn Battuta. On the one hand
the legitimacy of the Ottoman Empire as successor to the Caliphate lied in
ensuring the supremacy of Islam, which meant suppressing the non-Muslim
minorities. On the other hand, the Empire needed the expertise, skills, and
wealth of the Jews. At the same time the Muslim authorities could not
overcome their apprehension - both institutionalized and vis-a-vis the public
- of a potential ascent of the Jews on the basis of their contribution to the
state. Hence, Islamdom implemented the enforced discrimination -
Dhimmitude - up to a point, to make sure that the Jews’ services continued to
be rendered, while the spread of populist hostility - anti-Jewishness and
anti-Judaism (a.k.a. anti-Semitism) - spread in order to ensure
non-acceptability, social rejection, marginalization, of the Jews as both
individuals and a distinct community.'8
This very same approach remains an inseparable component of the logic and
essence of the contemporary Muslim state - driven by Islam or “progressive
nationalism”.39 The essence and legal definition of Dhimmitude -Bat Ye’or
notes - serve as the key to not only hostile and discriminatoiy relations
between Believers and non-Believers, but primarily the socio-political
foundations for any contemporary solution and arrangement for a modern-era
Muslim “State”. After all, the teachings of Khomeyni and his disciples
derive their conceptualization from the legacy of the Muslim State of Islam’s
Golden Age.40 And this aspiration is not limited to the Islamists, but also
IS YossefBodansky
progressive revolutionaries such as Michel Aflaq, the founder of the Ba ath
[Rebirth] Party, have been yearning for return to Islam’s Golden Era.
“Aflaq’s ideology is based on the thesis that the aim of the Arabs’ present
struggle is to restore the past. In Aflaq’s ideology progress is a backward
step into the past,” observed a Syrian radical leftist already in 1966.41 And
this distinction dominates the Hub of Islam’s confrontation with modernity
and nationalism.
★ к к
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument ] 9
CHAPTER 2:
THE MODERNIZATION OF THE MUSLIM WORLD AND THE
JEWS
The genesis and rise of modern-style nationalism in the Muslim World can be
traced to developments in the Levant in the second half of the 19th Century.
The legacy of the virtual emancipation of the Jews and Christians during the
Egyptian occupation (1831-1840), and the growing influence of the West
European powers, particularly the French, combined to bring about the
emergence of Arab nationalism. The improvement of mobility and
commerce throughout the Muslim World led to the spreading of the
modernist and nationalist ideas to Iran and Turkey where, the better educated
intelligentsia that had been exposed to the West, adopted them.42 They, in
turn, launched the process of institutionalized Islamic nationalism leading to
the rise of ideological dynamics and quest for modernization in the triangle of
the Levant-Iran-Turkey.
In the non-Arab parts of the Muslim World, the Islamic modernist trend
advocating Islamic revival with nationalist connotations emerged as the most
important trend. The leading ideologue - Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1839-97)
- considered pan-Islamism the key to adapting the European concept of
nationhood to the peculiarities of the Muslim World of the mid 19th century.
He therefore sought to gain the support of the leadership of the Ottoman
Empire for his vision of modernist pan-Islamism as the engine for
regenerating the Ottoman Empire as a viable unified entity. Toward this end,
al-Afghani conjured Islam’s glorious past with the appeal for renewal of
pan-Islamism, under the banner of the Ottoman Empire, and the awakening
of Islamist passions to support the unified all-Muslim nation. He visualized a
future unity of all Muslims with political connotations against the rise and
spread of European colonialism and imperialism.41
The growing importance of traditional Islam in the pursuit of modernist
nationalism, as advocated by al-Afghani and his disciples, led to their
rediscovery of the Jews as a threat and a popular object of hatred - thus, a
ready excuse for the modernists’ failures and problems. This development
was in a sharp contrast with the aspirations of the minorities - the Dhimmis in
20 Yossef Bodansky
the Ottoman Empire - that the rise of nationalism would follow the European
experience and would ultimately lead to equality and emancipation. By the
mid I9lh Century there were already encouraging precedents, particularly the
popularity of the emancipation granted by Muhammad Ali and his son
Ibrahim Pasha as well as the 1856 great reform decree that proclaimed the
equality of Muslims and non-Muslims in the Ottoman Empire.44
Indeed, some of al-Afghani’s initial followers were non-Muslims, including
Jews, who anticipated emancipation in the wake of the establishment of
nationalism and statehood. However, in order to win over the masses,
al-Afghani and his loyalists quickly returned to traditional Islamic
phraseology, terminology and conceptualization including the advocacy of
anti-non-Muslims sentiments. Speaking to a Western audience, Malkam
Khan, a disciple of al-Afghani, stressed that the coating of al-Afghani’s
political theories and teachings in Islamic terms was a necessity, not a choice,
because these were the only frameworks and terminologies that could reach
and appeal to the Muslim masses of the Hub of Islam. Al-Afghani was trying
to reach the Muslim masses by presenting European/Western ideas in the
traditional terms of the ulama that the masses could understand and identify
with, Malkam Khan explained.43
Ultimately, however, al-Afghani had to reiterate Islam’s historical record -
including the identification of the Jews as Islam’s inherent enemies - in order
to legitimize his theories and aspirations. Al-Afghani argued that just like in
the era of the Glory of Islam, in order to acquire the latest teachings,
scientific achievements and other aspects of modernity, Muslims had no
alternative but to cooperate with, as well as accept help of, non-Muslims.
But this seeming cooperation was only a temporary measure permissible only
until the Muslims got what they needed. Al-Afghani wrote:
Therefore, notwithstanding the glory, splendor, and greatness of Islam
and the Muslims, in order to exalt and elevate knowledge, they
lowered their heads and showed humility before the lowest of their
subjects, who were the Christians, Jews, and Magians, until, with their
help, they translated the philosophical sciences from Persian, Syriac,
and Greek into Arabic.46
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 21
At that point, once the non-Muslims had outlived their usefulness to the
Muslim World, they could once again be treated as enemies - a common
denominator with the populist sentiments. Thus, in order to allay fears of
foreign influence, al-Afghani repeatedly argued that in the latter part of the
19th Century, as at the height of Islam’s Golden Age, there was a need to use
non-Muslims as an instrument to acquire modernism, and that no genuine
alliance was possible or desirable.
Meanwhile, the military-strategic dynamics of Muhammad Ali and his son
Ibrahim Pasha in their struggle against the Ottoman Empire was having a
direct impact on the well being of the non-Muslim minorities. First in Egypt,
and then in Palestine and Syria, they required the support and patronage of
the European powers in order to build their de-facto independent state and to
deter Turkey from reclaiming strategically important areas now only
nominally considered part of the Ottoman Empire. The price was permitting
the Europeans to reach the Levant, particularly expanding European and
American missionary and educational work among the fledgling Arab middle
class. Most important, Muhammad Ali promised to grant greater freedoms -
though never complete equality and emancipation - to the local Christian
communities. This dynamics had an immediate impact on the political fabric
in the region. Indeed, the most important and influential nationalist
intellectuals in the Levant were Christian Arabs who had been educated by,
and enjoyed support from, the foreign missionaries and educators. They
formulated the concepts of contemporary Arab nationalism and political
thinking and culture.47
Meanwhile, these developments lead to the spread of both Westernized
acculturation of the intelligentsia, and the consequent adoption of not only
Western-style nationalism but also the discovery of European, particularly
French, anti-Semitism. The conservative Catholic institutions distributed in
the Levant the key books and pamphlets of the mid and late 19th Century.
Professor Bernard Lewis stresses the importance of the European influence to
the emergence of modern anti-Semitism in the Muslim world.
22 Yossef Bodansky
The theme of money - of the Jew as disposing of vast financial power,
through which he seeks to control the destinies of nations - was
familiar in European anti-Semitic literature. It was new to the Islamic
world, but made rapid progress, and appears in a number of Turkish
and Arabic writings of the time. Even in this early period,
anti-Semitic themes made an occasional appearance in the discussion
of the problem, but at this stage true anti-Semitism was largely
European and Christian. Clergymen and missionaries of various kinds
were strongly represented among the foreign population in Palestine
and the immediately adjoining areas, and exercised a considerable
influence, at least on their coreligionists.48
Islamdom proved a very willing recipient of the themes of European
anti-Semitism. Theirs was not a mere superficial rendering of slogans.
Rather, Robert Wistrich stressed, Muslim writers, “even when they exploit
Western anti-Semitic images and concepts, usually manage to link these
imported notions in a natural, even an organic manner, with ideas from
within their own cultural tradition.”49
This integration of “classic” anti-Semitic themes into the Islamic
socio-political culture is still prevalent in both the media and the populist
street throughout the Muslim world. Meanwhile, the depth and extent of
penetration of anti-Semitism into populist street culture in the mid I9lh
Century was reflected in such things as curses. In the Maghrib, for example,
Jews were featured in numerous curses. “May God curse me like a Jew,”
was one popular curse. And a popular tradition in Morocco was “If a Jew
enters the house of a Moor,, the angels will desert it for 40 days.”50
The influence of the Christian-European anti-Semitism burst into the open in
1840 during the Damascus blood libel. Christian officials supported by the
French consul general accused leaders of the local Jewish community with
the killing of a Christian and the use of his blood for baking Matza bread.
Under pressure, the Turkish authorities arrested and tortured the leadership of
the Damascus Jewish community. It took major intervention by main
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 23
European powers to close the case.51 But the legacy lives on. (As discussed
below, the Damascus Blood Libel will resurface in Syria in the 1980s with a
major political connotations for the Assad Government.) By the time the
Jews of Damascus were exonerated, the legitimization of this “classic”
accusation against Jews had been spread and accepted throughout the Muslim
world?' The blood libel issue reached epidemic proportions in the I9’h
Century throughout the Ottoman Empire with public accusations often
followed by outbreaks of violence. The Damascus Blood Libel of 1840 was
the first major outburst that inspired frequent repetitions. By the time the
Ottoman empire fell in the aftermath of the First World War, the blood libel
had become almost commonplace. The key examples were in Aleppo (1810,
1850, 1875), Antioch (1826), Damascus (1840, 1848, 1890), Tripoli (1834),
Beirut (1862, 1874), Dayr al-Qamar (1847), Jerusalem (1847), Cairo (1844,
1890, 1901-1902), Mansura (1877), Alexandria (1870,1882,1901-1907), Port
Said (1903, 1908), Damanhur (1871, 1873, 1877, 1891), Istanbul
(1870,1874), Buyukdere (1864), Kuzguncuk (1866), Eyub (1868), Edirne
(1872), Izmir (1872, 1874), and more frequently in the Greek and Balkan
provinces where Christians constituted a majority of the native population.
In contrast, in both Iran and Morocco, this particular accusation remained
virtually unknown during the 19,h Century despite the common hostility
toward Jews. This distinction can be explained by the absence of Christian
presence and relatively low European influence?’ In other words, in the 19lh
Century Islamdom there was a direct correlation between the strength of
West European influence and prevalence of blood libels.
By now, however, major changes should have been taking place in the lives
of Jews under Islam. Back in 1839, Sultan Abd-al-Majid issued an edict that
canceled the Dhimmi status and accorded the Christian and Jewish population
of the Ottoman Empire equal status. These decrees followed the
emancipation of the Jews in the various Muslim colonies of the European
powers. Claiming to be the representative of the entire Muslim World, the
Ottoman Empire could not ignore the trend. Initially, however, there was
little change in the status of the non-Muslim minorities for all the distinct
characteristics of Dhimmitude remained in effect. While the Jizya was
24 Yossef Bodansky
officially abolished, the Jews had to pay a new tax - the Badl-i-Askar - a
compulsory military tax as a ransom for not serving in the military. An
important distinction, given that Dhimmitude does not permit non-Muslims to
bear arms?4
In the longer term, the emancipation of the Dhimmis of the Ottoman Empire
proved a profound development. “The emancipation of the Dhimmis implied
a fundamental transformation of values. A new universalist concept came to
the fore: rights replaced the former concept of toleration," Bat Ye’or
explains, [emphasis in original]
Indeed, the Sultan’s edicts notwithstanding, society was far from ready to
accept the new social developments, let alone implement the new policies.
In nineteenth-century Islamic societies, where inequality between
Dhimmis and Muslims still represented the norm, the concepts of
rights and equality appeared to Muslim traditionalists as subversive
heresies, imposed by Christendom in order to weaken Islam?’
Most important was the question of implementation of these edicts by the
local governors throughout the Empire. For example, in 1841, two years
after the proclamation of the Hatt-i Sherif of Gulhane that codified equal
rights to all subjects, the British Consul-General in Beirut noted:
It is a curious fact that only a little more than half a year after the
reading and proclamation of the Haiti Sheriff of Gulhane in this
country there has been a general reaction in favor of the Koran and of
the exclusive privileges of the Mahometans over Christians in
diametrical opposition to the doctrine of equality of all before the law
which is the essence of the Haiti Sheriff?6 [Spelling as in the original.]
However, changes were nevertheless taking place where the Ottoman
government could impose its policies. Officially, Jews and Christians were
now permitted to attend public schools and get higher education, as well as
get government employ. Significant improvement was noted in the aftermath
of the great reform decree of 1856. When the first Turkish Parliament
convened in 1876, the four most important Jewish communities were
represented by Jews, and in 1909, the Jews and Christians were accorded the
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 25
last of equal rights - compulsory military service. As a result of the growing
freedoms, there was a distinct change in the status and fortunes of Jews under
Islam. In the central parts of the Ottoman Empire, there was a distinct
urbanization of the Jewish population leading to a marked improvement in
education and, consequently, the economic posture. There was even some
secularization in these urban communities as Jews began attending higher
schools and universities. Consequently, Jews became increasingly involved
in local social and political circles, and a few were even nominated judges by
the Ottoman authorities?7
Ultimately, the emancipation of Jews and Christians was the cause of
complex socio-political dynamics: The emergence of two distinct national
liberation ideologies - Zionism for the Jews and pan-Arabism for the
Christians of Islamdom. The latter was an inclusive doctrine that sought to
win Muslim Arabs away from pan-Islamism and into this joint doctrine. In
order to gain popularity and acceptance for their pan-Arab doctrines, the
Arab Christian activists emphasized the low common denominator they
shared with the Muslim population - with anti-Judaism and anti-Jewish
posture emerging as central themes.
However, the Arabness that rose from this nationalist revivalism was fueled
by the legacy of past military conquests, triumphs and glory. As such, this
Arabness was militant, chauvinistic and hostile to all minorities in its midst -
particularly the Jews. This hostility deepened as the non-Muslim minorities
of the Ottoman Empire - Jews, Serbs, Greeks, Bulgarians, Armenians -
began aspiring and struggling for national self-identity and national
liberation. In reacting to these trends, the Ottoman Empire returned to the
practice of Dhimmitude - albeit in a more refined, selective and concealed
manner?8
Meanwhile, starting the 19th Century, Jews were having a major impact on
the modernization and urbanization trends in the entire Muslim World by
setting the precedent of importing a European national liberation movement
into the heart of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire was hostile to the
Zionist movement from its inception. Zionism was considered a major
security threat to the Empire. The Ottoman Empire was afraid - for
26 Yossef Bodansky
objective, political reasons - of the flow of Jews who were Russian citizens
given the hostility with Russia (including three major wars in the 19th
Century alone), and the growing influence of the European powers that had
only recently assisted the revolt in Egypt. After Young Turks assumed
power, they introduced changes in Turkey’s attitude toward both Zionism
and the Jewish problem as a whole. The Young Turks were motivated by
both the prevailing political circumstances in the Middle East in the early 20,h
Century, and ideological reasons - namely, their nationalism and
Turko-centrism - that thus considered any national liberation movement a
threat to their hegemony and hold over the Empire. The latter perception was
essentially correct as proven by subsequent historical developments.
Moreover, there was a significant Arab presence in the Turkish Parliament
and other government entities established by the Young Turks in their efforts
to preserve the Empire. These Arabs were very hostile to both Zionism and
Jews. The Arab factor tilted Turkey’s policy into a harsher stand against
Jews. Ultimately, on the eve of, and during, the First World War, Turkish
authorities exploited the growing socio-economic tensions between Arabs
and Jew's in Palestine in order to instigate hatred, including expressions of
anti-Semitism?9
The early 20lh Century found the rise of Arab nationalism intertwined with a
host of crises and challenges throughout the Hub of Islam. The Muslim
World had to confront and cope with a series of major challenges to the
status quo that existed before the First World War - the penetration of the
West, including the emergence of nationalist Zionism at the heart of the Hub
of Islam, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the sense of Arab-lslamic
socio-political unity. Significantly, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and
the establishment of European colonies (Mandate areas and
quasi-independent states) in most of the Arab World shocked both
traditionalist Islam and Arab nationalism. Leaders, intellectuals and
preachers sought to ride the widespread shock and hostility in order to further
one form or another of all-Arab or all-lslamic unity. Consequently, the
reaction to all these trends had strong anti-Jewish sentiments as unifying
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 27
factors - being the lowest common denominator of the various segments of
population throughout the region. This distinction was not lost on aspirant
populist politicians.
The initial phase in the development of radical revivalist Islam as a militant
movement also began in the wake of the First World War, that is, the collapse
of the Ottoman Empire. The British and allied occupation was followed by
the establishment of alien entities called states,and the imposition of rulers
from Arabia, thus inciting a general shake-up of the Arab World.
Consequently, the political awareness and activism of the intellectuals in the
Near East burst into the open. Most vibrant were the ideologies calling for the
revival of a unified Arab or Islamic entity, be it Islamic or Westernized
nationalism or Soviet communism. A German observer noted the dominance
of this trend already in 1930.
Beneath the cleavages and differentiation brought about in the Hither
East by the War and the Peace, beneath the restless variety, the
complex problems, the internal tensions and conflicts, there is no
mistaking the historical tendencies and streams of consciousness
driving steadily towards unity. This convergence of forces is not new,
it is the revival of a past still living and acting in men’s minds, in
customs and songs, in turns of speech, and in the everyday products of
a civilization.60
Attempts at state building under British domination, closely associated with
secularization and modernization, were met by a growing resistance of
segments of the Muslim population. Devout Muslims, many of them
working for the newly established state establishment, saw in the popular
following of Western way of life a serious threat to the Islamic way of life.
In 1928, Hassan al-Banna, an Egyptian teacher, founded the Society of
Muslim Brethren (Muslim Brotherhood) to resist Western influence and
secularism. The organization would become the “prototype of the
contemporary Islamicist movement”.61 However, Western educated
intellectuals anticipated Western-style Arab nationalism to gradually
transform Egypt, or at least its urban centers, into a modern society. By the
early 1930s, these intellectuals were already horrified by the transformation
28 Yossef Bodansky
of Western money into corruption and despotism by the new ruling elite.
They gave up on Westernization in Egypt and advocated that Egypt’s
salvation and future can be found only in the fold of Islam. Hasnein Haikal, a
leading Egyptian intellectual and author, presented this grim realization in a
unique personal way in 1933:
I have tried to transfer to those who speak my language the moral and
spiritual culture of the West in order that we would take it as a guide
and a light for us. However, 1 came to recognize after a while that I
am planting the seed where it cannot grow... and no life came to it. I
then turned to seek in our deep history of the Pharaohs a source of
inspiration for this era in which it would grow a new growth.
However, 1 found that time and mental stagnation have cut all ties
between us and that time which could provide a seed for a new'
revival. 1 searched again and saw that our Islamic history is the only
seed which grows and fruits. There is no escape therefore except to
return to our history in order to seek the foundations of the moral life
in order to avoid the danger that the nationalist ideas forced the West
into.62
Meanwhile, the immediate impact of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and
the establishment of new nation-states controlled by European powers in the
aftermath of the First World War began to subside. The Arab power
structure throughout the Middle East adapted to the new realities and a new'
cycle of quests for power and riches began. Consequently, starting the mid
1920s, the struggle for power within the Arab population of British Palestine
intensified. Of particular importance was the quest of the Maglisin
movement, dominated by the Hussayni family - led by Hajj Amin
al-Husseini - for dominance over that Arab population. It was a fierce
struggle whose outcome meant empowerment by the British Mandate
authorities and thus a hold over the local power structure and all related
benefits. To demonstrate to the British Mandate authorities they were
enjoying Arab popular support, Hajj Amin al-Husseini and his coterie began
a campaign of systematic agitation of the most populist themes - the
exploitation of Islamic militancy.6’
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 29
Indeed, Hajj Amin al-Husseini’s fiery use of virulent anti-Jewish incitement
- distinct from the anti-Zionist incitement of the Arab nationalist elite - won
him the popular support of the Arab street. The dominant theme of the
incitement leading to the 1929 Arab revolt was based on traditional militant
Islamic and anti-Jewish motifs - urging the Shabab [Arab youth and mob] to
fight/slaughter “the Jews” [Itbakh al-Yahnd] and not just the Zionists.
Indeed, most of the Jewish victims of the 1929 revolt were members of the
well established veteran Jewish communities that had lived in the midst of
Arab cities for centuries, maintaining good neighborly relations with the local
Arab population, and NOT the relatively new settlements established by, and
identified with, the Zionist movement against whom the revolt was ostensibly
directed.64 The primary outcome of the 1929 revolt was the raising of the
chauvinistic and militant pan-Arab, and later even pan-lslamic, character of
the Palestinian problem. The Arab incitement of the 1930s moved the
Palestine problem out of the context of localized clashes over such issues as
resources, roads, and water between the Zionist build-up and a nearby Arab
rural population.65
Concurrently, in the late 1930s, the leadership of the Egyptian Muslim
Brotherhood had to resort to anti-Semitic incitement, including a call for the
boycotting of Jewish-owned stores, in order to bring the Arab revolt in
Palestine into the awareness of the average Egyptian.
Make no mistake that the danger to Palestine is evident. Our brothers
in Palestine are resisting them, risking their lives. But the Jewish
threat to Egypt is impending, so take the initiative, boycott them and
cast them out, for they have corrupted Egypt and its population.
Egyptian Jews, rather than the Zionists in Palestine, were defined as “social
cancer” afflicting society as a whole. Numerous articles discussed the threat
posed by Egyptian Jews to Egypt in the context of the international Jewish
conspiracy against all Arabs and Muslims. Similarly, the nascent anti-British
Islamist propaganda also included strong anti-Jewish themes, identifying the
Egyptian Jewish community as an integral component of the imperialist rule.
“The threat of the Jews in Egypt”, became a recurring topic of articles and
30 Yossef Bodansky
studies in the Brotherhood’s media. Traditional European anti-Semitic
themes, such as the Jewish-Masonic conspiracies, were also used in the
Egyptian Islamist media. And while the Ikhwan's propaganda did not go
beyond virulent verbal attacks, it did set the precedent of using domestic
anti-Semitic themes in order to attract the attention of the local Muslim
population to such issues as the Palestinian problem.66
Meanwhile, the intensification of Muslim anti-Semitism following the rise of
Nazi Germany was only natural, for the Arabs expected Nazi Germany to
defeat the British and French as well as annihilate the Jews. Most effective,
therefore, was the reliance on anti-Semitism by Hajj Amin al-Husseini and
his followers in order to get support from the Arab World, and later from
Hitler’s Germany and the Bosnian Muslims, for a Jihad to annihilate the
Jews of Palestine.67 Hajj Amin spend the Second World War in Germany
and Italy, providing active support for the Germans in recruiting Bosnian
Muslims as well as Muslim minorities of the then Soviet Union for dedicated
SS units. The objective he set for these recruits were clear. “Kill the Jews
wherever you find them - this pleases God, history and religion,” he declared
in March 1944. Hajj Amin and his coterie did not shy away from aiding and
abetting the Nazi mass murder.68 Indeed, most important and effective was
Hajj Amin’s contribution to the German war effort in Yugoslavia where the
Bosnian Muslim SS units, particularly the Hanjar Division, took active part
in the brutal suppression of the local resistance movements. The Germans
published Hajj Amin’s booklet - Islam and the Jews - in both German and
Croatian for distribution to the Bosnian Muslim SS units during the war as a
major motivational literature that was used to incite not only slaughter of
Jews but also of Serbs.6’ Belatedly, even Hitler realized the importance of
the Arab-Muslim contribution to the German cause and the opportunities
missed by not making a better use of the Muslim World. He lamented in
February 1945 that the Arabs might have served as “our best card” because
"the Islamic world was quivering in the expectation of our victory.”70
In the aftermath of the Second World War and the establishment of the State
of Israel Hajj Amin continued to espouse virulent hatred to Jews as a
central point of his ideological conviction.71 David Pryce-Jones elucidates
the centrality and prominence of the hatred of Jews in Hajj Amin’s legacy.
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 31
These, then, were the images and preconceptions to which Hajj Amin
could appeal once he became the leading Palestinian power holder. In
memoirs written at the end of his life, when the bankruptcy of these
images and preconceptions was starkly visible, he was still speaking
of the Jews as “notorious for perfidy and falsification and distortion
and cruelty of which the noble Qu’ran provides the strongest
testimony against them.” His hatred for Jews was instinctive, tribal;
he wished to cut them down, declaring to their face, “Nothing but the
sword will decide the future of this country.” That this came true
amid calamity and ruin was Hajj Amin’s memorial to posterity.72
This distinction illuminates the important role and strong impact that Hajj
Amin al-Husseini and his message of hate have had on the formulation of
Arab and Palestinian political awareness in the second half of the 2O'h
century. His virulent anti-Semitism still influences the evolution of the
Arabs’ approach to the State of Israel. It is not by accident that Yasser Arafat
considers Hajj Amin an inspiration and claims to be a relative of his.
32 Yossef Bodansky
CHAPTER 3:
JEWS AND THE MODERN MUSLIM STATE - I950s-I970s
•
The emergence of a post WW11 world has been a traumatic experience for the
Muslim World. Western-dominated modernity wrought a major aggravation
of the prevailing crisis of identity and inability to cope with modernization -
particularly the modern-day nation state problem. The crisis still afflicting
the contemporary Arab World has its roots in almost a thousand years of
socio-political trials and tribulations. Toward the end of the last millennium,
as the Arab Empire began to crumble, the true power in the Muslim World
gradually shifted to the Persians and Turkics that built the true world powers
and empires of their days. These Muslim powers functioned within the
highest levels of world politics of their day. This process continued until the
beginning of their decline as of 1798, the date of Napoleon’s arrival in Egypt
and the beginning of the modern Western subjugation of the Muslim World.
There followed the Russian wars with Turkey and the conquest of Central
Asia in the 19th Century, peaking in the collapse and occupation of the
Turkish Empire by Britain in the First World War and the ensuing artificial
redrawing of the Middle East’s map by the imperialist powers.
The overall outcome of these developments has been a traumatic experience
from which the Muslim World, particularly the Hub of Islam, is yet to
emerge. Historically, Muslims have identified themselves in two frames of
reference that are, to use contemporary Western terminology, the
supra-national and sub-national. Significantly, both frameworks of
self-identification are different from the primary framework used in the
modern world - the nation-state. The supra-national identity is the
self-identification of all Muslims with a single entity - the Ummah - and
pan-Islamism. The rise of political awareness in Muslim World led to the
emergence of sub-identities such as pan-Turkism and pan-Arabism that are
still all-embracing. The sub-national identity is the blood relation - clans,
tribes, extended families, etc. - that dominated the everyday life of Muslims
throughout their history.73 Thence, in the aftermath of the First World War
and the Russian Revolution, not only was the Muslim World carved up by the
Western powers into new state-like entities that had nothing to do with the
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 33
character and aspirations of the indigenous population, but new and alien
ruling elites - be they royal families propped up by the Western colonial
powers or communist elites propped up by the Soviets - were imposed upon
the population.
Consequently, even though the various ruling elites continue to hold on to
power in their respective nation-states through the use of force and
suppression, the Muslim World has rejected the legitimacy and notion of the
nation-state as a viable frame of identification. Even though the global
posture compels the functioning of nation-states throughout the Hub of Islam,
the question of their legitimization has never been resolved. Indeed, since the
1960s, the Muslim World has been bouncing back - initially with the rise of
Arab-dominated radicalism as the catalyst for an Islamic resurgence as a
Third World ideology. However, Arabism could not sustain as a
revolutionary ideology. In retrospect, this Arab “revolt” served as a spark
and inspiration for the new rise of the Persian-Turkic power as the guiding
force in the revival of pan-lslam in a dangerous and turbulent world.
Perhaps the most significant aspect of the Western influence on the Muslim
World, and especially the Near East, has been the establishment of numerous
independent states and the repeated attempts to come up with legitimate
leadership and ruling elites for these states. Accepting and pursuing
statehood was perceived by the region's intellectuals as a primary expression
of the Arabs’ and Muslims’ modernity and progress. Indeed, virtually all
recent political events in the Middle East, from the Islamic Revolution to the
endless series of military coups and dictatorships, are all, in the words of
Professor Elie Kedourie,
The outcome, thus far, of one hundred and fifty years of tormented
endeavor to discard the old ways, which have ceased to satisfy and to
replace them with something modern, eye-catching, and attractive.
The torment does not seem likely to end soon. 4
Indeed, virtually all the leaders of country states sought legitimization and
justification in pan-Arab ideologies and terminologies, such as Ba'athism and
Nasserism, as the standard bearers of greater designs. Although these leaders
34 Yossef Bodansky
proved incapable of realizing their aspirations despite cycles of wars and
conspiracies, they continued to cling to their pan-Arab credentials as the sole
source of their legitimacy. Consequently, Tamara Sonn explained,
The continued failure of the Arab leaders has spawned yet another
reaction. The pan-Arab ideal was a counterfeit criterion of political
success, predisposed to breed failure. It imposed a standard of
political legitimacy unsuitable for the means required to achieve it. It
called for geopolitically limited states to work with geopolitically
unlimited leadership. The competition among regional leaders forthat
position was bound to breed instability. And the more those leaders
failed, the more their peoples suffered.73
Meanwhile, the progressive intellectuals did not bother, let alone succeed, to
convince the Muslim masses of the need and justification to break away from
Islamic tenets and adopt country states [nation-states] instead. Moreover, the
oppression of the various dictatorships, both military regimes and
conservative monarchies, did very little to endear and legitimize the concept
of state to the masses. With the overall disappointment from modern world
order, primarily because domestic socio-economic reasons, there emerged an
indigenous backlash demanding return to the roots of traditional Islam. The
Muslim masses are drawn into the era of confessional politics. The
population throughout the Muslim world aspires to return to Islam in its
genuine and original meaning - all encompassing way of life covering both
State and Church in the Western terminology. They demand that their rulers
also return to their Islamic roots which reject the notions of statehood and the
separation of Church and State. Thus, in essence, the return to Islam raises
the question of the legitimacy and authority of the various ruling elites.
This process is joined by a new generation of an Arab educated elite and
intellectuals who are convinced that there is no substitute for a
comprehensive unity replacing the existing states if the Muslim Arab world is
to survive. They argue that:
The country states that undermined the foundations of the Arab
regional order are now faced with a threat to their survival, and their
first option is therefore to attempt to close the breaches that are
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 35
threatening their existence, in the yet unfulfilled hope of ensuring their
future, which is at risk unless they modify some of their patterns of
conduct.76
In its quest to survive and flourish in the emerging modern world, the Arab
elite sees in any form of partial unity, such as a staunch coalition of country
states to realize a certain common objective, an important beginning on the
road toward Arab/Muslim unity.
However, after decades of preoccupation with Arab unity based on some
forms of Arab nationalism, a solution based on the principle of statehood is
proving increasingly illusive. Searching for the political form of the aspired
for Arab unity, Arab intellectuals have to acknowledge that:
Arab nationalism... has proved to be a myth in as much as it was
oriented toward the utopia of a United Arab State. Technically, this
utopia is feasible since it is based on the idea of an overall Arab
nation-state which is compatible with the contemporary world order of
nation-states. Ideologically, however, this dream has been replaced
currently by the illusion of political Islam, which lacks all structural
requirements for its achievement.77
Both the rising popular support for political Islam and the disenchantment of
elites from Arab nationalism drive home the realization that a contemporary
version of pan-Arabism/pan-lslam is ultimately the sole solution for the
Muslim/Arab World.
The polity of all Arab regimes since the Second World War has been
characterized by the constant struggle of the various Arab leaders and
regimes to hold to power despite the Islamist tide of both elites and popular
masses. This struggle has been manifested in the repeated attempts to
consolidate alternate ideological and strategic trends that would secure the
rulers’ and regimes’ stay in power while retaining their Islamic legitimacy.
The most favored expedient solution, basically the only one that had some
semblance of positive reaction from the street as well as the military and
security organs, the key to survival of any regime, was mobilization for
struggles against Israel and the US. An instrument for the eradication of
36 Yossef Bodansky
Israel and the reimposition of Dhimmitude over the Jews, contemporary
Jihad has proven to be the lowest common denominator throughout the
region and a genuine aspiration of virtually everybody.78 Consequently, it
has become incumbent upon the leaders of the new Islamist trend to justify
their right to power by leading the long sought after and promised Jihad as
the sole measure of their legitimacy in the eyes of elites and masses alike.
The Arab reaction to the establishment of Israel in 1948 fell into this pattern.
For the Arabs, Israel’s triumph amounted to more than just the humiliation of
the Arab defeat and the establishment of a Jewish state on a land claimed by
Muslims. Given the grave Islamic political and strategic ramifications, the
establishment of Israel is considered a Naqbah - calamity, holocaust. Amir
Taheri defined the significance of the mere existence of Israel to the Arab
world:
Israel was Jewish, democratic, largely western, socialistic and
independent - reasons for which it could not but be disliked and
feared by almost all the elites in its neighboring countries. More
importantly, Israel humiliated the Arabs by its very existence. It stood
out as a symbol of Arab divisions and weakness, a living testimony to
the fact that all Arab nations had fallen by the roadside in the forward
march of history. A rational reaction would have been to devote all
energies to removing the causes of which the emergence of Israel in
the midst of the Arab world was, at least in part, nothing but an effect.
But the Arab reaction was emotional. Israel was seen as the cause of
all the ills that afflicted the Arabs. Arab propaganda of both right and
left developed the idea that the destruction of Israel would, as if by
magic, solve all of the problems faced by Arab societies. Since it is
apparently more human to unite against something rather than for
something, Israel gradually became the major, if not the only, unifying
factor in Arab politics.79
Indeed, the shock also became an integral part of a larger context and
regional dynamics with all relevant forces exploiting the widespread shock
and disbelief to push their own agendas. The Islamists see in the Naqbah not
only the Jewish insult, but the evil roots of the rise of militant Arab
nationalism and the Arab military regimes - all established ostensibly in
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 37
order to acquire better military capabilities to fight and destroy Israel. Thus
both Arab regimes and their Islamist opposition have been using Israel’s
existence and the grassroots hatred for Jews to furthfer their own causes and
objectives. Consequently, the anti-lsraeli/Jewish cause has become the one
absolute subject unifying regimes, leaders, the masses and the Islamists.
For the Arab establishment, particularly the military-political elite, the mere
existence of Israel was a traumatic experience with very practical
ramifications for the defense establishment. The Arab establishment was
convinced that the very existence of Israel constituted a threat to Arab
security and very existence of Arab statehood. The legitimacy of Arabness
would not be consolidated and affirmed until the land of Israel is returned to
Arab control. The continued existence of Israel also constitutes a major blot
on the Arab Honor. Maj. Gen. Hassan Mustafah stressed the enduring impact
of the Naqbah'.
The leaders of Zionism thought in the past that in the aftermath of the
establishment of Israel the Arabs would acquiesce to the prevailing
reality and, with the passage of time, would acknowledge its [Israel’s]
existence in their midst. However, events proved the error in their
thinking. The Arabs consider the establishment of the State of Israel
as the worst/most horrific holocaust that afflicted their nation. This
holocaust touched the quintessence of their national honor and
greatness, and had since been one of the primary impetus to their
revival, their liberation from imperialism, their revolting against the
prevailing conditions in their states, and their getting rid of these
rulers they considered responsible for this holocaust.80
Thus, for the Arab establishment, the Naqbah and its ramifications have
remained a living and perpetually unfolding reality. As Israel continued to
exist, its destruction - the overturning of the Naqbah - was becoming a
greater urgency.
But there was also “Real Politique” in the Arab World in the early to mid
1950s. Most important was the power struggle for hegemony over the Arab
World between Egypt’s Gamal Abd-al-Nasser and Iraq’s Nuri Sa’id. his
struggle peaked over the question of the Baghdad Pact. The first crucial
38 Yossef Bodansky
round was the outcome of the effort by the US and Britain to establish a
regional defense organization - the Baghdad Pact - as part of the anti-Soviet
system of alliances attempted in the early 1950s. In response, the USSR
bolstered the position of both Gamal Abd-al-Nasser and progressive “circles”
throughout the Arab World. That effort by the superpowers kindled a
political dispute between Iraq and Egypt that involved their respective allies
over the guiding ideology of the Arab World. The essence of Arabism and
Arabness, as well as the role of the leader of the Arab World (with Nasser
and Nuri Sa’id vying for this position), were defined during this era.
Significantly, even though these political disputes throughout the Arab World
had nothing to do with Israel or the Jews, the Israel “factor” was repeatedly
used by all as a vehicle for legitimization, gaining popular/populist
recognition and support, particularly at the grassroots, as well as for the
deligitimization of hostile Arab regimes.81 It was in this context, that Nasser
for the first time made a cynical use of the Israeli question in order to gain
power and divert attention throughout the Arab World away from Nuri
Sa’id’s ascent.
Given the inherent anti-Jewishness among Arab leaders, the reliance on such
sentiments to further political objectives was quite natural. The anti-Jewish
sentiments expressed by Nuri Sa’id in a 1951 private conversation with an
eminent Arab historian can serve as an example of his real opinions. The
historian suggested that it would be expedient for Iraq to prevent Jew'ish
emigration as a form of pressure on Israel and the West until “the Palestinian
and refugee problems are settled”. Nuri Sa'id responded, emphasizing his
hate toward Jews.
The Jews have always been and will be forever a source of evil and
mischief for Iraq. They are spies... They do not possess land which
they can sow. So how will they live? What would they do if they
remained in Iraq? No, my friend, we had better get rid of them, so
long as the opportunity for getting rid of them is open.82
And Nuri Sa’id’s perception of the Jews - their inherent evil and threat to the
Muslims in whose midst they dwell - was commonly accepted throughout
the Arab political and intellectual elite. These sentiments only intensified in
the aftermath of the Naqbah and the inner-Arab power and ideological
struggles.
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 39
Since the 1950s, waving the anti-Israel flag has thus become a must
component in any quest for pan-Arab hegemony - that is, establishing
political and ideological hegemony over the entire Arab World. The
dominant and domineering character of the Arab political culture in the first
decades after the Second World War made the use of virulent hatred toward
anybody - let alone the Jews and Israel - an effective instrument of populist
agitation. The effectiveness of the Israeli/Jewish card as a means of
generating popular support and legitimization, even in the pursuit of regional
hegemonic and all-Arab ideological and political objectives, was not lost on
Nasser and all other aspiring Arab leaders, as well as their Muslim
opposition.
The use of anti-Zionism by governments as an excuse for turning on Jews as
the national nemesis - including hurting the local Jewish communities - has
thus become a convenient instrument in the hands of the new dictatorial
regimes. In that respect, Arab regimes found it most expedient to rely on the
common and deeply-rooted anti-Jewishness prevailing throughout the Arab
World, among both the intellectual elite and the populist street, in order to get
their message across. This propaganda was falling on fertile ground. David
Pryce-Jones noted the similarity in stereotypes of Jews throughout the Arab
World and at all strata of society. He tells of
Muhammad Kurd Ali [who] in his memoirs quoted with approval a
letter he had received from an Arab orientalist in 1949. For 2000
years, this correspondent wrote, the Jews had spread like lice on a
healthy body. “In our day they control gold and finance in America.
In our own country and in Russia they head many of the public
works... Everyone knows the Jew is corrupt and venomous.”
Similar sentiments were prevalent among the working class. For example:
Al-Hajj Muhammad, the Moroccan street-trader, still speaks for
millions of Arabs today when he says, “Whenever I work for a
Christian or a Jew, 1 feel dirty and I go to the hatnmam [public bath].”
He adds, “There is nothing worse than the Jews. The Jew is only
happy when he has cheated a Muslim.”83
40 Yossef Bodansky
In his study of the social consequences of the Arab World’s return to
Islamism, Jean-Pierre Peroncel-Hugoz stresses the prevalence and political
expediency of reliance on populist “anti-Semitism” for socio-political
objectives. He notes a June 1965 article in Les Temps Modernes by an
unknown Moroccan named Sa’id Ghallab (could be a pseudonym) that boldly
confronted the issue of anti-Jewish sentiments throughout Morocco, and the
Muslim World as a whole.
The worst insult that a Moroccan can make to another is to call him a
Jew. My childhood friends have remained anti-Jewish. They veil
their virulent anti-Semitism by asserting that the state of Israel was the
creation of Western imperialism. My Communist comrades
themselves have fallen into this trap. Not one issue of a Communist
newspaper has denounced the anti-Semitism of the Moroccans. And a
whole myth of Hitler is cultivated among the lower classes. They
exalt (and delight in) the massacre of the Jews carried out by Hitler.
They even believe that Hitler is not dead. And they expect his arrival
to deliver the Arabs from Israel.84
Thus, although the declared enemy of the Arabs is Zionism, there has never
been any doubt as to the ultimate objective of the Arabs’ ire and hatred.
Virtually all studies of Zionism, its sins against and threats to the Arab and
Muslim World, stress that the objective of Zionism is the “Judaization” of
Palestine. The realization of this objective entails the reversal and
destruction of the Arabness of Palestine - a phenomenon that is wholly
unacceptable not only to the Arabs, but to all Muslims as well. Hence, there
is no alternative to drastic reversal of the gains of Zionism - the destruction
of the State of Israel. Thus, the post-Naqbah Arab/Muslim deligitimization
of Zionism included the assertion that the Zionists are the driving force
behind Anti-Semitism in the world, striving to create hostile or adverse
conditions for Jews so that they migrate to Palestine/Israel and evict the
Arabs.8’
An important theme that arose in the 1950s-1960s with the consolidation of
Israel is the urgent need to rationalize how the loathed Jews of the tiny Israel
could have defeated the Arab World and sustain their state despite
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 4]
overwhelming odds against them. This was a major quandary given the
relentless derogatory anti-Jewish propaganda and incitement sweeping the
Arab World. For example, an article in the November 16, 1964, issue of
al-Quwwat al-Musallaha (the Egyptian armed forces weekly) attempted to
grapple with this quandary:
The Jew in his very soul and character has not the qualities of a man
who bears arms. He is not naturally prepared to sacrifice for anything,
not even for his son or his wife. If there is today in Israel a man who
bears arms, he does this because he is sure that there is another man
who will precede him, who will stand in front of him not behind him
in order to defend him when the time comes. Were it not for that, no
Jew in the world would agree to bear arms.86
The Muslim rationalization of, and excuse for, the enduring humiliation of
the Naqbah despite the inherent character of the Jews has been that the
Zionist Jews in Israel are but the spearhead of the world-wide Zionist
movement that, in turn, took over the entire Jewish people. This rationale
enables the Arabs to bring to the fore the plethora of classic Anti-Semitic
conspiracies about the Jewish control of the world. The logic behind this
evolution is simple - it is not the few Zionists in Israel that the Arab/Muslim
World is confronting in Israel, but the forward post and vanguard of a global
conspiracy that had already devoured Western countries and devastated the
world’s economy. Moreover, in order to continuously enhance its power and
posture, Zionism transforms Judaism into a nationalist-chauvinist movement,
thus twisting the religious essence of Judaism. In so doing, Zionism is
destroying the Jewish communities world wide, and through this afflicts the
other peoples and religions with whom the Jews are neighbors.
Consequently, the Zionists the Arab/Muslim World are confronting are not
the real Jews and therefore do not deserve the treatment accorded to the
Peoples of the Book in war and peace. Moreover, in confronting Zionism,
the Arabs are in effect defending the real Judaism from the evils of
Zionism.87
Therefore, this logic ultimately led to the blurring of the distinction between
•‘International Judaism” and “International Zionism” as the arch-nemesis of
Arabness, and the driving force behind, and the facilitator of, the continued
42 Yossef Bodansky
existence of Israel. Since the international anti-Semitic terminology,
conceptualization and literature stress the omnipotence and viciousness of the
International Jewry/Judaism as the source of all evil - the Arabs began
shifting their presentation of the relationship between “International Judaism”
and “International Zionism” accordingly. Arab propaganda now began
portraying “International Zionism” as a choice instrument of “International
Judaism”. Abd-Allah al-Thal stresses this relationship:
Many think that Zionism is significantly different from Judaism.
Actually they are one and the same, for Zionism is the implementing
mechanism/machination of international Judaism that is, in turn,
striving to destroy the world and control its fate. ...Zionism, in my
opinion, is the rooted violent despotic Judaism from the days of Moses
to our time.88
In adopting, and increasingly relying on, these themes, the Arabs borrowed,
adopted and adapted the most basic and proverbial themes of the classic
European (Christian) anti-Semitism. The Arab rediscovery of classic
anti-Semitism led to the translation and citation of the Anti-Semitic classics
of the 19th and first half of the 20th century - from The Protocols of the Elders
of Zion to Nazi era material - as proofs of the prevailing problems facing the
Arab and Muslim World. Indeed, numerous Arab writers, especially these
with connections to, or writing on behalf of, Arab governments used this
translated material as scientific sources confirming and reaffirming
observations made in the Middle East by Arab experts. Nasser’s Cairo was at
the lead of this campaign.89
Cairo was actually introduced to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion on the
eve of the Free Officers’ Revolution. The first Egyptian edition of The
Protocols of the Elders of Zion was published in 1951 with an introduction
by Abbas Mahmud al-Arad, one of Egypt’s leading authors. He wondered
why it had taken so long for this “wonderful book” to be published in Egypt.
He stressed that all Arabs must study this book considering that the Arab
World had been the primary victim of these conspiracies since the late I9lh
Century to and since the Naqbah. As an indication of the proven veracity of
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, al-Arad noted that all the book’s
editions, all over the world, were customarily purchased within a week of
their publication.90
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 43
Subsequently, throughout the 1950s-1960s, Arab translations of The
Protocols of the Elders of Zion, as well as diversified analytical literature
based on them, became prevalent throughout the entire Muslim World.
Within a few years, this most hateful literature had massive following not
only in the Arab World but even among Muslim communities outside the
Hub of Islam. The latter is an important phenomena because while one could
argue that the growing anti-Semitism in the Arab World was a direct outcome
of the lingering and bitter Arab-Israeli conflict, the faraway Muslim
communities, including these in Western Europe and the Far East, were not
affected by the Arab-Israeli conflict. Hence, their growing consumption of,
belief in, and involvement with anti-Semitism constituted a manifestation of
the growing anti-Jewish/anti-Judaism character of political Islam - of Islam’s
coping with the modern era.
Meanwhile, the wide variety of anti-Jewish literature - from book to
newspaper articles to movies - flooding the Arab World was horrendous.
This incitement stressed the various evil characteristics of the Jews as
inherent and historical characteristics that no contemporary socio-political
process can alter. For example, Abd-Allah al-Thai argued that the modern
Zionism, as depicted in the anti-Semitic literature, is a direct continuation and
modernization/up-dating of the classic Judaism:
1 enjoin Zionism as a political movement with the Jewish religion that
is based on two firm foundations, which are the Torah and the
Talmud. 1 consider The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to be the third
firm foundation of the essence of the Jewish belief, the one Jews
adhere to.
Given these foundations, al-Thal points out, little wonder that Judaism is “the
religion that planted in their [the Jews’] souls the seeds of crime, enmity,
corruption, evil, savagery, lawlessness, zeal, arrogance, and haughtiness”.91
This depiction of Jews was not only hate-filled, but had a tangible political
objective - to reinforce the ongoing campaign to demonize the Jews and
Israel.
44 Yossef Bodansky
Subsequently, as the volume of anti-Jewish and anti-Judaism publications
expanded, the politically-oriented anti-Jewish propaganda and incitement
throughout the Arab World crossed a major milestone in its maturity and the
centrality of its role in the all-Arab political map. Such books as The
Protocols of the Elders of Zion, or Abd-Allah al-Thal’s The Danger of
International Judaism to Islam and Christianity, or Emil al-Khuri Harb’s The
Jewish Conspiracy Against Christianity were but instruments in a political
campaign. The increasingly politicized incitement stressed the inherent
Jewish threat to the Muslim World: the Jews’ determination to destroy world
order and civilization and establish a Jewish dictatorship in its stead that
would consume all the world’s resources. Moreover, in order to stifle any
future opposition to their world domination, the Jews resolved to destroy all
the other religions of the world, particularly Islam and Christianity, once in
power.92
These are not idle threats to humanity, the Arab propaganda argued. The
Jews are responsible for the outbreaks of all world wars because they are the
only ones who benefitted from the calamities the rest of the world had
endured. For example, the First World War gave the Jews the Balfour
Declaration, while the Second World War gave them the State of Israel.
Little wonder, therefore, that the Jews are yearning for, and scheming toward,
inducing a Third World War they are convinced will consolidate their rule
over the world. Zionism is the primary instrument of the Jews in instigating
this global calamity.
Zionism is not a danger only to the Arabs but to the whole of
humanity. [Humanity] was pushed [by Zionism] to two world wars in
order to weaken the power of the opponent states and destroy their
economies, so that Zionism could reappear in cloaks [=dress of
priestdom and nobility] offer loans to the states just strangulated by
crises. And then Zionism will take over them and push them into
meeting its demands in order to realize its objective - which is the
destruction of the world so that Israel can be built on the ruins.
This Egyptian analysis stressed that one should not be surprised by these evil
designs because these Jewish plans had been outlined in numerous sources.
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 45
Zionism has set up the path as determined by the Rabbis in The
Protocols of the Wisemen [=Elders] of Zion so that they can dominate
the fate of the world and [in order] to make the non-Zionist a slave in
the slave market.93
Relying on this argument, the Jews are adamant on making the enduring and
uncompromising Arab-Israeli struggle the forefront of a "mission civilaire"
of a global nature and significance.
This incitement was aimed to achieve tangible results, not just sow hatred.
Most important was its use in indoctrinating the Arabs, particularly the armed
forces’ personnel, for the forthcoming wars with Israel. For example, on the
eve of the Six Day War, an official education pamphlet of the Egyptian High
Command, citing a speech by a special envoy President Nasser, stressed this
point as a major motivational theme for the Egyptian Armed Forces.
Zionism in its new political connotation has long-term aspirations to
rule the world, arguing that God empowered them [Zionists/Jews] on
the world and that they are God’s chosen people. As such [Zionism]
is considered the oldest racist imperialist attitude in the world. In this
context, Zionism is the national philosophy of most Jews in the world.
Palestine is the near term objective of Zionism, from where they will
strive to realize their long term goal.94
Nasser’s confidant, Hasnein Haikal, stressed the urgency in a future war
because “Israel, naturally, wants to grow and expand, and it is dreaming
about the absorption of all the Jews of the world.”93 Therefore, Arab
propaganda argued, it was imperative to destroy Israel before it destroyed the
Arab World.
Thus, the Arabs argued, the Jews/Zionists were the implacable enemies of all
humanity and therefore, in confronting them and fighting relentlessly against
Israel, the Arabs were actually fighting in the name of entire humanity. This
struggle was more honorable for the Muslims, reviving the aura of a global
power, as well as legitimizing the extremist and uncompromising positions
undertaken by the Arab governments, particularly Nasser’s Cairo, starting the
46 Yossef Bodansky
mid 1960s. The same logic also justified the revived cooperation between
the European anti-Semitic circles (and later also Latin American) and the
Arab establishment - relationship that went dormant at the end of the Second
World War when the cooperation between Nazi Germany and the Mufti of
Jerusalem - Hajj Amin al-Husseini - crumbled 96
By the mid 1960s, Arab nationalist intellectuals elucidated the
all-encompassing quintessence of the Arab-Israeli confrontation - not a fight
between states, but a fateful struggle between Jewish and Muslim
civilizations. A landmark study of the Israeli-Jewish question called
Isra’iliat - On Israel or “Israelism” - by Ahmad Baha al-Din was published
in March 1965. Baha al-Din was one of Egypt’s most respectful journalists,
the founder and/or editor of some of the most important papers and
periodicals. His writings both influenced and were considered expressions of
the uppermost echelons of Nasser’s Cairo. In her study of the role of the
Palestine question in molding the Egyptian national identity, Ghada Hashem
Talhami stressed the importance of Baha al-Din’s work:
We are always focused on Israel as the state created through conquest
and the support of the powers. What we do not discuss, he continued,
is Israel as a civilizational challenge, a challenge to the entire Arab
nation. The very emergence of Israel was itself a symptom of the
weakness of the Arab region and its civilizational retardation. The
clash with Israel is neither a military nor a political battle, but a much
wider and deeper issue - a civilizational battle. War and politics are
only two fleeting elements in the future probabilities of this
long-enduring battle, this battle of two civilizations.97
Baha al-Din argued that only a comprehensive mobilization of the entire
Arab World would enable the defeat of Israel. Nasser made great strides
toward the realization of this objective. Under the Nasser regime,
A great arms deal was concluded, the idea of military pacts was
scuttled, financial and economic institutions were Egyptianized, and
Arab public opinion was mobilized and directed against the West. A
social revolution was also launched in order to build a future society
capable of withstanding the hardship of the long Arab-Israeli
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 47
confrontation. Reactionary forces in the Arab world, nevertheless,
tried to smother the social revolution on the theory that it will only
divert attention away from the battle against Israel. But it is social
retardation that guarantees Israel’s survival on our land. The outcome
of the inevitable Arab-Israeli confrontation will not be determined
according to how many thousands of soldiers we commit to the battle,
although this in itself is significant. No army is capable of performing
its task except when backed by a strong and progressive society. The
social revolution, then, as much as the industrial and cultural
revolution, is the serious battle that will settle the outcome of the
colliding Arab-Israeli destinies in this long, drawn-out struggle.98
Nasser’s polity, as elucidated by Baha al-Din, emphasized the distinction of
building a strong and committed society as a precondition to the acquisition
of the military might required to confront and ultimately destroy Israel. This
was a challenge not only to Egypt but for the entire Arab World.
Studying this immense challenge facing the Arab world, Egyptian
intellectuals increasingly reexamined their Islamic roots as a source for
inspiration and mobilization. They sought to define a balance between their
recognition of Islamism as a mobilizing force and their own, personal,
delinking from the traditional conservative Egyptian society. A most
intriguing approach to resolving this seeming contradiction was the reliance
on the existence of an immense global Jewish-led conspiracy not only
threatening the Arab world but also twisting the image and heritage of Islam.
This way, these intellectuals could advocate the reliance on the “real” Islam
as the sole instrument capable of saving the Arabs, as well as destroying
Israel and its global Jewish backers. Consequently, the traditional
anti-Semitic themes became a central instrument in the formulation of a new
effort to reconcile modernity and statehood with the growing power of Islam
in society.
A most lucid presentation of the role of the Jews in the onslaught on Islam
and the required solutions can be found in the 1975 book Al-lsra'iliat fi
al-Gazu al-Fikri - The Israelism in the Spiritual Struggle - by Dr. Aisha
Abd-al-Rahman. Dr. Aisha Abd-al-Rahman herself is a representative of this
generation of intellectuals. She was born in 1913 to a very conservative and
48 Yossef Bodansky
religious rural family, but despite father’s objections received a secular
education which she developed to a Ph.D. and then taught in numerous
universities throughout the Arab world, as well as became a prolific and
popular author. The book concentrates on the adverse impact of “Israelism”
on three key aspects of Islamic civilization - history, language and culture,
and religion. In addressing these issues, she goes back to the evils of Jewish
heritage - connecting present-day Israel with the global Jewish conspiracy.
Dr. Abd-al-Rahman observed that the Jews “stood behind all mankind’s
troubles in the modem era - the troubles of terrorism and warfare, the
outbreaks of subversion, anarchy, atheism and military conquest - and they
actively implement a horrific plot aimed to control the entire world”.
The Jewish intense confrontation with Islam - presently implemented
through the Arab-Israeli conflict - is the most intense facet of this global
conspiracy. A crucial aspect of this conspiracy, Dr. Abd-al-Rahman
explained, was the subversion of the essence of Islam and Arabism by Jewish
scholars who invented the “Orientalism” - demeaning the heritage and
religion of Arabs, as well as breaking their spirit and self-confidence.
Accepting what appears to be science and progress, she explains, the Arabs
sunk into their state of current plight in which they are more vulnerable to the
Jewish conspiracy of “Israelism”. The only way out of this vicious cycle is
for the Arabs to rediscover the “real” Islam, mobilize their vast national
resources and confront their implacable Jewish enemies."
Thus, by the 1960s and 1970s, the Arab governments had a vested interest in
furthering the grassroots anti-Semitism/anti-Judaism as the primary source of
external threat. It was quite a challenge for among the public at large Jews
had been perceived as powerless and dependent Dhimmis completely
beholden to the whims of the Muslim government and the public at large.
However, in the aftermath of the Naqbah, the Arab governments had to
reconcile the reasons for the historic defeat and anomaly - the enduring
existence of an independent Jewish state in an area coveted and claimed by
Islam, with the popular image of Jews as inferior. Hence, the adoption of the
classic anti-Semitic themes of a Jewish international conspiracy perpetrated
mainly in the West. This rationalization explained why although Arabs had
not been directly exposed to this conspiracy against the whole world they
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 49
were now at the forefront of a global struggle. The consequent blurring of
the distinction between Jews and Zionists expedited the widespread populist
acceptance of this logic. Now, there was a “strong enemy” to hate and fear,
and to justify all the extreme measures - from militancy to military build-up
and the adoption of dictatorial measures at home - undertaken by the regimes
as required to meet the Jewish conspiracies and threats. Anti-Semitism thus
became a major, if not the primary, instrument in the agitation incitement
arsenal of Arab regimes against Israel.
While many of the themes in this Arab anti-Semitism were derived from the
European anti-Semitism, a unique feature of the Arab was that it did not have
indigenous grassroots. Rather, it was introduced by governments to serve
their own political interests, particularly establish popular support to their
militant policies. The Arab anti-Semitism of the 1960s, shallow and
simplistic as it was, fell on fertile grounds given Islamic incitement (to be
discussed below) and the frustration of the average Arab by the falling
standard of living and growing repression that was now justified by the need
to fight Israel. Thus, the anti-Semitic propaganda served as an instrument for
the intensifying of hostility toward Israel - legitimizing extremism and
unwillingness to recognize Israel’s right to exist. For the so-called socialist
regimes - the military dictatorships cooperating with the USSR -
anti-Semitism in the form of adopting and propagating the myths of
world-wide Jewish conspiracies also served as the instrument of bringing
together and unifying the three traditional “foes” of the regimes -
imperialism, Zionism (Israel) and reactionism. Driven by Jewish
conspiracies, imperialism created Israel - the forefront of Jewish conspiracies
- that was now sponsoring Arab reactionary movements (oppositions to the
regimes) in order to destroy the Arab World from within.
In retrospect, perhaps the most significant development during the 1950s, and
more so the 1960s, was the Islamicization of anti-Semitic terminologies and
concepts - even in “progressive” regimes such as Nasser’s Egypt - in order
to ensure widespread popular acceptance. As such, the mere recognition by
regimes already besieged by Islamist subversion and terrorism of the
significance of the Islamist message should have indicated the true power of
the then fledgling political Islam.100 As for the popular acceptability of the
50 Yossef Bodansky
anti-Jewish message - this was clearly demonstrated in the second half of
May 1967, on the eve of the Six Day War, when the incited masses
throughout the entire Arab World poured to the streets shouting “slaughter
the Jews!” [Itbakh al-Yahud] as their endorsement of their leaders’ quest for
a new war with Israel.
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 51
CHAPTER 4:
JEWS AND THE MODERN ISLAMIST VISION - 1950s-I970s
The rise of anti-Jewishness, or anti-Semitism, within the Islamist trend during
the 1950s-1960s was a major development given the socio-political dynamics
in the Arab and Muslim World. Radical Islamism emerged as a popular
reaction to modernization and socialism with both leaders and masses
seeking guilty parties to blame for their confusion and plight, as well as
enemies to hate. The legacy of the Naqbah - particularly in Egypt, then the
epicenter of Islamist theology - made the intensification of anti-Jewish drives
all the more palatable.101 Muhammad Heikal expounds on the unique
importance of the legacy of the Naqbah to the Islamists, initially in Egypt and
ultimately throughout the entire Middle East:
The Muslim Brotherhood, many of whose members had died in the
fighting, argued that the Arabs had lost not just because of betrayal
and incompetent planning but also because of insufficient devotion to
Islam, while the Jews won because they had rediscovered their faith.
Whatever the merits of this argument, its effect was considerable.
Defeat, humiliation, bereavement, betrayal and economic hardship
swirled together in the Arab mind, and now the Muslim Brotherhood
added a religious dimension. The psychological chemistry of the
taboo was becoming ever more complex, a blend of faith and fury,
pride and shame, truth and myth, nationalism and mysticism. From
now onwards anyone who treated with the enemy would face the
implacable anger of the masses.102
The continued existence of Israel into the early 1950s shocked the Islamists.
For Islamist leaders, the enduring legacy of the Naqbah thus became the first
shot in a fateful struggle between Islam and Westernized modernity. The
quintessence of the mere existence of the State of Israel was, and still is, a
flagrant demonstration of complete Jewish emancipation from Muslim law -
the reversal of Dhimmitude - and the imposition of Jewish rule over both a
Muslim land and Muslims - Israel’s Muslim Arab population. Taken
together, this is a major challenge and affront to Islam at a global-historical
level because just as Muhammad’s triumph over, and vanquishing of, the
52 Yossef Bodansky
Jewish tribes of Arabia is considered the historical turning point in the ascent
of Islam into becoming a global power (as discussed above), the opposite is
also true. The defeat of the Arabs - their inability to prevent the
establishment of a Jewish State on a land decreed Waqf - should be
considered in comparable terms of historical significance. For the Islamists,
therefore, the essence of the Naqbah was, and still is, that Jews defeated
Muslims - namely, it is a profound theological crisis and not a
political-military event as ordinary wars are. Hence, the Islamist leaders
perceive the mere existence of Israel as a signal for Islam’s total collapse.
Unless Israel is destroyed, Muslim control is established over the entire
territory, and social order, that is reimposition of Dhimmitude, is restored, the
decline of Islam will continue. That is, the theological blemish/shame on
Islam must be reversed resolutely before Islam can triumph throughout the
World.103
During the 1950s and the early 1960s, the Islamists could blame the Jews for
all the ills plaguing Arab society. The enduring political posture in the Arab
World, the rise of military regime in states, the improved relations with the
atheist communists in order to get weapons to defeat and destroy Israel were
all blamed on the Jews. Both Islamist and nationalist leaders readily
acknowledged that all of these steps had been undertaken in order to improve
the Arabs’ stand against Israel. It was in this period that the Islamist
theological elite and socio-political leadership first seriously tackled the
Jewish question. The resulting studies still dominate the Islamist
ideological-theological approach to the Jewish question.
Most important are the works of Sayyid Muhammad Qutb (1906-1966) and
his contemporaries, mainly in Egypt, that set the tone for the Islamist vision
of relations with Jews to this very day. The development of Islamism in
Egypt has been quite unique because of the legacy of Egyptian Sunni militant
fundamentalism. Consequently, the coherent doctrines of Sayyid
Muhammad Qutb, now popularly recognized as Qutbism, have been adopted
by numerous Islamist movements throughout the entire Muslim World.104
Sayyid Muhammad Qutb is considered the “father” of the Islamist ideology
for dealing with the modern state, particularly, the conduct of relentless and
uncompromising Jihad against it.
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 53
Significantly, Qutb had a western education - a literature major at Cairo
University - and a good knowledge of English. He worked for the Egyptian
government in the!930s-40s as a teacher and a modernist literary critic.103 In
1949-51, Qutb stayed in the United States as part of an educational mission.
Qutb traveled to the US as an admirer of things American. His direct
exposure to American society and everyday life shocked him and profoundly
changed his life. He was shocked by the “intrinsic features of moral
corruption and decadence” in Western society to the point that it “engendered
an animosity toward the West which subsequently became a fiercely-held
basic principle of Qutb’s thought. The American value system, as
experienced by Qutb, profoundly contradicted Islamic morality and thus
endangered the very existence of the Islamic values at the core of Arab
civilization. This direct experience thus aroused Qutb’s own personal
Islamic revival and it was at the heart of the US that Qutb “returned” to
Islam. By the time Qutb returned to Egypt, he was convinced that unyielding
hatred to the West is an inseparable element of establishing and maintaining
Islamic identity in both personal and public levels. While the intensity of
Qutb’s hostility to the US and Western modernism as a whole were the result
of his own personal experience, his overall theological and socio-political
visions and values were not dissimilar to those of many of his contemporaries
throughout the Muslim World.106 Upon returning to Egypt, Qutb immersed
himself in clandestine work, way beyond the mere formulation of theories of
Islamist subversion and armed struggles against the established government.
In 1954, Qutb was arrested by Nasser’s security forces for conspiracy. He
was released after ten years following the intervention of the President of
Iraq. Undaunted, Qutb immediately returned to clandestine, conspiratorial
and incitement work. Within two years, in 1966, he was arrested again. This
time, Qutb was summarily hung before any external pressure could compel
Nasser to keep him alive or even free him.107
The first few years after his return to Egypt - 1951-54 - are the most
important in the formulation of Qutbism. What started as a thorough
reexamination of the Muslim Brotherhood’s strategy gradually transformed
into a profound rethinking of the essence of the movement’s secret cells and
the introduction of a measure of rationalization to the strain endured by the
54 Yossef Bodansky
grassroots membership. Amir Taheri notes that the basic theme that Qutb
developed was simple enough to be comprehended and followed by
everyone:
Islam could not accept any compromise with other religions or
political doctrines concerning the way of life in a Muslim community.
Such a compromise would lead to iltiqat or hybridization.
In order to realize this Islamist community, Qutb stressed, each and every
Muslim must wage the appropriate Jihad both against their own local
governments and for the realization of global Muslim causes.108 For Qutb,
the world was divided between Islam and the forces of un-lslamic barbarity -
Jahiliyya - that are inherently and uncompromisingly anti-Islam. Qutb
wrote:
In any time and place human beings face that clear-cut choice: either
to observe the Law of Allah in its entirety, or to apply laws laid down
by man of one sort or another. In the latter case, they are in a state of
Jahiliyya. Man is at the crossroads and that is the choice: Islam or
Jahiliyya. Modem-style Jahiliyya in the industrialized societies of
Europe and America is essentially similar to the old-time Jahiliyya in
pagan and nomadic Arabia. For in both systems, man is under the
dominion of man rather than of Allah.109
Hence the Jihad against the forces of Jahiliyya must be fateful and
unrelenting. Qutb himself left no doubt as to the immensity of the struggle
ahead:
Truth and falsehood cannot coexist on earth. When Islam makes a
general declaration to establish the lordship of God on earth and to
liberate humanity from the worship of other creatures, it is contested
by those who have usurped God’s sovereignty on earth. They will
never make peace. Then [Islam] goes forth destroying them to free
humans from their power... this is the constraint situation. The
liberating struggle of Jihad does not cease until all religion belongs to
God."0
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 55
Thus, the evolution and emergence of the coherent doctrine of Qutbism has
been a central facet of the development of militant Jihadist Islamism in
Egypt.111	The evolution and legacy of Egyptian Sunni militant
fundamentalism is a complex and long-term process. After all, the Muslim
Brotherhood was founded in Egypt back in 1928 and turned into the
“prototype” of the contemporary radical militant Islamist movements. Since
then, Egypt’s Islamist scholars have been widely recognized as the supreme
theological authorities concerning radical militant Islam.112 Little wonder,
therefore, that many Egyptian Sunni radicals showed disdain toward, and
lack of interest in, the concurrent rise of Shi’a-dominated militant Islam in
Iran and its spread into the Arab Middle East. However, examined in
retrospect from an ideological point of view, the evolution of the Egyptian
Islamist revivalism was almost simultaneous to, and in parallel with, the
development of the radical Shi’a Islamism in Iran, Lebanon and Iraq.
Moreover, Immanuel Sivan notes,
It is amazing to ascertain from the writings of revolutionary Shi’ite
thinkers... just how similar their philosophy is to that of the
standard-bearers of Sunni radicalism with respect to the diagnosis and
cure of today’s problems.113
These ideological-theological developments are not theoretical issues. For
example, by the mid 1980s, there were more then 30 clandestine Islamist
organizations in Egypt that could be called Qutbist. Membership in these
organizations was estimated to be more than half a million strong atop
estimated more than three million members and supporters of the Muslim
Brotherhood. The Qutbists either instigated or were involved in a series of
bloody riots including a series of major riots in Asyut and Ismailia. More
than 700 subversive and terrorist incidents, such as assassinations, throwing
acid, bank robberies, or sacking shops, involving Islamists were recorded
between 1981 and 1986. In addition, these groups were extremely active in
propaganda, agitation and recruiting. Following the Iranian example, they
distributed over 3 million cassettes and over a million of books and
pamphlets. Most active were al-Jihad al-lslami [Islamic Jihad], the Hizb
al-Tahrir al-lslami [Islamic Liberation Party], al-Dawa [The Call], the
56 Yossef Bodansky
Nahdhah [Awakening], and Forqan [distinction between good and evil].
However, all of these groups were found to be using manuals and operational
guidebooks of the HizbAllah smuggled into Egypt between 1983 and 1986.
Thus, in reality, all these groups followed a single strategy and answered to a
unified leadership based either in Libya or Iran.114
This legacy provides the context for the comprehension of the unique
importance and enduring validity of Qutb’s address of the Jewish question
and ultimately putting anti-Judaism and anti-Jewishness at the core of radical
political Islamism. A turning point in the Islamist attitude toward the Jews
and the Jewish problem as a whole - as far as intensity of struggle and extent
of institutional hatred - was the publication in the early 1950s of the
pamphlet or essay Ma 'arakatuna Ma ’a al- Yahud [Our Struggle with the
Jews] by Sayyid Muhammad Qutb, then a prominent leader and key
ideologue of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.11’ In this essay, Qutb
decreed that the struggle between Islam and the Jews is fateful and
uncompromising. “The Jews will not be satisfied until this Religion [=lslam]
has been destroyed.”116
Ronald Nettler, who translated and analyzed Qutb’s Our Struggle with the
Jews, explains that Qutb addressed the three main facets of Islam’s approach
to the Jewish Question:
(1) The Jewish goal of Islam’s destruction: Islam’s past trials and
present tribulations with the Jews. (2) The true nature of the Jews. (3)
The real balance of power and the solution. Or, despite the Jews’ evil
intent toward Islam they would be unable to withstand the will of the
Muslim Community - if the Muslims would only be real Muslims.
And this latter question was Islam’s burning contemporary issue on all
fronts, according to the fundamentalist line.117
Hence, Qutb’s essay is of singular importance in the evolution and
formulation of the Islamist political movement and its attitude toward Jews
and Judaism. Despite the trauma of the Six Day War and the reverberations
of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Qutb’s Our Struggle with the Jews is still
considered by the Islamist leadership to be the most authoritative doctrinal
work on the relationship between Islam and Judaism.
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 57
Qutb did not have to convince his readers that the Jews are the primary
enemies of Islam. That is stated in the Qu’ran and commonly accepted by
the Islamists as an inviolable tenet. Qutb does dwell on the despicable nature
of the Jews and their “natural disposition” toward attacking and harming
Islam. He clarifies the reasons why the Jews are dead set to harm Islam
despite their recognized status as Dhimmis and their relative harmless
existence in Muslim states. This is because the Jews are convinced that “any
good that comes to others is as if it had been taken from the Jews themselves;
and this disposition of theirs does not feel the larger human connection which
binds humanity together.”
Indeed, the Jews are convinced that they are a kind of a unique entity -
separated from the rest of mankind and determined to destroy all others:
The Jews feel that they are a group cut off from the tree of life, and
they just wait for humanity to meet with disaster. They harbor hatred
for others. Thus they suffer the punishment due those who hate and
bear rancor. Consequently, they make others suffer these same
punishments repeatedly, in the form of dissensions among peoples and
wars which the Jews themselves foment in order to make profits from
them. Through these wars and disturbances they cultivate their
continuing hatred [for others] and the destructiveness which they
impose on people and which others [then needs be] impose on them...
All of this evil arises only from their destructive egoism: “...grudging
that Allah should send His bounty down to those of His servants
whom He so chooses.”
And with Islam being the ultimate development of mankind, Qutb argues, the
Jews direct their hostility and wrath first and foremost against Islam.118
Indeed, Qutb goes even further to stress that the definition of the Jews as part
of the Ah! al-Kitab [the People of the Book] does not mean that they are not
implacable enemies of Islam. Qutb stresses that “the Jews” being in first
position here, when it has usually been assumed in our tradition that they are
less antagonistic toward the Muslims than are the polytheists - because the
Jews are essentially a People of the Book - carries a special significance...”
58 Yossef Bodansky
For Qutb, this “special significance” means that “at the very least... the Jews’
status as People of the Book does not change the existing reality, that they,
like the polytheists, are the worst enemies of the Muslims!!”
On the contrary, unlike the polytheists who know nothing about monotheism
and thus cannot fully realize the sin in rejecting the message of the Prophet -
Islam - the Jews, reject Islam intentionally and maliciously. Thus they are
the worst enemies of Muslims and Islam. Qutb stresses that this is not an
empirical observation based on a historical record but an incentive for action
by all Muslims.
For if people would become aware of this sacred principle of
historical reality which has been evident from Islam’s inception and
until the present moment, than they would not hesitate to confirm that
the enmity of the Jews toward the Muslims was always stronger,
crueler and deeper in its persistence, and of longer duration, than was
the enmity of the polytheists.110
Thus, Qutb’s main objective is to prove the extent and immediacy of the
Jewish threat to Islam in order to galvanize the anti-Jewish Jihad. Qutb sets
out to prove that the often declared tenet that the Jewish goal is to destroy
Islam is not only valid, but that the threat is imminent, and only a resolute
Jihad can avert this calamity. Qutb explains:
The Jews have confronted Islam with enmity from the moment that
the Islamic state was established in Medina... This is a war which has
not been extinguished... for close on fourteen centuries, and which
continues until this moment, its blaze raging in all corners of the
earth.120
This is a war of the desperate, despaired and doomed who would resort to
any mean in order to avenge their inevitable annihilation. Already during the
days of the Prophet, when the Jews knew they had no chance confronting
Islam, “[t]he Jews had gathered all the polytheistic forces of the Arabian
peninsula against Islam and the Muslims.”
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 59
And the ensuing struggle was not limited to a frontal confrontation on the
battlefield. Jews were behind the initial succession struggles among the first
Rashidun Caliphs.
The one who incited the peoples, brought together small groups, and
set loose the sectarian movements in the assassination of Uthman -
may Allah be pleased with him - and all the catastrophes which
followed this assassination... was a Jew.
Hence, Qutb concludes, the entire history of disunity and infighting which
has afflicted the Muslim World from the very beginning is nothing but the
outcome of Jewish conspiracies and machinations.121
Indeed, the present day Muslim World is subjected to the same types of
Jewish onslaught as were the Muslims at the times of Prophet Muhammad
and the Rashidun Caliphs. Qutb notes: “The Muslim community continues
to suffer from the same Jewish machinations and double-dealing which
discomfited the early Muslims.”
And the relentless battle the Jews fight against Islam is not confined to an
armed struggle. On the contrary, it is characterized by conspiracies and
deceit. “The enemies of the Muslim community would not always fight it
only in the field, with sword and lance. They would not always join forces
against [the Muslim community] just in order to fight it with sword and
lance. For the enemies of Islam fought it first in the realm of Creed; and they
fought it there through conspiring, sowing doubts and confusion, and
hatching plots.” And Qutb warns this threat continues to grow.122
The gloom and doom of present day Islam is the direct outcome of the
continued and relentless drive by the Jews to destroy Islam - nothing other
than an evolution of the Jewish efforts to reject Islam and destroy the Prophet
fourteen centuries ago. “This conspiracy continues uninterruptedly,” Qutb
explains.
This deception has continued in the same way until today, in all forms
which are appropriate to the particular evolution of conditions and
peoples in every era. The enemies of Islam lost hope that today this
60 Yossef Bodansky
[older type] of deception would still work. So the anti-lslam forces in
the world turned toward a variety of [new] ways which would be
based on that same ancient deception.'23
This conspiracy is far reaching - affecting even the innermost echelons of
Arab society and the uppermost echelons of government. In essence, Qutb
attributes all the aspects of Arab society he considers un-Islamic to the
Jewish conspiracies.
The Jews have instilled men and regimes [in the Islamic world], in
order to conspire against this [Muslim] Community. Hundreds, then,
even thousands, were plotting within the Islamic world, continuing [to
appear] in the form of Orientalists and the students of Orientalists.
Today they play an important role in the intellectual life of those
countries whose people say “they are Muslims!”
Qutb attributes all the sins of modernity and westernization - from the impact
on society to the emergence of secular dictatorial and military regimes - to
the Jewish conspiracies and their drive to destroy Islam. Toward this end, he
notes, the Jews have unleashed on the Muslim world a “massive army of
agents in the form of professors, philosophers, doctors and researchers -
sometimes also writers, poets, scientists and journalists - carrying Muslim
names, because they are of Muslim descent!! And some of them are from the
ranks of the ‘Muslim religious authorities’!!” And, according to Qutb:
What exactly does this army of anti-lslam agents do and how do they
do it?:
This army of “learned authorities” intends to break the Creed of
Muslims, in all ways - through research, learning, literature, science
and journalism; by weakening the foundations of the Creed and
weakening the Creed and the Shari'ah in equal measure. They present
the Creed as though it could do what it really cannot do, and then
when it is found “wanting” they say it is “reactionary”! They call for
liberation from the Creed and for excluding it from the realm of [real]
life, [presumably] out of concern that it would be harmed with its
entrance into worldly troubles or that the integrity of practical life
would be harmed should the Creed invade that realm!!
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 61
They invent conceptions, teachings and principles for understanding
and behaving which contradict and shatter the conceptions and
teachings of the Creed... Then they decorate these contrived
conceptions in a manner befitting the mutilation of the Islamic ideas
and teachings... They free the sensual desires from their restraints and
they destroy the moral foundation on which the pure creed rests, in
order that the creed should fall into the filth which they spread so
widely on this earth. They mutilate the whole of history and falsify it,
just as they falsify words!!124
Qutb argues that the most dangerous conspiracies against Islam, including the
diabolical designs for the subversion of Muslims to act against their own
Creed, is the work of the contemporary reincarnation of all the evils in
Judaism - Zionism. The Zionists are the forefront, the shock troops, of that
Jewish international conspiracy that is working relentlessly to destroy Islam.
The emergence of the State of Israel, Qutb explains, is but one manifestation
of the Jewish-Zionist drive to destroy everything and control the world.
Israel is but a part of a global Zionist conspiracy whose primary enemy is
Islam. Qutb portrays the implementation of this conspiracy in terms
reminiscent of The Protocols of the Elders ofZiorr.
The agents of Zionism today are like that ... They agree with each
other on one issue..., that is the destruction of this [Islamic] creed at
the first auspicious and unrepeatable opportunity ... This Jewish
consensus [on destroying Islam] would never be found in a pact or
open conference. Rather it is the [secret] agreement of one [Zionist]
agent with another on the important goal, as something fundamental
[and unquestioned].
One [Jew] trusts the other and thus leads the other... Then they make
a display - some of them at least - of something different than what
they [really] want, and they conceal their conspiracy ... The
environment surrounding them is prepared... as is all the apparatus ...
And those who understand the reality of this religion [of Islam] on this
earth have either gone into hiding or fled!!123
62 Yossef Bodansky
Ultimately, however, Islam is destined to triumph over the evil Jews. Qutb
notes that the history of the Jews is cyclical - a series of crimes against
humanity followed by a series of divine punishments.
This story of [Jewish] evil-doing was repeated; as were [Jewish]
humiliation and expulsion [as punishment for this evil-doing].
Whenever the Children of Israel reverted to evil-doing on this earth
punishment awaited them. The Sunnah is resolute here: “If you
return, then We return.”
And the Jews did indeed return to evil-doing, so Allah gave to the
Muslims power over them. The Muslims then expelled them from the
whole of the Arabian Peninsula... Then the Jews again returned to
evil-doing and consequently Allah sent against them others of His
servants, until the modern period. Then Allah brought Hitler to rule
over them. And once again today the Jews have returned to evildoing,
in the form of “Israel” which made the Arabs, the owners of the Land,
taste of sorrows and woe. So let Allah bring down upon the Jews
people who will mete out to them the worst kind of punishment, as a
confirmation of His unequivocal promise: “If you return, then We
return,” and in keeping with His Sunnah, which does not vary. So for
one who expects tomorrow, it is close!!126
Qutb stresses that the current situation in the Arab World, and particularly
surrounding the Palestine-Israel problem - the Naqbah - is but yet another
cycle of Jewish conspiracies and innevitable retribution. The challenge is for
the Believers to return to “real” Islam, for only then Allah will surely
facilitate the Jihad for the liberation of Palestine and the destruction of the
Jewish entity there. Moreover, Qutb argues, the mere existence of the
Palestine War and the ensuing Naqbah confirms the Qu’ranic Truth for it was
during this crisis that the Jews exhibited their inherent disunity and
cowardice. Despite the establishment and enduring of Israel, Muslims must
not lose this abject truth:
And the recent complications in the Holy Land, between the Believers
sacrificing themselves and the Jews, is a confirmation of this
[Qu'ranic] teaching, in an astonishing form. For the Jews would fight
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 53
the Muslims only from [the security of] fortified settlements in the
Land of Palestine.... Thus when the Jews lost their cover for one
instant they turned their tails and ran away like rats. It was almost as
though this verse had been revealed about them at that moment.
Glory' be to the Omniscient, the Knowing!!127
Sayyid Qutb’s Our Struggle with the Jews has proven a trail blazer of the
Islamist anti-Jewish literature. Having been published at an early stage in the
formulation of contemporary Islamism, it set the tone for the Islamist
unifying of Zionism and Judaism. Although Arabs had been confronting
Zionism for several decades then, it was the calamity and shock of the
Naqbah that compelled the Muslim World to thoroughly confront the Jewish
question. Islamism’s soul-searching and the consequent formulation of a
comprehensive new doctrine on the Jews began in the early 1950s with
Qutb’s essay. Ronald Nettler stresses the lasting significance of Qutb’s
work:
In its main motifs, Qutb’s essay adumbrated almost all of the themes
which have been prominent in that continual evolution, both the basic
ideas held in common by traditionalists and fundamentalists and the
ideas which have been exclusively fundamentalist preoccupations.
From a “Qutb-like” judicious use of ancient sources applied
imaginatively to contemporary crises, there arose the familiar ideas:
the Jews as inherently decadent and anti-religious; the Jews as being
driven by an obsessive urge to destroy the only true religion, Islam;
the Jews as the organizers and agents of the Western political threat to
Islam; the Jews as the main purveyors of the cultural Westernization
which has so damaged Islam; the Jews as the modern “Hypocrites”
continuing the work of their ancient predecessors; and the Jews as the
power behind the Westernizing “Muslim” politicians. The monstrous
specter exemplifying these specific Jewish evils was the Jewish Satan
of Zionism and Israel. All these have become the standard stuff of
contemporary Islamic attitudes towards the Jews, proclaimed,
propagated and perpetuated with an unprecedented emotional hatred
of the Jews.128
64 Yossef Bodansky
And if anything, in the aftermath of the Six Day War and the peace process
(to be discussed below) the relevance and power of Qutb’s teachings have
only increased. The principles he set forth, and the ideas he defined are more
timely and relevant for militant Islam on the eve of the 21s' Century.
Meanwhile, during the 1950s and early 1960s, the political system in the
Arab World, particularly Egypt, was resorting to incitement and propaganda
advocating Jewish conspiracy theories in order to justify crises and failures of
Arab governments. The imbedding of the smearing of the Jews among the
Arab population at the grassroots level by default intensified the Islamist
fervor to destroy Israel. Arab propaganda made it impossible for the masses
to tolerate any compromise in which Israel’s right to exist is recognized.
That is, the worse and despicable and evil Jews were, the greater the shame
of the Naqbah, and thus the more horrendous was the Jewish threat to the
very existence of Islam. This cycle of logic inspired a flood of Islamist
populist literature demonizing the Jews and Judaism as the source of all evils
in the Muslim World, particularly the inability of the Hub of Islam to cope
with modernity, Westernism, high-technology, etc.
The Arab defeat in the 1967 Six Day War stunned the entire Muslim World
and turned into a catalyst of extremist politics. The Arabs discussed the
defeat in apocalyptic terms, calling it “The Second Naqbah". Many of the
highly educated Arab intellectuals returned to traditionalist Islam in their
search for the roots of the disaster. The Arabs were defeated because “in
their apostasy, they rejected the spiritual and moral values, and adopted
firstly the ignorant nationalism, and then, the infidel Marxist socialism.’’
The Arab World “was injured by a dangerous ideological disease called
‘revolutionary socialism’ that is more lethal than the most dangerous of
plagues,” and which origins are in the West. Furthermore, Arab leaders
sought to present the secular ideologies as answers to popular demands. Little
wonder that “the nationalist propaganda remained a hollow call, incited by
the crowd's enthusiasm and noise and the widespread hopes for a general
vague Arab unity.”
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 55
The defeats resulting from modem ideologies are contrasted with the
victories over the Crusaders. Unlike the Jihad against Israel, the Jihad
against the Crusaders was so triumphant solely because “the unifying factors
of the Arabs at that time, which delivered them victory, was Islam and not
Arab nationalism.”
Therefore, for the Arabs to be able to successfully confront Israel, “there is
no escape from spreading the religious culture among the Arab and Muslim
soldiers and the military men, so that the spiritual values would constitute
impulse to Faith and victory, and for distancing from destructive dogmas.”129
Thus, in the late 1960s, Arab intellectuals began advocating that the socialist
regimes in the Muslim World had failed, and that the emergence of Islamist
militant revivalism constituted the trend for the future.
By now, irredentist groups were being pushed into despair and extremism in
their quest for world recognition and self-determination. A common phrase
among Palestinians in the mid 1960s that “the world is ruined, let it be ruined
more,” was being used to justify the upsurge of international terrorism.130
Indeed, although the emerging Arab revolutionary doctrine claimed to be in
reaction to the Naqbah, the doctrine was global and anti-imperialist in
character. Dr. Nadim al-Bittar elucidated the quandary facing the Arabs:
There is a need for us to admit in the power of the enemy, but we
should also simultaneously recognize that the enemy power stems
from our weakness, and that any explanation of the Naqbah should
identify the deep and fundamental sources of this weakness. We
should encourage hatred and animosity toward the imperialists who
had brought these bands [of Jews] and inhabited them in our country,
having uprooted us from it. We shall recite this animosity to our sons
and offsprings. It would be extremely bad if we limit the hatred and
animosity only in this direction, and not divert it [also] toward the
traditional Arab reality, the one that opened up to the criminal
colonialists, the one that through its crumbling eased the execution of
the crime.131
66 Yossef Bodansky
The shock of the Six Day War reverberated throughout the entire Muslim
World, forcing both intellectuals and governments into soul searching more
thorough than that following the Naqbah of 1948-49. The magnitude of the
Arab defeat and humiliation necessitated the raising of an international
Jewish conspiracy befitting the extent of the Arab defeat. It did not take long
for the Islamists to capitalize on this tribulation for the definition of a global
struggle as an objective for radical Islam - a concept of Jihad which, in turn
has since been used by Arab nationalism and governments to expand their
anti-lsrael struggle and justify the extent of their defeat.
Thus, there emerged in the late 1960s a need for the formulation of a coherent
Islamist doctrine both explaining the Second Naqbah and seeking solutions
for the Jewish problem. A turning point in this process was the conduct of
the Fourth Conference of the Academy of Islamic Research in the al-Azhar
Islamic University in Cairo, in September 1968, in which close to a hundred
experts from around the Muslim World defined and legislated an Islamic
policy of hate toward the Jews. The conference reaffirmed and stressed the
Qu’ranic virulent hostility toward the Jews, and studied the history of
continuous Jewish crimes against Islam from the days of the Prophet to the
Six Days War. Deliberating on the future of Islam, experts noted that the
arrival of “the resurrection i.e. the final salvation’’ of the Muslim World “is
made conditional upon the battle against the Jews that has to precede it’’. The
conference urged Arab and Muslim Governments to prepare for the fateful
struggle for the destruction of Israel, and, until that day, provide weapons and
other support for Islamist “volunteers” so that they can continue the Jihad
against Israel [in the form of terrorism] in the meantime. The Conference
Conclusion leaves no doubt:
The sacred duty of every Muslim in this Islamic mobilization is two
fold: to thwart the destructive falsehoods spread by Zionism and to
work for the triumph of Islam and the liberation of zl-Masjid al-Aqsa
[in Jerusalem].133
In his opening speech, Shaykh Hassan Mamoun, the Rector of al-Azhar, set
the tone:
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 57
Thus, we would deserve to be the servants to God to whom He had
referred and intended to rouse against the Jews.... We implore God, be
exalted His Omnipotence, to accord President Nasser guidance and
success, so as to regain Jerusalem as purified from all sorts of
defilement and profanation, in vindication of the rights of Islam and
the glories of the Arab-Nation.133
Kamal Ahmad Own, the Vice-President of the Tanta Institute, delivered a
lecture called “The Jews Are the Enemies of Human Life as Is Evident From
Their Holy Book”. He explained that:
The subject forced me to dwell on it and to diagnose the mischievous
conduct of the Jews whose wickedness is incurable unless they are
subdued by force. No good is expected from them unless they live
under the aegis of Islam as loyal and obedient subjects. The Muslim
community will then treat them generously and tolerantly as it has
always done. Brief as this treatise is, it illustrates that the Jews as
represented by their Holy Book are hostile to all human values in this
life, that their evil nature is not to be easily cured through temporary
or half measures.134
Own went on to survey the history of the Jews, arguing that ever since
Biblical times Jews have lied about their destiny, principles of religion, and
treatment of other non-Jews they have encountered. And despite catastrophes
inflicted upon the Jews by the enraged world, they have persisted with their
misdeeds. This is because “their evil deeds had no bounds.” Therefore, their
treatment of their Arab neighbors is no different. “The Jews’ wicked nature
never changes. ...As a result, God punished them.”13’
Own delved on the legacy of the exposure of both non-Muslims and Muslims
to Jews throughout history. “The history of the Israelites in Palestine smells
of blood, and even the prophets who were sent to guide them were among
their victims.”
And the Jewish threat has only grown. “Evil, wickedness, breach of vows
and money worship are inherent qualities in them. Many a time were they
punished for their evil, but they never repented or gave up their sinfulness.
68 Yossef Bodansky
They have usurped Palestine from its rightful owners, doing evil, shedding
blood, ripping up pregnant women and blowing up villages, disregarding and
defying the world opinion.”136
Own raised the question of the endurance of the Jews despite the repeated
efforts to punish them throughout history.
One might ask why so many disasters and calamities befell those
people in particular. The answer to this question is not difficult.
Their wicked nature, which has always alienated them from mankind,
lies at the bottom of this fact. This is borne out by their history.
Therefore, Own sees no prospects for a change in the behavior of the Jews.
On the contrary the establishment of the State of Israel only aggravates the
Jewish threat to the world.137 Own’s conclusion:
What should we learn from this survey of the Old Testament which is
a Jewish historical document full of contradictions? The first thing we
learn is that the Jews’ wicked nature and inherent sinfulness account
for the disasters, the afflictions and persecutions that befell them
throughout their history. We learn also that the Jews never change.
Their nature, habits and customs have remained unchanged since the
dawn of their history. Modern civilization has only increased their
hypocrisy, their power, their wealth and their penetration into the
social lift of nations from behind the scenes.
But Islamic justice refuses to let sons bear the sins of fathers, viz., to
let modern Jews bear the sins of their ancestor.
This is the attitude of Muslims towards the Jews, but World Zionism -
woe to it - wants to make the Muslim, bear the sins of all those who
persecuted the Jews throughout their entire history, to avenge the
horrible calamities that the Israelites underwent and to give vent to
their repressed hatred to humanity by persecuting the Arabs who were
the only people on earth to tolerate them. Zionists now repeat the
barbaric actions and horrible crimes of their ancestors in Palestine
backed by imperialism, slaying women and children and ripping up
pregnant women.
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 59
Moh. Taha Yahia stressed the enduring and implacable hostility of Jews and
Judaism toward Muslims and Islam. This is a predicament, he emphasized,
that has endured from the very first days of Prophet Muhammad. The reason
for this is the inherent character of the Jews.
Before discussing the attitude of the Jews towards Islam and Muslims
in the early days of Islam, it behooves us to refer to the distortion of
the Jewish creed that filled the life of Jews with perfidy and evil.
And Yahia stresses that the Jews’ hostility to Islam and Muslims will
continue to intensify.
From the very beginning Jews declared their hostility to Islam and
even to all the other religions, and have not ceased to do so ever since.
...1 should like to say before I conclude that I have thoroughly
scrutinized the nature of the Jews. They are avaricious ruthless, cruel
hypocrite and revengeful. These traits govern their lives. They never
change nor are they inclined to change. They always try to seize any
opportunity to take revenge on Islam and Muslims.139
Professor Abdul Sattar al-Sayid, the Mufti of Tursos, Syria, delivered a
lengthy and detailed analysis of the Jews in the Qu ran. His main thesis was
that the Qu’ranic depiction of the Jews explains their current behavior and
transgressions against the Arab World. He elucidated:
The blind sedition stirred by the Jews in the Arab nation set off the
flames of war in this area, which remained since the dawn of history,
as the land of peace and security, guidance mercy and human welfare.
Such sedition, however, was not the first deed of the Jews throughout
their history whether old or new. Jewish history has always been an
interconnected series of acts of sedition and intrigue in any land or
community where they happened to live.
Jews in any community have always been a factor of sedition. They
have moreover been a curse that spread among the people bringing
about corruption, sowing the seeds of enmity and hatred and breaking
the bonds of brotherhood between peoples, who henceforth engage in
ceaseless conflict. Hence, the unabating flames of war destroy the
good elements among the people, and extinguish all manifestations of
civilization.
70 Yossef Bodansky
We acknowledge this fact ourselves and so do any people who may
have been plagued by the Jews as individuals or in group. For the
Jews are like evil which has the same effect whether it were big or
small, or like germs of a malignant disease where only one germ is
sufficient to eliminate an entire nation. This, after all, is bound to
happen if one germ was left to control the body and infuse its poison
into it, or once it was left to burn and destroy like a fire in a pack of
wood that is left free with no one to extinguish it in the bud.
However, it is because of the inherent humanity and tolerance of Islam that
“Arabs did not regard the Jews in a different light from that of other peoples,
i.e., a pest which humanity has to tolerate and live with like other calamities
of life and other diseases. The Jews in this way constituted a general hardship
and calamities are usually light and easy to take when they are general.”140
After surveying the QuTanic attacks against the Jews in great detail, Prof.
al-Sayid concluded with observations on the current situation in the Middle
East. The Jews arrived in the region - Palestine - not because of any
historical affinity, but because of commitment to the destruction of Islam.
This is because Islam is the last remaining obstacle to their rise to power, and
consolidation of dominance, over the world.
The presence of the Jews in this part of the world was motivated by
the fact that it was the sole area in the world that remained steadfast
before atheism and heathenism which was spread by the Jews all over
the world. The faith that still exists in the Arab nation, brought the
Jews to this area in a bid to extinguish the light of God but, God will
keep His light on in spite of the heathen people.141
The Essence of the “Palestinian Problem” was addressed in the paper of Dr.
Kamel el Baker, the President of the Om Dorman Islamic University:
Judaism is a “religion” in which the believers follow a certain creed.
Zionism is the same as Judaism, but it seeks to achieve the end sought
by Judaism but through political action. The document declaring the
establishment of the State of Israel asserts this fact, for it does not hide
that the State of Israel is but a name for a Jewish state. Zionism,
therefore, is the means employed by the Jewish religion for
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 7]
self-realization, and the Jews’ method of establishing their unity
vis-a-vis others in the area. Who, then, is the other party concerned in
the conflict? Resorting to the law of the majority as the closest
criterion to natural justice emphasizes beyond doubt that the
establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine means a confrontation of
Islam and Muslims, for the cultural and demographic superiority in
the usurped land is for Islam and Muslims. ...This, then, is the essence
of the Palestinian problem — a religious Jewish state founded by
Zionists — even though it may appear in the form of political
implications guised by the successors of the Crusaders in modern
garb.142
Of significance is the study by Shaykh Abdullah Ghoshah on the essence of
Jihad and its role in Islam’s confrontation with the Jews. “Jihad is an Islamic
word which other Nations use in the meaning of‘war’.” And in the pursuit
of the sacred Jihad, Muslims are not only obliged to use force, but are
permitted to do what is forbidden to others.
The abode of war is the homeland which is not subject to the rules of
Islam, and its inhabitants are not as secure as Muslims. ...The
Muslims are also free to break their covenant with enemies if they are
uneasy lest the enemies should betray them.
Shaykh Abdullah Ghoshah stressed that in this posture, the Jihad and
struggle against the Jews are of unique significance.
Treachery was the business of Jews throughout their ages and times as
it was their instinct to break their covenant with others and resort to
treachery as soon as they had any chance to betray others. Allah, the
Almighty, enjoined upon Muslims to keep their covenant with their
enemies and to deal with them justly and openly. This enjoinment
was imposed upon Muslims not out of weakness or inability but it was
out of strength and heavenly support. Allah backed Muslims until
they gained Victory throughout all incursions and battles against the
treacherous hypocritic Jews.141
72 Yossef Bodansky
The hatred expressed in the proceedings both represents and sets the tone for
the prevailing sentiments throughout the Muslim World. The importance and
prevalence of the anti-Jewish factor for the legitimization of aspirant Muslim
regimes and movements can best be seen in the context of movements and
ideologies that have nothing to do with the Arab-Israeli conflict, that are not
affected by the Middle East, and, in some cases, even have a Jewish
community living peacefully in their midst for centuries.
The case of Bosnia-Herzegovina, then part of Yugoslavia, is most
illuminating because of the existing contrast between Marshal Tito’s
pro-Arab policies and the good status of the Jewish community in
Yugoslavia, in the !960s-70s, the quest for Muslim power and self-identity
relied heavily on the legacy of Hajj Amin al-Husseini’s propaganda and
incitement coupled with interpretation of Khumaynism - namely that the
mere existence of a distinct Muslim community, even if a minority, justifies
and legitimizes the establishment of a Muslim political entity under its
domination, that is, a Muslim State. Indeed, Alija Ali Izetbegovic used
anti-Jewish sentiments as part of his nation-building for Bosnia’s Muslims.
In 1970, Alija Izetbegovic, presently the President of Bosnia-Herzegovina,
published his Islamic Declaration which clearly defined both his vision of
Islam in Bosnia and his world view.
In tune with Izetbegovic’s all-lslamic world view, the Islamic Declaration
also includes his opinions on the Arab-Israeli dispute:
The policy in Palestine has thrown down the gauntlet to all Muslims
the world over. Jerusalem is not only a Palestinian question, nor solely
an Arab question. It is the question of all Muslim nations. To keep
Jerusalem, the Jews would have to defeat Islam and Muslims and that
is - thank God - beyond their powers.
Instead, Izetbegovic predicts, the Muslim World, of which his Bosnia is an
integral part, will embark on an armed struggle to liberate Palestine.
If they [the Jews] continue along the same road guided by arrogance,
which seems more likely under the present circumstances, there will
be only one way out of it all for the Islamic movement and all the
world’s Muslims; to continue the struggle, expand it and prolong it.
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 73
from day to day, from year to year, regardless of the casualties and the
time it would take until they are forced to cede every single inch of
captured land. Any trade-off or compromises which might call in
question these elementary rights of our brothers in Palestine will be
treason which can destroy even the very system of moral values
underpinning our world.
It is highly significant that Izetbegovic defines the Arab-Israeli conflict as a
struggle between Muslims and Jews. For him, like all Islamists, Israel is a
non-entity, an illegitimate creation of the West. The liberation of Jerusalem
and the entire Palestine is an all-lslamic quest.144
Significantly, in all these cases, the establishment of the Islamist “logic” fed
both Governments - that used it to prove they were not anti-lslam - and the
fledgling political Islamist movements. By now, the mid to late 1970s,
virulent anti-Semitism was spreading in the Arab media. This incitement was
complementing government-inspired harsh anti-Israel propaganda, thus
covering virtually every aspect of relations between the Arabs and Israel, as
well as anything Israel was doing or not doing. Moreover, as political
contacts between Israel and Arab states, particularly Syria and Egypt,
intensified in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War and the ensuing US
mediation efforts, leading to several interim agreements, the state-controlled
media not only intensified its anti-lsraeli incitement, but markedly expanded
the anti-Semitic incitement to include vilification of the Jewish people as a
whole. The virulent anti-Jewish and anti-Judaism incitement now served as
the medium to reiterate the challenge to the right of the Jews to the land of
Israel - a theme Arab governments could no longer flagrantly advocate
without running into confrontation with the US.I4>
Another frequently used instrument was for notable authors, including known
for their close relations with the uppermost elites, to raise extremist themes
under the guise of academic research and studies. Some Arab writers
challenged and doubted the very existence of a Jewish people, describing
Zionism as an aberration aimed to suppress and hurt Arabs and Muslims.
74 Yossef Bodansky
What is called the Jewish nation is simply non-existent, and it cannot
exist, because a nation requires some basic prerequisites. The
desperate Zionist endeavors to prove the existence of such a nation
have failed.146
Other Arab writers provided historical surveys of the Jewish people,
demonstrating that they have no right to presence in the Middle East, let
alone a sovereign state of their own. “The Jewish people never had any
historical link with Palestine, because they were merely a conglomeration of
tribes of robbers who raided the peaceful kingdom of Canaan,” observed one
analyst, while others went further to challenge the validity of the roots of the
Jewish people as described in the Bible.147
Another dominant theme that would prevail throughout the evolution of the
situation in the Middle East - peace process and wars - is that the Jews are
inherently responsible for what was coming to them - from the Holocaust to
Arab hostility. Anis Mansour, Anwar Sadat’s close confidant, was most
explicit in his analysis of the vicious cycle involving Arabs and Jews.
Jews shoot poisoned arrows at the world, but the arrows are directed
back to them... They still remember what Hitler did to the Jews, but
instead of avenging themselves on the Germans they picked on the
Arabs. So their continuing presence here is a permanent vengeance
against the Arabs, who did not commit any crime.148
This state of affairs need not surprise anybody given the historical and
heritage roots of the Jewish people as depicted by the Arab media.
Israel knows very well that she is falsifying and distorting... Israelis
have always been known for this because they falsified their Torah.
But this will no longer obtain for truth is stronger than fiction.149
Similarly, the Egyptian weekly October, then a favorite mouthpiece of
President Sadat edited by his protege and confidant Anis Mansour, elaborated
on other Jewish Holy Books.
The Talmud is a historical scandal that the Jews try to conceal. This
book is regarded as secret, therefore they do not encourage anyone to
read it or translate it. Hence, the importance of publishing excerpts
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 75
from it, because of the hatred it reveals on the part of the Jews towards
all other peoples. They believe that they can kill at will Christians and
Muslims and take over their property. Whoever kills a Jew is a
murderer in their view; whoever kills a Christian is not a murderer.
Whoever steals from a Jew is a thief, but whoever steals from a
Christian or a Muslim is no thief...150
Moreover, the rise of Zionism has enabled the Jewish leaders all over the
world to act upon their duplicitous historical records and spread their vileness
and aggression, particularly against the Arabs, but also against other
nations.15' Most vulnerable to this conspiracy is the United States that is
already effectively controlled by the Jews. However, given the rise in the
global prominence of the US, the Jewish threat extends to the entire civilized
world.
If five million Jews have succeeded in dominating the US, they can
certainly also control the entire western world, which is divided and
less developed.'52
Little wonder that Arab experts saw no escape from a drastic solution to the
Jewish-Israeli problem. They identified the very existence of Israel as the
source of the primary crisis on a global scale.
Israel turns the Jews into the enemies of humankind... The Zionist
idea that time is on their side is no more than a temptation of
sycophants... The crimes of Israel surpass anything attributed to the
Jews in Europe go beyond anything written down in the Talmud or in
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Does world Jewry realize how
much harm Israel brings upon them?'51
Therefore, Arab analysts argued that only drastic measures constitute a viable
solution to this aggregate Israeli-Jewish problem. Hence, the only recourse is
for the Arabs to escalate their unrelenting and uncompromising armed
struggle in order to intimidate and ultimately evict the Zionist-Jewish forces
from Palestine.
Yossef Bodansky
“Only a fifth war against Israel can bring an end to these absurdities, and the
Palestinians will play a decisive role in it, for the Palestinian Arabs alone are
able to undo Israel’s schemes and bring about her collapse under the burden
of her weapons,” asserted one Egyptian analyst.1’4
The Islamists were not far behind the mainstream Arab media is their
espousing of anti-Semitism. Thus, for example, the Imam of the main
mosque in Amman blamed the Jews for all evil in the world.
Jews are treacherous, ungrateful killers of their prophet... Wherever
they went they generated disaster. They stand behind all conspiracies
and corruption in the world. God protect us from their evil!
They succeeded in founding their state and they conquered al-Aqsa
Mosque because of the weakness of those Muslims who forsook their
religion... Our ultimate victory will not be forthcoming through
speeches or demonstrations, but through the return to God... The Jews
are not trustworthy because they are dishonest. They are happy when
they break their pledges; therefore we have no escape from Jihad or
from encouraging our brothers... on the road to victory...1”
This sermon was carried live by Jordanian Radio.
The blurring of the distinction between Jews and Zionists/lsraelis in the
context of the Arab-Israeli dispute was more than an ideological issue. As
Palestinian international terrorism escalated, a growing number of distinctly
Jewish objectives were hit. This trend intensified as Israeli objectives were
becoming harder to hit due to improved security. Indeed, between 1968 and
1986 the era of radical Palestinian (as distinct from Islamist) international
terrorism - 131 Israeli objectives and 43 Jewish objectives were hit. All
together the terrorists hit 435 targets during this period, although the
objectives of only 399 of them was ascertained. The Palestinians justified
their attacks on Jewish objectives arguing that Israel is supported by the
diaspora Jews and therefore hitting them is not different than hitting Israelis.
There were also practical considerations for the shifting of attacks to Jewish
objectives: The Jewish institutions were less protected than Israeli
objectives, and local anti-Semitic radicals often provided help for attacks on
local Jews.1’6
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 77
Some of the terrorist attacks against Jewish targets were of great strategic
importance. For example, in the Fall of 1973, Egypt and Syria, with the help
of the USSR, were immersed in an elaborate program of concealment and
deception aimed to enhance the chances of the surprise attack on Israel
planned for Yom Kippur - October 6, 1973. ' The final distraction was
provided by the Syrians ten days before the outbreak of hostilities. On
September 28, 1973, three Soviet Jewish immigrants were captured by
Palestinian terrorists on the train from the USSR to Vienna. The operation
was conducted by “the Eagles of the Palestinian Revolution” - a cover-name
for al-Saiqa, which is tightly controlled by Syrian military intelligence. The
terrorist attack took place only a few days prior to the outbreak of the Yom
Kippur War and was thus intended to divert the attention of the Israeli
security establishment and the national-level decision makers away from the
mounting military preparations of Syria and Egypt.'37
Other attacks were aimed to deliver clear message to the world terrorist
movement. In February 1972, Wadi Haddad of the PFLP sent Carlos as a
“sleeper” to London. In the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War, the
international terrorist movement decided to announce its return to center
stage. Carlos was activated toward this end and on December 30, 1973,
attempted to assassinate Lord J.E. (“Teddy”) Sieff, the President of Marks
and Spencer and a leading member of the Jewish community. Although shot
at from close range, Sieff miraculously survived. The PLFP claimed the
attack explaining that “the British Zionist billionaire Joseph Sieff ...gives
every year millions of pounds to the Zionist usurper...”'38 The attacks on
distinctly Jewish objectives such as synagogues and schools would continue.
Late 1977 was a turning point in the Arab attitude toward Israel. The visit of
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to Jerusalem ushered the beginning of a
political process that would lead to the signing of a peace treaty between
Israel and its most important Arab neighbor - Egypt. The 1980 peace treaty
called for normalization of relations between the two countries. In the peace
agreement, Israel agreed to withdraw from the Sinai in return for “normal and
friendly relations” as stipulated in a dedicated Article to include “full
recognition, diplomatic, economic, and cultural relations, termination of
economic boycotts and discriminatory barriers to the free movements of
people and goods”.
78 Yossef Bodansky
The annex includes a specific undertaking of both countries to “abstain from
hostile propaganda against each other”. Significantly, by 1982, both
countries signed some 30 agreements regulating a wide scope of forms of
cultural and commercial relations. Still, in a blatant disregard with these
agreements and the spirit of the peace treaty, not only have the
Israeli-Egyptian relations never gone beyond a “cold peace”, but there has
been a distinct rise and expansion of anti-Semitic propaganda in Egyptian
state-controlled media. This is not a coincidence for official Cairo has sought
to counter balance the popular impact of the “peace” with Israel through the
persistent portrayal of Jews as implacable enemies of Islam.1'9
Indeed, Anwar Sadat saw in the quest for peace, including his dramatic trip to
Jerusalem, an instrument to save Egypt from economic collapse by gaining
US and Western financial and military assistance. He never pretended that he
had a profound change of heart. Anis Mansour, editor of October and one of
Sadat’s closest advisors and friends, stressed this point:
Making peace with the Jews does not mean that w'e have to love them,
we just have to sit down with them and settle our accounts. We have
been maintaining contacts with Jew's since 1948, for the most part
covertly. Nevertheless, the Arabs insist on appearing as warmongers
and as haters of Jews, because boycotting Jews and denying any
negotiation with them have always constituted a natural psychological
necessity for us. We have cultivated hatred of the Jews and we have
never devoted the time to reconsider this assumption.160
Moreover, the Egyptian media used the anti-Semitic characterization of
Israelis and Jews as greedy and preoccupied mostly with acquisition of goods
and money grabbing in order to justify the transformation of Cairo’s policy
from the pursuit of armed struggle to the peace process.
We must confess that our most important struggle against Israel is yet
to come. We have fought the military war and we are now' engaged in
a political battle. There remains the economic campaign, which is
linked to the way Israel justifies its ideological existence.161
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 79
Indeed, a closer examination of the Arab propaganda machine, particularly
the Egyptian media, in the period of 1977-80 - at the height of the Egyptian
quest for peace and effort to gain massive US support - demonstrates that if
there was a change in the attitude toward Jews, it was for the worse. The
blatant anti-Semitism has replaced anti-Israeli propaganda as a dominant
theme. “The hatred of Jews is a spiritual national necessity for Arabs,” Anis
Mansour wrote in January 1978. Egyptian media acknowledged the
contemporary expediency in “coming to terms with Jews” rather than
portraying the peace process as a genuine trend. Concurrently, the Egyptian
media continued to depict Blood-libels against Jews as historical facts. The
Muslim Brotherhood’s warnings against “Jewish plots to liquidate Islam”
found wide support and belief among the Egyptian public.162 Even Sadat
himself did not conceal his enduring hatred to the Jews. In mid January 1978,
he said:
I am aware that the Jews are clever tradesmen... They wish to take
without giving... They are a people who do not desire peace; nor do
they desire natural coexistence among peoples, because they want war
and hatred to continue in order to profit from them.163
There was a very practical reason for Cairo’s anti-Semitic incitement at the
height of the ostensible quest for peace with Israel. Even at the height of
Egypt’s isolation by the Arabs, Cairo did not abandon its quest for the
leadership of the Arab World. Even before the rise of political Islam, the
Arab World was unwilling to recognize or legitimate a Jewish entity in
Palestine, let alone make peace with the hated Zionists. Therefore, Cairo had
to reconcile between the necessity to pursue “peace” in order to get American
aid and the quest for Arab posture by substituting the virulent anti-Israeli
propaganda with anti-Semitic themes.
Thus, the Arab media, particularly the Egyptian, did not abandon the
vilification and delegitimization of the Jews as a people. Special emphasis
was now being put on challenging the veracity and validity of Biblical
traditions - the core of the Jewish claim to Israel/Palestine:
80 Yossef Bodansky
The Jews have invented the story relating them to the sons of Noah.
They have repeated this lie for so many years that many nations,
including Muslims, have become its victims. They also began calling
themselves Semites, and, while accusing others of anti-Semitism, they
have been robbing other people and cultivating a sense of guilt among
them... The passages in Islamic tradition which attest to the identity
of Jacob with Israel have been introduced there by trickery, as a
continuation of Jewish lies about their historic origins... Their claim
of descent from Jacob and Abraham is designed to justify their
planned take-over of the Holy Ka’ba in Mecca...164
Hence, there is no way the Jews will come to terms with the global justice -
namely, Islam’s rights to Palestine as a Waqf. On the contrary, in order to
reinforce their own false myths and history, the Jews must turn on Islam and
intensify their struggle to destroy Islam - the only viable challenge to
Judaism, Zionism, and their threats to the world. The emergence of these
themes in the late 1970s in the state controlled media in such countries as
Egypt and Syria is of great significance given the rising tide of Khumaynism
and militant Islamism throughout the entire Middle East.
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument g]
CHAPTERS
JEWS AND POST-KHOMEYNI ARAB STATES - 1980s-1990s
The early 1980s found the Arab and Muslim State in a state of crisis vis-a-vis
the emerging trends throughout the Muslim World. The rise of the Jihad in
Afghanistan constituted a threshold of resolve. Muslims took on a great
modern power - the USSR. Irrespective of the Mujahedin's failures and
losses, they set a precedent to be emulated for their intentions were noble. As
the Prophet Muhammad said: “Truly, actions are judged according to their
intentions, and everyone is rewarded on the basis of his intentions.” (This
saying is written as a motto above the gate of al-Azhar University in Cairo,
the bastion of radical Islamism.) In Iran, like in Afghanistan, the masses took
charge of their own history and this reverberated throughout the entire Arab
World regardless of the Shi’ite character of Khomeyni’s Islamic Revolution.
Fuad Ajami explained:
For the Arab World, the drama of Iran was a spectacle of men and
women in the street making and remaking their own history. Win or
lose, they were there, demanding to be counted or heard. All the Arab
elite’s attempts to say that Iran’s troubles were peculiar to that society
and to point out the detailed (and legitimate) differences between their
own countries and Iran were beside the point.163
The concurrent crisis in Afghanistan intensified and brought to the fore two
existing processes. Their intimate involvement in the region put the Soviets
in a unique and advantageous position to capitalize on and exploit these
processes for the furthering of the USSR’s position in the global correlation
of forces. Most significant and far reaching was the Soviet realization of the
strategic-political ramifications of the revival of radical militant Islam. The
experience in Iran enabled the Soviets to comprehend the extent of the
politicization of Islam, while the experience in Afghanistan provided them
with a unique first-hand experience of the ferocity of the revival of Islam.
Amir Taheri stressed this all-lslamic aspect of the Afghan Jihad:
The Soviet Union is well aware that the problem it is facing in
Afghanistan is not limited to most Afghans’ understandable desire to
rid their country of foreign troops. The Afghan resistance movement
82 Yossef Bodansky
has not confined itself to a minimum programme of securing the
nation’s independence and territorial integrity, but openly advocates
the creation of an Islamic society. It is in the name of Allah, and not
of nationalism in the Western meaning of the term, that Soviet troops
are gunned down in the mountains of Afghanistan. In some of the
liberated zones the resistance movement has already brought into
existence its ideal Islamic society. Here, women have been pushed
back into the veil, polygamy has been legalized, girls are kept out of
school and the mullahs and mawlavis exercise their tyrannical power
in all spheres of life.166
These events in Iran and Afghanistan have a fundamental common
denominator that determines their enduring significance. In both cases,
popular movements challenge the validity of established states and
governments in the name of Islam rather than a contending political ideology.
The return to traditionalist Islam as a socio-political force means the adoption
of the traditional Islamic concepts of statehood and government.
Traditionally, Islam does not recognize the state in its contemporary
westernized connotation. Islam recognizes the sub-national identity based on
common tribal and extended family roots. It also recognizes the
supra-national identity, the Umma, that is a single universal community
where all Believers are brethren. The modern state, the dawla, has temporary
and transient connotations in Islamic cultures. Historically, it was the
supra-national identity and awareness that guided “political” activism in the
Islamic World.
Most significant and telling was the reaction of the intellectual and
established left in the Arab World. These are the pillars of the nationalist
movement - the strata most exposed to, and benefiting from, relationship with
the liberal West. The intellectuals are also benefiting from relations with the
military dictatorial regimes in the Arab World. Despite that, starting the mid
1970s, and more so in the aftermath of the Revolution in Iran, leading leftist
and Marxist intellectuals - most notably in Egypt - have concluded that only
the return to Islam in its comprehensive socio-political connotations could
save the Arab World from its mounting decay. They saw in radical political
Islam the sole vital rejuvenating trend in the Muslim World. The intellectual
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 33
left realized that Islam constitutes the genuine fabric of society at the
grassroots, and is therefore the sole driving force of the masses. They
therefore concluded that there was' no way to mobilize and move the masses
but through the use of political Islamist themes and frameworks. However,
since there is no way the profound differences between Marxism and radical
Islam can be reconciled in a genuine and truthful ideological manner, the
Arab leftist intellectuals sought populist themes - a low common
denominator with the masses - that can bring them back into the dynamic
trend overpowering the Muslim, particularly the Arab, World. Anti-Judaism
has always been a most expedient venue. 167
Essentially, this “Islamicization” of the Arab leftist and Marxist intellectual
elite enabled the national-military and political leadership to adopt these
genuinely popular themes without being seen as having abandoned their
doctrinal or ideological legitimization. Consequently, throughout the Arab
World, leaders took note of the grassroots reaction to these events and the
overall sentiments of the population. Since there has never been any
consideration of democratization in any Arab country and since the
likelihood of diverting resources from corruption and military build-up
toward betterment of the fate of the average citizen was virtually nil, it
became imperative for Arab Governments to come up with Satanic enemies
of the State in order to legitimize the current state of affairs. Therefore, the
Arab State once again adopted harsh anti-Semitism as a rallying cry and
instrument of popular mobilization.
Indeed, since the early 1980s there has been a distinct and marked
intensification of the most crude anti-Jewishness and anti-Judaism
propaganda and incitement - from articles to caricatures - in the
state-controlled media throughout the Arab World. Building on the host of
contentious issues between Israel and its neighbors, the Arab media began
articulating the conclusion that the Arab-Israeli conflict is fast heading
toward a climax in which it would be determined “Who would annihilate
whom - the Jews or the Arabs?” With such fateful issues at stake, little
wonder that the Arab media increasingly intensified its demonization of the
Jews. The distinction between Zionists and Jews blurred and virtually
84 Yossef Bodansky
disappeared in the contemporary Arab media. Moreover, in their quest to
galvanize hatred to Israel, Arab leaders and intellectuals now openly resort to
the most flagrant anti-Semitic themes - most notably the Blood Libel. Thus,
Mustafa Tlas, the Syrian Minister of Defense, authored a book on the
Damascus blood libel of 1840 entitled, The Matzoth of Zion. The back jacket
of the book explains that “the book sets forth in minute detail, and with
scientific exactitude, the Jews’ blood ritual, in which they slaughter
Christians and Muslims so they can mix their blood into matzoth for Yom
Kippur.” [sic!]
Tlas’ instigated a revival of studies of, and popular references to, the blood
libel issue throughout the region. Classic anti-Semitic works, including an
Arab translation of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, were published in
new editions. The overall intensification of most flagrant hatred to Jews in
the Arab media, particularly state-controlled organs, still continues.168
Of unique importance in this trend are the books published by leading
intellectuals - both religious and academic - propagating anti-Jewishness and
anti-Judaism. These works provided confirmation for the anti-Semitic
propaganda. Indeed, these sentiments prevail even within the Egyptian
religious elite sanctioned by President Sadat himself. For example, at the
height of the Camp David process, such luminaries as Shaykh Abd-al-Halim
Mahmud, the rector of al-Azhar University, identified the Jews as Islam’s
worst enemies.
As for those who struggle against the Faithful [that is, the Muslims],
they struggle against the elimination of oppression and enmity. They
struggle in the way of Satan. Allah commands the Muslims to fight
the friends of Satan wherever they may be found. And among Satan’s
friends - indeed, his best friends in our age - are the Jews...169
Similarly, a Syrian expert, Dr. Salah Khalidi, stressed the enduring
characteristics of Jews since the early days of Islam. “Jews are liars, corrupt,
jealous, crafty, treacherous, stupid, despicable, coward, and low-life. They
violate agreements and contracts and cause all evil in the world.”
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 35
Khalidi points out that the Jews thus constitute a global threat. “The Jews are
a mortal danger threatening the world, a lethal plague that dismantles and
destroys it. They are a hateful Satan. The Jewish message is hatred and
jealousy, lies and deception, vilification, duplicity and ruinous.”170
And with Arab Governments endorsing and publishing this kind of depiction
of Jews, their public has no doubt that the often declared commitment to a
“peace process” is not sincere.
Meanwhile, Islamism continues to be the most vibrant, growing, dynamic
trend in the Muslim World. Inspiring the Muslim youth - both the
downtrodden and the highly educated - militant Islam is thus the wave of the
future. For the Islamists, the growing Westernization of the Muslim World
constitutes a new height of affront to Islam, and thus a threat to its ascent - a
crisis made all the worse because the Jews are the perceived winners of this
confrontation.
Already in the early 1980s, Imam Khomeyni set the tone for the Islamist
theological-ideological attitude toward Jews and Israel. Concerning Jews and
Judaism, Khomeyni had long held the classic anti-Semitic stereotypes of the
Jews being at the lead of global conspiracies against Islam. He justified his
repeated calls for a relentless campaign against both Israel and the Jews, even
though Jews are considered People of the Book, by citing the threat they
constitute to Islam. Khomeyni warned that “Jews and their foreign backers
are those who are opposed to the very foundations of Islam and want to
establish an international Jewish government, and, since they are a crafty and
active lot, my fear is that, may Allah forbid it, they may one day succeed.”171
Even before he assumed power, Taheri notes, Khomeyni was “convinced that
the central political theme of contemporary life was an elaborate and highly
complex conspiracy by the Jews - ‘who controlled everything’ - to
‘emasculate Islam’ and dominate the world thanks to the natural wealth of the
Muslim nations.”172
Indeed, Khomeyni frequently asked his son and other trusted aides to verify
that certain foreign high officials were Jews, thus justifying and explaining
their hostility toward Iran.
86 Yossef Bodansky
Assuming power, Khomeyni made the irreconcilable struggle against Jews
and Israel a cornerstone of the grand strategy of the Islamic Republic.
Khomeyni stressed that in its existing political order, the Arab World had
failed to destroy Israel - an Islamic sacred objective. To him, this was an
unacceptable state of affairs. Khomeyni argued that “Arab countries have
tried every single nationalistic way in attempts to annihilate Israel, but they
have never succeeded. Such nationalistic attempts will never succeed. Now
the time has come to try Islam as an alternative and follow the Islamic
Republic of Iran.”
His advice to Arafat and the Palestinian leaders in the early 1980s is still
valid.
I advise the Palestinian leaders to stop trying to negotiate and instead
fight Israel to death by relying upon God, Most Great, the Palestinian
people and their arms; as these negotiations cause the struggling
nations to lose faith.17’
In his study of the social consequences of the Arab World’s return to
Islamism, Jean-Pierre Peroncel-Hugoz stresses the prevalence and political
expediency of reliance on populist “anti-Semitism” for socio-political
objectives:
What can be, incorrectly, called the anti-Semitism of Arab-Muslim
fundamentalism could fill pages and pages. In our time, it is certainly
derived from the trauma provoked by the resurrection of Israel and the
humiliation of the defeats in 1948 and 1967. But it also comes from
the ignorance of the traditional Arab intelligentsia, incapable of
distinguishing between the Israel of the Bible and that of Golda Meir
and Menahem Begin; between Israelis and Jews, Judaism and the
Jewish state, and so on. Naturally even more ignorant, the people,
however, often show hospitality and a relative absence of prejudice
toward Jews or Israelis, particularly marked in Egypt after the Camp
David agreements and in Lebanon after Israel’s anti-Palestinian
expedition. And this was true despite an old tradition of routine
anti-Judaism, expressed in a pejorative vocabulary from Morocco to
Mesopotamia, Sudan and Yemen. Qadhafi shocked his co-religionists
only slightly by saying, when Sadat had just been killed: “He lived as
a Jew, he died as a Jew.”174
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 87
Thus, in the early 1980s, the message of hate had already been adopted by
wide circles in the Arab World, including the intellectual elite, as a substitute
for the long-standing anti-Israeli posture. Most significant was the
intensification of anti-Jewish sentiments and incitement even by the elite,
government-affiliated media in Egypt because of that country’s formal peace
with Israel. Indeed, the government of Anwar al-Sadat used the prevailing
anti-Judaism sentiments as the source of encouraging and enhancing Egypt’s
commitment to pan-Arabism while at the same time pretending to be
pursuing peace with Israel, and thus worthy of the lavish American economic
and military assistance. In his study of Arab reaction to the Egyptian-Israeli
peace, Professor Raphael Israeli observed “the profusion of the anti-Israel
and anti-Jewish propaganda relentlessly produced by both media and
intellectuals in Egypt. Some of that output is ominously edifying, especially
since it may reflect the thinking of mainstream Egypt rather than opposition
groups such as the Socialist Left and the Muslim Right, which have been
opposed to the peace treaty since its inception.”175
Indeed, as far as the Egyptian media of the early 1980s was concerned, the
global Jewish conspiracy was still threatening Egypt even though the direct
threat from Israel has been somewhat reduced. The peace process as a whole
was nothing but Cairo’s latest tactic to destroy Israel, albeit without the use
of force. Given the inherent character of the Jews, the Egyptian media elite
stressed, genuine reconciliation with Israel was simply out of question.
Every effort was done to stress the tacit approval of official Cairo. One
example pointed out to by Peroncel-Hugoz, took place in 1981.
Shaykh Sharawi, a preacher whom Sadat had offered as an example
for young people, used his very popular religious program on
television to emphasize not those statements in the Qu'ran or the
Sunna that might bring Muslims and Jews closer together, but on the
contrary, everything that could create conflict between them. And he
added personal remarks on “the untrustworthiness of the Jews, their
habit of breaking their promises”, and on “infidelism, a flaw affecting
anyone who does not adhere to Islamic dogma”.176
88 Yossef Bodansky
By now, the Egyptian anti-Jewishness and anti-Judaism incitement, as
sanctioned by the government, had multiple themes where the virulent
populist propaganda was relying on sound ideological foundations provided
in the form of scholarly books and articles in the most prestigious venues.
Since all of these organs were controlled by the government and subject to
strict censorship, it stands to reason that official Cairo at the very least
endorsed these themes of hatred.
Among the several books published in Cairo in 1980-81 there were titles such
as The War of Survival between the Qu’ran and the Talmud and The Jews,
Objects of the Wrath of God. These books proved very popular. Sadat’s
confidant, Anis Mansour, published a new book titled The Wailing Wall and
the Tears, which, Professor Israeli observes, “ridicules, slanders, condemns
and calumniates the Jews as no other anti-Semite in recent times has dared to
do e.g.: ‘Jews are enjoined by their faith to ravish all women of other
religions’; the secret constitution of the Jews — The Protocols of the Elders
of Zion — encourages Jews to pursue the profession of obstetrician in order
‘to specialize in abortion and so reduce the number of non-Jews’; children in
Israeli kibbutzim are raised to ‘hate anybody who is not Jewish’; the Talmud
advises Jews to kill any non-Jew, and ‘their souls are full of hostility to all
people without exception’.”177 And these books were neither unique nor
isolated cases.
One of the most important anti-Semitic books to have been published in
Cairo in 1981, was a “scholarly” book by Dr Kamil Sa’fan titled The Jews -
Their History and Religion/Doctrine. Although presented as an academic
study, the book carried a very low price in order to enhance readership. The
book’s cover explained that this low price was “a service to the Arabs and
their problems that had been exacerbated in the last 40 years because of the
Jews...” Sa’fan’s book analyzed the entire “history” of the Jews, including
blood libels and similar accusations, as a relentless campaign against both
Egypt and the Arab World.178
Sa’fan began his study of Jewish history in the Biblical era, arguing that the
Jewish tribes attacked and abused a benevolent and hospitable Egypt before
they assaulted, pillaged and occupied Palestine. For the next centuries, the
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 39
Jews sustained their presence in, and control over, Palestine through a
never-ending series of violent attacks against and pillaging of their neighbors.
It is not by accident that in describing this ancient history, Sa’fan used
contemporary terminology, thus comparing the Jewish legacy to the
present-day behavior of Israel.179 Sa’fan also analyzed the Jewish holy books
in order to bolster his argumentation.
The Talmud is a collection of lies and exaggerations aimed to foster
hatred against non-Jews. The Talmud provides a guide and inspiration
for the destruction of all beliefs, religions, values, and cultures in
order to establish a global Zionist society that will rule the whole
world using all possible means - from cheating to use of force, and
from robbery to embezzlement and lie.
“The Talmud", Sa’fan stresses, “codifies that non-Jews are sub-humans and
that their blood is permitted. Throughout their history, Jews have been
addicted to the pursuit of wealth and other materialistic values at the expense
of all others, and irrespective of the consequences and ramifications for the
rest of the world. This legacy of treachery and sin has molded the character
of the contemporary Jews and governs their dealings with those around them
- particularly Egypt and the Arab World.”180
Dr Lufti Abd al-Attim, a notable scholar and the editor of the prestigious
al-Ahram al-lqtisadi (Economic al-Ahram), wrote in the September 27, 1982,
issue of this weekly a substantial article entitled: “Arabs and Jews: Who Will
Annihilate Whom?” This study outlined the logic of perpetual struggle
between Muslims and Jews irrespective of the prevailing peace agreement
between Egypt and Israel. The ensuing discussion in al-Ahram al-lqtisadi of
Abd al-Attim’s article, that took place for several months, stressed that the
opinions expressed and conclusions reached are the outcome of a thorough,
cool and calculated study. Hence, given the importance of the author and the
publication, Abd al-Attim’s article constitutes a genuine representation of the
perception of Jews and Israel held by Egyptian elite close to President
Mubarak.181 These lengthy citations from Abd al-Attim’s article, as
translated by Prof. Israeli, need no elaboration:
90 Yossef Bodansky
One of the assumptions which needs to be straightened out is the
distinction made between Jews and Israelis... for Jews are Jews; they
have not changed over thousands of years: [they embody] treachery,
meanness, deceit and contempt for human values; they would devour
the flesh of a living person and drink his blood for the sake of making
a few pennies... Another faulty assumption is that Jews want to live in
peace with Arabs. We lived under that illusion when some of our
leaders declared the October 73 war to be the last war and...when
Israel returned the Sinai to us under the Camp David accords...but I
am absolutely certain that when Menahem Begin w'as signing those
accords he was laughing at our naivete...
If we looked realistically into the problem we would find out that it is
one of a total war of annihilation waged by the Jews against the Arab
nation. This war of extermination probably lay at the base of Israel’s
motivation in signing the peace treaty with Egypt... For they
discovered that the best way to wipe the Arab homeland out was
through its humiliation, slander, character-assassination and the
destruction of its present and past noble history. There was no better
way to achieve that than dismembering the Arab nation, beginning
with Lebanon, while the Israeli flag is hoisted in Cairo... We do not
mean necessarily that the Jews aim at the physical extermination of all
Arabs; this is simply impractical, although they would have been
delighted to do it. Rather, they intend to terrorize the Arabs and make
them afraid of Jewish ferocity and intimidate them by such atrocities
as Sabra, Shatilla and Deir Yassin... There is no doubt that the Israeli
master plan strives to commit the same in Iraq, Libya, Syria and other
places in the Arab world...even Egypt would not escape this bloody
and base Jewish scheme... And there is no difference in this regard
between the gangs of saboteurs ruling Israel and the Jewish lobbies
across the globe...
Since I would rather be the killer than the killed (and I hope I am no
exception in the Arab World), I cannot be expected to sit by and wait
for the blood-thirsty and enraged Israeli dogs to dismember my body
and bury the remains of the bodies of my w ife and children... Let me
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 91
declare unequivocally that, yes, this is anti-Semitism, but since Arabs
are also Semites, our anti-Semitism is no different from that of the
Jews: they hate Arab Semites and we hate Jewish Semites... I advise
the Arabs not to be taken in by the appearance of protests in Israel and
by Jews around the world. All this is a well-orchestrated game where
role-playing is effectively assigned... The only difference between
various Jewish circles is whether to kill their Arab victim under
anaesthesia or attack it ferociously and drink its blood outright... On
this goal all Jews are agreed...182
In her study of anti-Semitism in Egypt, Dr. Rivka Yadlin noted that a theme
prevailing in the Egyptian establishment media and intelligentsia, particularly
strong in the intellectual leftist circles of both the progressive nationalist and
these adopting a variant of Islamism, is that exposure to Zionist and Jewish
culture - to be made possible through normalization - will constitute a fatal
blow to Arab and Egyptian culture. The mere exposure to the onslaught of
Jewish culture endangers pan-Arab integration and Egypt’s revival as an
integral component of this trend. A major work that defined these arguments
is The Arab Culture Between the Zionist Onslaught and the Desire for
National Integration by Dr. Hamid Rabi’a that was published in 1982. The
book presents Rabi’a as an international intellectual and academician. Yadlin
stresses that the seemingly cool and calculated style of the book serves to
enhance the academic credentials of the message it is seeking to deliver.183
Discussing “culture”, Rabi’a concentrates on political culture in the context
of quest for all-Arab socio-political awareness. Islam constitutes the core of
the Arab culture, and the quintessence of the political force throughout the
region. Arabness and Islamism are one and the same and cannot be
separated, including in the political international arena. “Arab nationalism is
the expression of the permanent and internal connection with the Islamic
model of Arab existence,” Rabi’a stresses. Therefore, given its unique
relationship with Islam, the Arab political culture and civilization cannot
absorb other foreign, and implicitly hostile anti-lslamic, civilizations and
cultures - or else Arabness will lose the source of its strength and viability.
Rabi’a does not conceal his conviction that this unique character of Arab
political culture is bound to instigate clashes with the rest of the non-Muslim
world.
92 Yossef Bodansky
The Muslim state assumes it was destined for leadership, and is aware
that the core of its essence is the establishment of a global state. The
Arab culture must reflect, one way or another, this unique
quintessential character.
The Arab-Muslim World has been endowed with the unique obligation of
Jihad as the primary instrument of implementing this manifest destiny.184
Rabi’a argued that his time of writing, the 1980s, was characterized by the
rejuvenation of Islamism and Arabness, and therefore also by the resistance
of the West to the spread of Islam. The West is fighting Islam not with the
sword but with “cultural poisoning” - that is the insertion and implanting of
“alien values” in society that are aimed to demolish Arab “culture” from
within. What has been an instrument of Western imperialism since the 19th
century has now become a primary and most potent weapon aimed at the very
heart of the Arab-Muslim nation. Egypt is a central and major target because
of its unique posture and major role in the region. It is in this historical
context that the ramification of the very existence of Israel and its relations
with Egypt should be examined, Rabi’a argues. Zionism is the climax of this
onslaught on Islamism and Arabness because Zionism planted that Jewish
entity - Israel - at the heart of the Arab World. Having been exposed to the
realities of the region, and making full use of the historical experience and
legacy of Jews who have lived under Islam, Zionism is a most potent threat
to Arab “culture”. The primary legacy of the Western imperialist influence is
the rise of the secular nation-state in the Arab World despite its inherent
anti-Islamic character. And it is the Egyptian State that has now exposed the
Arab World to the Jewish onslaught through its bilateral relations - namely,
the recognition of Israel through the peace agreement.185
Meanwhile, Rabi’a argues, the main issue is not the specifics of the
Egyptian-Israeli relations but the realization that the mere acceptance or
legitimization of Zionism constitutes a threat to the existentional foundations
of Arab awareness. The mere recognition of Zionism is anti-Islamic and thus
a mortal affront to Arabness and Islamism. Indeed, the mere presence of a
Jewish entity in the region - Israel - is in itself a demonstration of the
weakening of the Arab-lslamic posture as a result of the imperialist
onslaught. Israel is now committed to intensifying this onslaught to the point
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 93
of completing the task - the destruction and enslavement of Islam. Thus, as
far as Rabi’a is concerned, there can be no reconciliation or co-existence
between Arabness and Islamism and Zionism, for the mere existence of the
latter constitutes a mortal threat to the former.186
Significantly, Rabi’a is not striving for a theocracy. He is fully aware that
some form of a secular state is inevitable in the modern world. However, he
strives to base this state on the solid foundations of Arab-lslamic “culture” so
that together, the new type Arab states will form a new era of pan-Arabism.
And it is on this level - the formulation of a new ethos and “culture” - that
the mere existence of a Jewish entity in direct contacts with the Arabs
constitutes such a profound threat.187
In the mid 1980s, the shift from nationalism to Islam as the sole unifying
factor reached the point that Islamist intellectuals were openly advocating the
abolition of the Arab state system in favor of a single Islamic entity. For
example, in August 1985, the Muslim Institute decreed that “modern
nationalism is a peculiar product of Western political development and has
been introduced to the lands and people of Islam through colonialism,” and
that since then it has remained “an all-pervasive instrument of colonial and
neo-colonial policies of kufr". The only viable solution for this mounting
crisis is the dismantling of all national boundaries currently dividing Muslims
against themselves, and the reestablishment of a united Islamic empire.188 By
now, even conservative Arab regimes, including ostensibly pro-Western, are
blaming the Jews for the spread of liberal and revolutionary ideals and
theories challenging their stability. This concept was elucidated in a January
1984 issue of a Saudi paper:
The idea of communism began with the Jew, Karl Marx. The Red
Revolution in Russia was begun by the Jews. The communist attack
in the Middle East was launched by the Jews who came to Syria,
Lebanon, Palestine, and Egypt, in order to propagate communism...
We know well that communism and Zionism are two sides of the
same coin. From the establishment of Israel up to the present, only
the USSR has derived benefit from it.189
94 Yossef Bodansky
This trend was further strengthened by the conviction of most conservative
Arab leaders that the US - that is “known” to be controlled by Jews - had
embarked on a global conspiracy aimed at fracturing the region through the
spread of separatist self-determination tendencies (that is, democratization
and human rights) so that Washington can ultimately gain control over the
riches of the Middle East. Saudi Government sources spelled out the details
of the American conspiracy:
The information available to the “moderate capitals” in the Arab
world confirms that there is a “scheme”, and we are not calling it a
scheme out of media exaggeration. It is, in fact, a sectarian scheme
that seeks to achieve three main objectives:
First, establish sectarian mini-states in the area.
Second, change the map of the Arab states that have established
themselves in the area since their national independence in the 1950s
and 1960s.
Third, freeze collective Arab action, obstruct the Arab League's role
and use the sectarian terrorism and violence groups as “mercenary
forces to achieve political objectives and collect political and financial
protection money for the states that take care of this scenario”.
There are no sectarian differences or real political problems behind
this fearful scenario. The objective is not to pit the Sunna against the
Shi’a or the Shi'a against the Sunna.
The objective is not to pit the Muslim against the Christian or the
Christian against the Muslim.
The objective is not to pit the leftist against the rightist or the rightist
against the leftist.
The objective of the sectarian scenario, according to a high-level Arab
official who has important Arab and international communication
threads and channels, is “all” the parties that can be pitted against each
other in order to weaken the traditional forces and to elevate
unpatriotic and sectarian minority forces who are primarily against the
minorities and sects they represent.
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 95
Thus, the target is the Arab world’s current map with the aim of
re-drawing the borders in the mid 1990s.
With this visualization, the important question becomes: Is the
objective one of terminating the formula of states of rulers and
regimes and establishing the mini-states of the sects and minorities?
This is indubitably the most serious question. This is the question of
the 1990s which the Arabs must answer.190
Thus, contemporary Arab leaders, irrespective of the character and ideology
of their regimes, found themselves pressed by several demands by the
intellectual, military, and religious elites, as well as the popular masses to
abolish statehood, return to Islam, and be integrated into a
pan-Arab/pan-lslamic Bloc. Thus, fear of destabilization by militant
radicalism (both Islamist and progressive) and Westernization (democratic
influence) has mobilized Arab leaders, including the conservative regimes, to
take drastic steps to ensure their self-survival. Adopting virulent anti-lsraeli
positions has proven the most effective means of getting Islamic legitimacy
from an increasingly Islamist population influenced by the Khomeyni
Revolution without having to make too many internal changes. Moreover, the
fight against the Jews - irrespective of political agreements with a state called
Israel - has remained the lowest common denominator in the Arab and
Muslim World.
Concurrently, there was an evolution in the political message Arab
governments were delivering through the use of anti-Jewish incitement.
Starting the early 1980s, from a political point of view, official Cairo was
using these prevalent anti-Jewish sentiments in order to go around limitation
of “peace agreements” in order to stress the duplicity and inherent hostility of
the Jews irrespective of agreements signed with Muslims - be that in the days
of Prophet Muhammad in Medina or recently in Camp David between Egypt
and Israel. However, with Israel completing its withdrawal from the entire
Sinai, removing the settlements, and even accepting and implementing the
Taba arbitration that was clearly favorable to Egypt, official Cairo had no
more excuses for building confrontational ism and prevention of
normalization as required from the peace agreements. However, the
96 Yossef Bodansky
intensifying demonization of the Jews made such normalization unacceptable
for most Egyptians - hence the intensification of anti-Jewishness and
anti-Judaism propaganda in the government controlled/supervised media.
Moreover, given the Israeli honoring of its agreements with Egypt, Cairo’s
message had to become more profound. Thus, for example, Shaykh Umar
al-Tilimsani, leader of the government-sanctioned branch of the Muslim
Brotherhood, decreed in early 1989 that “there is no place for Jews in the
Middle East except as subject to Islamic rule, certainly not as an independent
nation.”191 There should be no doubt as what legitimacy Arab-Israeli
negotiations and agreements have in the context of such an explicit and
authoritative statement.
Meanwhile, the growing popularity of the call for an Islamic solution resulted
in the introduction of a sub-layer of political expediency - the Arabness, that
is a modernized pan-Arabism. The Arabness factor is in essence
governments’ inspired political counter-trend and ideological compromise
aimed at neutralizing or reducing the growing Iranian influence. As
transpired from the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988, Arabness was utilized by
numerous Arab regimes as the primary instrument of ensuring their
self-survival through unifying their ranks, especially bringing Egypt back
into the Arab fold, and manipulating the US into compliance with the largely
anti-American policies of the Arab World.
Since the late 1980s, Arab polity has been dominated by the struggle of
various Arab leaders and regimes against the Islamist tide of both the elites
and popular masses. This struggle has been manifested in the repeated
attempts to consolidate alternate ideological and strategic trends that would
secure the rulers’ and regimes’ stay in power while retaining their Islamic
legitimacy despite their refusal to surrender to Tehran. The most audacious
attempt was Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 in order
to instigate a fateful confrontation with the US-led West. His survival in
power despite Iraq’s military defeat and economic ruin testifies to the
strength of this logic.
However, the plight of Iraq has also convinced other Arab leaders that they
should avoid unilateral and direct confrontation with the US-led West.
Instead, the most favored expedient solution, basically the only one that had
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 97
some semblance of positive reaction from the street as well as the military
and security organs, the key to survival of any regime, has been mobilization
for struggles against Israel and the US. Jihad has proven to be the lowest
common denominator throughout the region and a genuine aspiration of
virtually everybody. At present, in the late 1990s, as Tehran is rising to
assume power, it is incumbent upon the leaders of the new Islamist trend to
justify their right to power by leading the long sought after and promised
Jihad as the sole measure of their legitimacy in the eyes of elites and masses
alike.
Saddam Hussein felt compelled to audaciously challenge the existing
political order throughout the Middle East by invading Kuwait because of the
overall deterioration of the strength and legitimacy of the state system in the
Arab world. By the late 1980s, there emerged the first signs of profound
cracks in the legitimacy and widespread acceptability of the state system.
Tamara Sonn explained the inherent self-contradictory tenets at the
foundation of the Arab state system of the late 1980s.
Indeed, it has gotten worse, for the continued failure of the Arab
leaders has spawned yet another reaction. The pan-Arab ideal was a
counterfeit criterion of political success, predisposed to breed failure.
It imposed a standard of political legitimacy unsuitable for the means
required to achieve it. It called for geopolitically limited states to
work with geopolitically unlimited leadership. The competition
among regional leaders for that position was bound to breed
instability. And the more those leaders failed, the more their people
suffered. Involvement in Lebanon and the fruitless endeavors to best
one another in the international arena kept Arab leaders from working
effectively on the real problems of the region: economic development
and Palestinian homelessness. The main actors in this drama had been
the Ba’thist and Nasserist politicians, who had themselves developed
in reaction against so-called Western capitalist models. Their
continued failure - so explicitly demonstrated in the 1967 defeat in
Palestine - led to a broadening of the definition of “Western”. Since
then, both capitalist and socialist models have been rejected on the
98 Yossef Bodansky
popular level. Indeed, almost anything foreign has been defined as
un-lslamic and secularist and therefore has been rejected... The new
reaction: Instead of retreating into Arabism, now the Arab world
retreated into Islam. The European betrayal had spawned leaders who
followed alien models of all sorts. Islam, it seemed, was the only thing
that had not been tried. The Islamic activist groups — to be described
in the next chapter - proliferated and joined in the Lebanese
conflagration.192
And it is this realization of Islam’s seemingly unstoppable ascent as a
political force that drove Arab leaders to undertake drastic measures.
Arabness was the ideological motivation and justification for Saddam
Hussein’s rise to regional power in the late 1980s. His primary objective has
always been the establishment of a pan-Arab state (or bloc) that would
become a Third Superpower at the same level as the US and the USSR., thus
making him a world leader. “I struggle for the realization of Arab unity, and
if necessary, through the use of force, because I am determined to consolidate
a single Arab state,” Saddam Hussein stated.11’ It is in pursuit of these
grandiose aspirations that he led Iraq in the Summer of 1990 into a disastrous
military confrontation with the US-led coalition and, in the process, propelled
the Near East into a profound crisis from which it is yet to recover.
Although the Gulf Crisis is counted as of the invasion of Kuwait, the real
“first shot” was fired by Libya’s Mu’ammar Qadhafi back in May 1990.
During the Arab Summit in Baghdad, Qadhafi demanded a secret session
with the other leaders, where he gave an alarming speech on the future course
of the Arab World. Qadhafi warned:
We all must, virtually today, establish a joint alliance to stand
strong/steadfast against the radical-extremist Islamic groups that are
seeking to take over the entire Middle East. They multiply with the
speed of lightning.
We are likely to wake up one morning facing the masses raising the
slogans whereby “Islam is the solution to all our economic and social
woes,” and demanding that we, the present rulers, evict the arena.'94
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 99
In his speech, Qadhafi accurately and insightfully defined the state of the
Arab masses even before they were exposed to the shock of the Gulf Crisis.
Thus, the Gulf Crisis compressed in a most traumatic way all the crises and
traumas that had reverberated throughout the Muslim World since the late
1980s. For the Middle East, the essence of the trauma was the collapse of
Saddam Hussein’s Grand Design and with it the widespread hope of
pan-Arabism as a political entity it excited. The reliance on foreign forces in
a form of direct and overwhelming military intervention to settle essentially
an inter-Arab dispute only further exposed the fallacy of Arab Unity in its
political connotations. Little wonder that the Arab world was traumatized by
the experience of the Gulf Crisis. The entire world witnessed the Arabs’
inability to resolve conflicts within the “family”, their reliance on US-led
West to do the fighting against a brethren Arab country, and their ensuing
acceptance of the “peace process” with Israel that amounts to a seeming
abandonment of Islam’s claim over Palestine. The Arabs resent these
developments both as being imposed by the US as part of a new post-Gulf
War reality and because it intensifies the power of the Islamists that
challenge these governments. Muhammad Faour stressed the long term
ramifications of these crises:
Desert Storm has exacerbated the prewar instability of several Arab
regimes, the legitimacy of which has been increasingly questioned by
their citizens. The sources of instability are many: high population
growth, authoritarian or oligarchic leadership and economic stagnation
by themselves pose severe strains on political stability. Yet more
unsettling is the rise of Islamist-dominated political oppositions,
including some militant, uncompromising groups, the continuation of
the conflict over the Palestinian question, and the persistence or
deepening of a number of bilateral disputes.19’
Ultimately, the Gulf War and the ensuing political developments highlighted
the weakness of the Arab political order - a profound challenge that had
existed before. Furthermore, the marked advances in electronic media,
particularly tapes and satellite TV, quickly brought both the humiliation of
the Arab leaders and Arabism, as well as the message of the Islamist
opposition, to more Arabs than ever before. This development alone has
1 go Yossef Bodansky
already created unprecedented levels of grassroots discontent and
radicalization. All this time, Washington remained self-intoxicated by the
seeming progress of the “peace process” it initiated in the aftermath of the
Gulf Crisis, pointing to the on-going talks between Israel and the Arab
delegations. Reality could not be different. The Arab regimes had to go
along with the US plan. All the Arab governments involved in the “peace
process” agreed to participate because of overwhelming considerations
concerning their bilateral relations with the US, and not because they
suddenly saw the light and decided to make peace. Consequently, starting
the early 1990s, Arab leaders were desperately trying to maneuver between
near-term objectives vis-a-vis Washington and the ever present rage of the
masses and the ensuing threat of an Islamic revolution erupting.
In May 1991, Nasser Nashashibi, a Palestinian and one of the most
sophisticated elder-statesmen of the Arab World, highlighted this duality in
the Arab leaders’ approach to the peace process, emphasizing the ultimate
triumph of the Islamist masses:
Can Assad afford a peace arrangement with Israel? To my estimation
- yes, in the near term, and no with a capital “N” in the further future.
What do 1 mean? Peace between Israel and Syria, if attained, will be
able to hold only for a brief period. I am willing to bet that the peace
with Egypt will not be able to hold beyond the next five to ten years.
The warning lights are already blinking: There is no real
normalization. There are foci of objection/resistance. Peace will end
in the wake of a massive uprising of the [Islamist] reactionaries, that
will incite the masses to pour into the streets, bum public buildings,
empty the weapon storage-sites.196
Again, it was Mu’ammar Qadhafi who raised the alarm concerning the course
followed by the Muslim World. In July 1992, he warned that the Arab
World, and subsequently the rest of the Western world, were facing a major
crisis as a result of the rise of militant fundamentalist Islam. Qadhafi
identified the Islamists’ destruction of the nation-state system as the essence
of their threat to the modern world. Qadhafi anticipated a region-wide
Islamic Revolution not different from Khomeyni's.
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 101
The [Islamic] Revolution is approaching. Violence and anger are now
inevitable and the flood is coming. Coups will begin and this is
certain. The existing governments are finished. No one defends them
any more and they no longer have justification to stay.
He explained that riots and civil disorder instigated by militant Islamist
organizations constituted the catalyst that exploited the widespread popular
anger and would ultimately engulf the region in flames. “Fundamentalist
groups are a small example of what will happen. New groups of students,
military men, workers, peasants, socialists and nationalists will follow them
in the same path,” Qadhafi warned.197
The Arab regimes and their leaders are cognizant of this state of affairs. The
advent of modernity since the mid 1990s — particularly the spread of
knowledge through electronic means - intensified the legitimacy problems of
Arab rulers and Governments. Higher education and greater exposure to
Western knowledge intensify the problem of the Arab leaders simply because
their subjects can raise questions and issues, express aspirations and pursue
legitimate objective they could not elucidate before. These are endemic
problem, as elucidated by Said K. Aburish:
There are no legitimate regimes in the Arab Middle East. The House
of Saud, King Hussein of Jordan, Presidents Husni Mubarak of Egypt,
Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Hafez Al Assad of Syria, Yasser Arafat of
the Palestinian Authority and the remaining minor Arab heads of state
run various types of dictatorships. They depend on phony claims to
legitimacy while representing small special interest groups minorities
whose members owe their allegiance to them rather than the state as
the representative and guardian of the interests of the people. The
result is religious, tribal, army-based or hybrid ruling cliques and
leaders who have one thing in common: they are opposed to the
desire of the majority of the Arab people to have or develop legitimate
198
governments.
Therefore, while compelled to follow Washington’s diktats, Arab/Muslim
leaders and regimes must repeatedly demonstrate to the masses their true
colors. They do so in the indirect way - primarily through the incitement of
102 Yossef Bodansky
anti-Jewishness and anti-Judaism. They transform these emotional
sentiments into a potent political message by stressing such international
themes as the Jewish control over the international monetary system and
economy, Jewish control over the US, etc. .This way, they can blame the
Jews for all the trials and crises afflicting the Arab world.
The Muslim World’s penchant for conspiracies, hidden hands, and secretive
manipulations makes the political exploitation of anti-Semitism most
expedient as both the object of hate and an easy explanation for the failures,
defeats. This trend has become stronger and more intense in the aftermath of
the Gulf War because, given the omnipotence and ever-presence of the US, it
is no longer that easy to blame America. Hence, it is the Jews who control
the US who are to be blamed for all the calamities that befall the Arab world.
The Jews manipulate Washington into taking on the Muslim world in order to
support Israel and destroy Islam. These sentiments are extremely widespread
and popular because they build on generations of incitement along these
lines. However, in the current political climate, they become most expedient
for Arab rulers to use in order to justify hostile policies and unpleasant
choices.199
Presently, most important in this context is the use of anti-Jewish sentiments
by Arab States in order to counter-balance the Peace Process, as well as any
other form of legitimization of, and normalization of relations with, Israel.
The demonization of all Jews, including the Zionists in Israel, makes the
genuine implementation of any agreement an Arab government signs with
Israel impossible. And Arab governments go to great length. Damascus, for
example, still uses the old Blood Libel theme, as demonstrated in the
availability of a book on this subject by Mustafa Tlas - Syria’s Deputy Prime
Minister and Minister of Defense. Although, the blood libel issue - usually
revisiting the Damascus Blood Libel of the 19th century and related incidents,
as well as “analytical” literature about the subject - has flourished since the
1950s as an integral component of the anti-Semitic literature published
throughout the Arab World, including in publications put out by the Egyptian
and Iraqi Governments, it was not a mainstream issue in the anti-Jewish
literature. Because of the Christian connotations, the blood libel theme was a
relatively low key, if not marginal, issue in the Arab anti-Semitic incitement
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 103
and thus not accorded populist following.'00 However, this changed with the
great fanfare surrounding the publication of Tlas’ book on the Damascus
Blood Libel if only because of the importance of the author/publisher and the
emphasis and attention accorded to the book and its message of hate by the
Syrian official media.
Since the mid 1990s, the Arab official and semi-official media has come up
with more modern spin-offs of the blood libel in order to demonize Jews and
Judaism. Jews are now accused of such crimes against Arabs as spreading
AIDS and homosexuality in Arab society, contaminating Egyptian
agriculture, and propagating Satanic cults among Egyptian youth.201 The
government-sanctioned Islamist media in such countries as Egypt and Jordan
are even more explicit in connecting Jewish “conspiracies” against the Arab
population to the peace process. The Islamist media defines the essence of
“normalization” with Israel as the flow of “spying, drugs and AIDS” from
across the border. The Jews systematically push into Arab countries with
open borders with Israel drugs, forged dollars, spies and sex-stimulating
chewing gum. Moreover, Israeli fruits contain hormones which kill male
sperm. These cases are but the tip of the iceberg of the Jewish “satanic
efforts” launched via Israel in order to “legalize homosexuality in Egypt and
the Islamic countries, spread sexual chaos, and break down the Arab societies
so that they will become easier to manipulate, thus realizing the dream of
Greater Israel.”302 By the Fall of 1996, this campaign expanded to Egypt’s
mainstream and primary opposition papers. The Jews are accused of such
conspiracies as penetrating Egypt’s most sacred institutions or deliberately
infecting the young people of the Muslim world with AIDS and other
sexually transmitted diseases. On behalf of the world Jewish conspiracy,
“the Mossad planned to flood Egypt with drugs and forged dollars and seeds
infected with viruses” as well as “sex and booby-trapped letters” - all in
order “to dominate the Egyptian people.”203
Meanwhile, the Arab states continue using the anti-Semitic perception of a
world Jewish conspiracy - as depicted in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
- to justify for themselves and their constituents the Arabs’ and Muslims’
inability to destroy Israel. Arab media habitually relies on Protocols in order
to convince the West to side with the Arabs and endorse the destruction of
104 Yossef Bodansky
Israel. Moreover, the Arabs failed to eliminate Israel because they are
actually confronting the international Zionist conspiracy as described in
Protocols. The politically expedient character of the anti-Semitism
encouraged, at the very least tolerated, by Arab governments can be deducted
from the change in the mainstream media’s dealing with Jews and Zionists.
Until the early 1990s, Arab media attempted to distinguish between the local
Jewish communities, the Zionists of Israel, and a monstrous global Jewish
entity. Concurrent with the intensification of the “peace process”, expansion
of economic relations and discussions of a regional normalization, there
developed a constant and intentional blur between the “Zionists” and the
“global Jewish” entity. This evolution is clearly manifested in the repeated
return to addressing The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a viable political
track with ramifications for the Arab-Israeli relations.204
In Egypt, Protocols is routinely used by the media in order to put the ongoing
developments in the relations with Israel in the “true perspective”. The
essence of Israel’s policy is the furthering and implementation of the Jewish
conspiracy as elucidated in Protocols. Even the government controlled
media stresses that Protocols is indeed a genuine historical document
covering the behind-the-scenes negotiations during the First Zionist
Congress. The contemporary Egyptian dealing with Protocols goes beyond
the frequently quoted sentences of hatred to include an analysis of its
historical significance. Irrespective of the Jewish claim that Protocols is a
forgery, argued Anis Mansour’s semi-official October, many of the
predictions made there - from the outbreak of two world wars to the
establishment of Israel - have already been realized. Others, concerning the
expansion of Jewish conspiracy, “are being realized in front of our eyes”.
Moreover, Protocols is little more than repetition of the “tenets of the
Talmud.” Therefore, Protocols should be considered a genuine document.
October also found it expedient to quote Adolf Hitler as a confirmation of the
authenticity of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.2<b
In the Spring of 1994, the Egyptian sanctioned opposition - both the leftist
and the Islamist - provided the lynchpin connecting the Arab-Israeli “peace
process” with the prevailing Jewish threat. The dominant theme was that any
and all forms of reconciliation were impossible given the inherent evil of the
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument ]Q5
Jews, including the Zionists in Israel. The leftist opposition stressed that the
Arabs had been blinded by the Zionist image and seeming might of the
enemy to the point of forgetting their Jewish core and inherent character.
Indeed, it is because of this Jewish factor that the contemporary confrontation
with Zionism “threatens the Arab Nation, its present, past and future”. There
is a persistent and relentless Jewish drive against the rest of the world - as
clearly defined in their books, from the Bible and the Talmud, to the
contemporary The Protocols of the Elders of Zion - that still haunts the Arab
world. These works determine the Zionist Jews’ logic and perception of the
world and of other human beings. It is the Jewish conspiratorial scheme to
rule the world that drives the Zionists in Israel. Hence, the so-called “peace
process” is but another aspect of the Jewish threat to, and conspiracy against,
the Arab world.206
It did not take long for this theme to be adapted by the Egyptian mainstream
media. The subjects addressed were more sophisticated, but the logic and
augmentations the same. For example, according to mainstream papers, the
plight of the Egyptian economy of the late 1990s should be attributed to the
Zionist effort to control Egypt. This quest is but a part of the Jewish
conspiracy to control the whole world as described in Protocols.
Government-owned papers repeatedly stress that Protocols is indeed a
genuine document “detailing the secret objectives and [real] plans of the
Zionists”.207 Arab media further argued that the Israeli Nazi-style policies
need not surprise given “the Jewish roots of Nazism” - that is, Nazism’s
basis in “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which embodied the Jewish
philosophy”.208
The same reasoning was applied to explaining Arab political setbacks in the
international arena. Most prevalent was the attribution of Washington’s
hostility toward certain Arab policies to the Jewish control over the US
government and the American media. Thus, for example, in 1994, the
semi-official Syrian Times insisted that “the secret of Jewish information
influence on the American arena lies in the Jews’ understanding of the nature
of American society and their ability to identify its points of weakness and
strength.”
106 Yossef Bodansky
The Jews, the article argued, falsified the historical record of events in the
Middle East in order to mislead the American public into supporting Israel.
The Jews achieved this fate by controlling 1,000 out of 1,700 American
newspapers as of the 1970s. Moreover, Jews are disproportionately
represented in the White House and State Department.209 This theme, of
Jewish impact on US policy, is prevalent in the mass media throughout the
Arab world.
Meanwhile, the further Islamicization of Arab society has contributed
directly to the intensifying demonization of Jews in the context of political
and other substantive discourse that is not on Islamist issues. For example, in
1994, shortly after the Hebron massacre, two Egyptian Muslim Brothers -
Muhammad Abdallah al-Saman and Hassan Ashur - published a book titled
The Ibrahimi Mosque Massacre: The Forgotten Affair in the Midst of Arab
Weakness and Compliance with the False Voices of Peace. The authors
claim that the book is the first serious coverage of the massacre. The book
starts with two quotes of Adolf Hitler about the Jews. One says that “the
Jews are dirty rats...blood-sucker parasite germs...and arrogant oppressors.”
The second quote claims that “if the Jews could control the world with the
assistance of Marxist ideas, the result would be the destruction of the
world...therefore I swore to God to take up arms in Jihad against the Jews
and struggle against them.”
The book is replete with Qu’ranic verses demeaning and hostile to the Jews
as a proof of the long-standing hostile intent of the Jews against both
Muslims and the Mosque (the Makhpela Cave). The authors insist that
Baruch Goldstein represents the real “Israeli personality”. Therefore, they
assert that there is no real difference between a Jew and a Zionist. They
stress that Zionism - since it ultimately derives its philosophy, legitimacy and
objectives from Judaism - is inherently racist. “So,” they ask rhetorically,
“can Hitler be blamed for the way he perceived things?”210
Another prevalent anti-Semitic theme to have emerged in the Arab media as
the Peace Process continued is that the Jews have no right to Israel/Palestine.
This argument is constructed as a combination of Islamist logic and
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument Ю7
elaboration of the “Jewish conspiracy” themes related to Protocols. The
Arabs claim that the Jews distort their overall historical and religious
legacies. The present Jewish leadership is intentionally distorting the Torah
and the Talmud in order to further and ostensibly legitimize the Jewish drive
to dominate the world and destroy its values. In the Middle East, the Zionist
Jews need the foothold in Israel because they are determined to ignite a
conflict between Islam and the West. The Jews use their distorted religious
legacy, which is full of fallacies and myths, fanaticism, racial superiority, and
so-called divine promises for Palestine in order to justify their hold over the
country and hatred toward the Arabs. Therefore, this Jewish culture
constitutes the real danger to both the Arab world and quest for genuine
peace in the Middle East. This twisted legacy gives the Jews the notion that
they are “God’s Chosen People” - a racist conviction that they are “worth
more than the Gentiles” as well as a “ghetto mentality” stressing perpetual
enmity toward, and struggle with, the rest of the world.2"
Ali Aqla Arasan, the Chairman of the Federation of Arab Writers in
Damascus, elucidated the ultimate objective of this line of reasoning. The
permanent solution to the instability and violence plaguing the Middle East
should be derived from the premise that Palestine belongs to the Arabs and
not to “the Khazar Jews”. For example, the Arabs would have cooperated
culturally with the West had they not been confronted with “an amalgamation
of cultures in which the Talmud and the imperialist drive were the common
denominators” as the representation of the West in their midst. As for the
Jews themselves, Arasan see no reason why Jews who had lived in Arab
countries should not return to their homelands and live peacefully under
Islamic suzerainty. Presently, Jews remain the avowed enemies. “We should
know our enemy. We must gather every piece of information and acquaint
ourselves with the Jews, but we should always remember that they are the
enemy,” Arasan stresses.
J don’t believe that the Jew can get out of the ghetto, whether it is a
small neighborhood in Moscow or all of Palestine. The Jews cannot
get rid of the ghetto mentality because it is part of their cultural being
108 Yossef Bodansky
through the generations. They claim themselves that if they do not
adhere to this framework they will merge with other people and no
longer exist. They maintain some kind of racism based on this
religious belief. Who can change the Torah and the Talmud? ...Their
soul will not change because they consider all the others Goyim and
enemies. They are all vipers and I will never change my mind.’ "
Furthermore, Arab media argues repeatedly, the contemporary' enmity
between Muslims and Jews need not surprise given the legacy of enmity and
hostility. By the early 1990s, there emerged diversified scholarly literature
tracing the roots of the present Muslim-Jewish animosity to Islam’s early
days on the basis of studies of the Qu’ran and the Hadith. These studies are
politically important not in providing any new arguments to the subject, but
in that they established the subject of the historic Muslim-Jewish animosity at
the intellectual and academic level. This development gave this and other
anti-Jewish themes that are repeated over and over again in the Islamist and
populist media respectability and mainstream acknowledgment.21’ Indeed, by
the late 1990s, the mainstream media adopted the Islamist perception of Jews
and Judaism as the key to, and quintessence of, the overall dynamics in the
Middle East. Thus, irrespective of the progress of the “peace process” and
other diplomatic activities, the media’s portrayal of the Jews on the basis of
Qu’ranic and Islamist tents dominates the public perception of the issue. The
overwhelming messages are that the Muslim-Jewish animosity and conflict
are irreconcilable, and that therefore the destruction of Israel is a sacred duty
according to the Qu 'ran. Moreover, given the global Jewish conspiracy, such
a drastic step is also imperative in order to save humanity and the civilized
world from being taken over by the conniving Jews.214
By late 1990s, there emerged, particularly in Egypt, another facet in the
demonization of Jews beyond the Arab-Israeli conflict. There is a sudden
surge in overt hostility toward the local Jewish community with emphasis on
their history of subverting, hurting, and hostility toward, the Egyptian
Muslim majority. This is a sharp deviation from the long-held propaganda
line of amicable Jewish-Muslim relations in Arab states as well as the official
line stressing a separation between the Jews as People of the Book, and the
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 109
bitter conflict with the Zionists/Israel. Historians reexamined the role of the
Jewish community before its eviction in the context of the Arab-Israeli
conflict - again tying the two issues together. One such study, by Mustafa
Muhammad Abd-al-Nabi, revealed “the real role of the Jews in Egypt. Their
abuse of the national revolution...domination of the economy and gold
smuggling.” Another book, by Arfa Abduh Ali, looked at the history of
Egypt’s Jewish community and stressed their anti-nationalist role. The book
emphasized the Jewish community’s collaboration with the monarchy and the
British authorities. The Jews dominated the Egyptian economy, subverting it
to their own benefit and to the detriment of most Egyptian Muslims, as well
as spied against Egypt. These historical studies starkly contradict the
prevailing claim of cooperation and peaceful coexistence between the
Egyptian Jews and their Muslim neighbors. They now stress that given the
true historic record of Jewish-Egyptian relations, there can be no co-existence
with the Jews either in Egypt or in an independent Israel.213
By now, the hatred of Jews in the Arab media - as distinct from the usual
hostility toward Zionism or Israel - has been coopted by the government
control mechanism. Usually kept at an ever present low key, the fervent
hatred is now permitted into the primary government controlled media
throughout the Arab world when it is required “to release steam” and/or
address public pressure. At that time, the attacks on Jews and Judaism are
virulent. This pragmatic and cynical use of deep-seated emotions
demonstrates the extent and prevalence of these sentiments at the Arab
grassroots level. Moreover, the themes and approaches to addressing
anti-Jewish issues are virtually identical in the entire spectrum of Arab media
- from official and establishment papers to Islamist and populist
periodicals.216
A good example of the exploitation of latent and not-so-latent anti-Jewish
sentiments is Arab media’s reaction to the pig leaflet that was distributed in
Hebron in June 1997. Cognizant of the seething grassroots rage, Arab
governments facilitated the outburst of intense hatred in the media.217 The
leaflet provocation was an excuse for the prevailing popular sentiments to
burst out. At first, it was pointed out that the insulting of the Prophet was a
11 о Yossef Bodansky
crime for which the Sha’ria stipulates the death penalty. However, it did not
take long for the Arab media to turn on the Jews as a whole, insisting that the
pig leaflet represented the quintessence of Judaism’s attitude towards
Muslims and Islam. “What can we expect from the killers of the Prophets”
and “the descendants of apes and swine,” asked the Egyptian Islamist paper
A-Sha'ab. All together, newspapers throughout the Arab world called the
Jews “criminals”, “racists”, “fanatics”, “heretics”, “traitors” and “the killers
of the prophets”.218
Within days, the entire Muslim world erupted in a frenzy of anti-Semitism.
Protest marches and demonstrations against the pig leaflet took place from
Morocco to South Africa and to Bangladesh. The participants chanted general
anti-Judaism and anti-Jewish slogans rather then just protestations over the
leaflet.219 In Tehran, Ayatollah Muhammad Yazdi declared that “Israel
should be razed” because the incident reaffirmed the Jews’ overall inherent
hostility toward Islam. The subject of the irreconcilable enmity between
Judaism and Islam was stressed in Tehran’s media.220 These sentiments were
also echoed in the media is such moderate and sophisticated countries as
Morocco or Oman. In Morocco, an editorial called for God and the Prophet
to punish the Jews severely, thus satisfying the Believers’ hearts. The Mufti
of Oman called the Jews “the enemies of God and humanity” and also urged
their severe punishment by both man and God.221
Most significant, however, is the lingering impact of the crisis and its
exploitation in order to put forward general and historical observations about
the inherent character of the Jews and Muslims’ ability to coexist with them.
These were profound statements and the pig leaflet only provided the catalyst
and excuse for their airing in the mainstream media throughout the Arab
world. The leaflet crisis was presented as yet another episode in a
confrontation with the Jews going back to the days of the Prophet. The
current incident reaffirms the Qu 'ratfs depiction of the Jews as “the sons of
apes and pigs” and serves as further justification for Islam’s fateful struggle
for the destruction of Israel. Since the Arab world of the late 1990s cannot
annihilate Israel, “then the only solution capable of removing this major
insult is the conduct of sacred fiday [terrorist] activities bringing about
martyrdom so that Israel will turn into a huge fireball ignited by the
Mujahideen's own bodies.”222
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 1| |
Aware of Islam’s inevitable triumph over Judaism, and not just Zionist Israel,
Jews have developed an inferiority complex that drives them to attempt and
exploit their current military might by inciting a religious war against Islam.
However, despite their technological and scientific progress, the Jews cannot
establish superiority over the Muslim world because they are still trapped in a
web of false religious beliefs that makes them culturally and morally
backward.22’
In Jordan, the media stressed that the tenets of the Qu'ran demand resolute
and hostile action against the Jews - the traditional nemesis of Muslims and
Islam.224 There cannot be peace and co-existence with the Jews because they
are “people who emerged from the garbage dump of history”. Moreover,
Jews have been hurting Islam from its inception till this very day. This
accumulating historical experience proves that “so horrible is the Jewish
mentality and so bizarre it is throughout history” that no compromise is
possible with the Jews. Islam must therefore embark on a relentless and total
war, even if it would takes a century to win, as the only viable solution to the
Jewish threat.225 The Syrian media also stressed the psychological barriers of
the Jews which fuel their hatred toward Muslims and their penchant for plots
and cruelty against Islam.226
Ultimately, even the condemnations in Israel and among Jews of the pig
leaflet cannot be trusted because they contradict the inherent evil nature of
Jews. There should be no doubt that pig leaflet reflects the genuine Jewish
sentiment toward Islam and Muslims because “the Jews are full of grudges,
infidels and [are] accursed.” A Jordanian commentator even finds the irony
in the mere existence of the leaflet.
What is bizarre is that these accursed Jews chose to depict
Muhammad as a pig, while in fact Allah changed the shape of a group
from among the Jews themselves, and turned them into apes and pigs,
as said in the Qu 'ran, and the Jews are known as the offsprings of the
apes and the pigs. The Qu’ranic verses describing the Jews as apes
and pigs, [and] as sinners on whom Allah’s curse and rage befall, are
still valid concerning the Jews in the modern era.227
] j 2 Yossef Bodansky
The 50th Anniversary of Israel served as yet another excuse for a new spate of
virulent anti-Semitic attacks in the Arab media. The development of the
themes in the Egyptian government-controlled media of the early Summer of
1998 is telling. “There is a great Jewish plot to gain control of the world,”
explained al-Ahram, and the establishment of Israel in 1948 was major step
in the implementation of this grand design.228 Little wonder that Egyptian
commentators stress that Israel’s track record in the last half-century is worse
than the war crimes of Nazi Germany. Ambassador Muhammad Said
al-Sayeed explained:
The crimes of the Jews are worse than the crimes of the Nazis. Nazi
Germany carried out its crimes to create an empire, but it did not last
more than 6 years. By contrast, the Jews have been carrying out their
crimes for 50 years to establish their state which has not yet been
erased.229
The mere establishment of the State of Israel in the immediate aftermath of
the Holocaust is picked upon by the Egyptian commentators as an indication
of continuity between the Nazis of the Second World War and the
contemporary Jews.
It is difficult to ignore the racial discrimination which characterizes
the State of Israel or the extent to which this racism has penetrated
Israeli society. This racial fanaticism is the same fanaticism that Israel
transferred to the land of Palestine after experiencing it at the hands of
the Nazis. It is now trying to impose the history of the Jews on the
Arabs by expelling them from their lands and even destroying their
race as much as possible.230
And this observation applies to all Jews throughout the world, not just the
Zionists in Israel. Islamdom is facing a threat from a monolithic Jewish
conspiracy.
As for the Jews today, there is no difference between rigid or flexible.
They are all the same, the difference being whether they kill a person
with a thick, hard-bladed knife or by placing him on the electric chair.
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument ] 13
Therefore, only a resolute and uncompromising struggle of the Muslim world
would make it “possible to deter these swindlers and tricksters and foil their
schemes” against the entire world."’1 Coexistence, let alone genuine peace,
with the Jews are, needless to say, inconceivable.
Presently, Arab commentators stress the prevalence of the traditional Jewish
traits among the leaders of Israel as a justification for the imperative urgency
of a military confrontation. The following quotation from a June 1998 Saudi
editorial exemplifies this theme:
Netanyahu came out of his prime ministerial house and, after slipping
the famous Jewish hat known as the yarmulke and The Protocols of
Zion into his pocket, he read two lines from the Talmud. Many
Jewish rabbis, leaders, and murderers have added to this Talmud,
omitted things from it, and made things up in it. Whenever a
catastrophe afflicts them or the ground is shaking under their feet, they
take out their pens and begin adding papers according to their whims
and prevailing mental state of mind. This would enable them to
justify their subsequent actions in terms of usurpation and destruction
of the rights of others. The extremist Jews in Israel are futuristic in
the art of deception, aggression, intrigue, sedition, and blackmail and
include Netanyahu and Sharon and those who preceded them and
those who will succeed them. ...With this mentality, Netanyahu
comes out of his house every day to meet with members of his cabinet
and raises his voice in rejecting the Arab rights after putting on his
yarmulke in the Knesset. He meets with Ross, flies to Washington to
meet Albright, and travels to London to meet with Blair. The White
House doors open for him so that he may exchange the smiles and
toasts with Clinton. There is rejection here and protests there but he is
continuing to implement The Protocols of Zion. What is left for the
Arabs then? Only military blocs. If you want to raise your voice or
regain your right do not go to the Security Council, do not complain to
anyone, and do not ask permission from anyone.232
114 Yossef Bodansky
Arab commentators not only make use anti-Semitic themes in their political
analysis but reiterate their veracity when confronted by critics. For example,
in late September 1998, a Saudi commentator blasted the Israeli Government
for suggesting that in espousing anti-Semitism in its government-controlled
media, “Cairo [was] instigating the Palestinians to reject the Israeli proposals
for peace and of instigating the Arabs in general to hate the Jews.”
On the contrary, it is the Jews’ own inherent behavior all over the world that
is to be blamed for their accurate depiction by the Arab media.
Hatred of the Jews all over the world does not come from
. governments instigating their peoples. It is the result of the isolation
that Jews impose upon themselves. They prefer to live in closed in
quarters called ghettos or Jewish quarters and they blackmail people
through usury. In the human heritage and world literature, the
strongest and most popular expression of this blackmail was the play
Merchant of Venice by the British playwright William Shakespeare.
This play showed how cheap the Jews are in dealing with others.233.
Meanwhile, the unfolding scandal in Washington - the submission of the
Starr Report to Congress and the beginning of Impeachment proceedings
against President Clinton - provided the Arabs with ample opportunities to
pursue anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. For example, an Egyptian
commentator argued that:
The hand of Jewish Americans is behind this conspiracy and that the
conspiracy has been in the making for years. White House trainee
Monica Lewinski is Jewish. Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr is
Jewish. So is Paula Jones, who accused Clinton of sexual harassment
when he was Arkansas Governor, and Linda (Tripp), the former White
House official who delivered Monica’s telephone recordings to Starr
while he was investigating the Whitewater affair. Soon, Starr was
neglecting the real estate case to focus on the sexual scandal instead.
This means that all the sides of this issue are Jewish. Therefore, 1 do
not doubt for a moment that international Zionism is behind this
conspiracy.
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 115
This was done in order to further the Zionist, that is Jewish, objectives
beyond the Arab-Israeli issue.
All these scandals have greatly damaged Clinton. If he is to stay in
office, and I think he would, he will be nothing but a servant in the
court of His Majesty “Zionism”. This is a big step for Zionism toward
controlling the United States, a goal their tenets and doctrine have
long sought to achieve.234
Thus, as the Arab world is approaching the beginning of the 21st Century, it is
facing growing failures to cope with the circumstances of the modem world -
a situation that is being severely aggravated by the lingering legacy of the
Gulf War, the Arab-Israeli “peace process”, and primarily the Arab world’s
inability to cope with them. Heikal believes that the Arab leadership is
already overwhelmed and daunted by “the scale of the problems and
divisions, the urgency of the need for remedial measures, and the paralysis of
decision-making from which the Arab world has long suffered”. Many
believe that the Arab world is pursuing “the politics of despair” from which it
must extricate itself. The only viable solution, Heikal argues, “might work if
the Arab world had well established political institutions and a tradition of
respect for state constitutions. The difficulty in the Arab world, and the
Third World generally, is that secure institutions are possible only when the
various groups within society become strong enough to make their presence
felt, thus opening the door to dialogue. Until society reaches that maturity,
any plan for the future is bound to be imposed by a ruling minority on the
majority, not necessarily against the majority’s wishes, but without genuine
popular participation.”233
However, this is a tall order given the inherent structure of the vast majority
of Arab regimes.
Thus, there are grim prospects for stability in the Arab world. There seem to
be no escape from the rise of radical Islamism if only because the ostensibly
pro-Western conservative Arab regimes adamantly refuse to face reality and
deal with the root causes of popular discontent. Said K. Aburish elucidated
this problem.
1 ] 6 Yossef Bodansky
Jordan exists because the West provides it with financial help. Saudi
Arabia exists because it buys Western support. Neither approach
takes the people into consideration. There is nothing to suggest that
this picture will alter, or that peaceful change brought about by the
populace is possible. Yet the people...are determined on change. To
judge from what happened in Iran when the Shah was overthrown,
they will prevail despite Western support for their leaders. Because
secular forces in both countries no longer exist or are weak, the only
change possible is likely to assume a fundamentalist Islamic
identity.236
Heikal is most grim about the prospects of the Arab World on the eve of a
new century.
What little hope remained of achieving genuine unity was shattered by
the Gulf war, which left the Arab nation more divided and embittered
than ever before. The beginning of the second oil century, as the
twenty-first century will be, does not bode well for a region that
possesses two thirds of the world’s reserves but has yet to learn how
• 237
to use it.
The absence of viable socio-political and economic development befitting the
modern world, Fereydoun Hoveyda warns, will push the Muslim world into
frustration, radicalism and ultimately, into a spate of Islamist violence and
terrorism.
Militant Islamic fundamentalism is essentially a political movement,
not a religious one. Although it may pose a threat to the West in
general and to the United States in particular, it will certainly be lethal
to the Muslim world.2’8
And the foundations of this violent eruption are already active and rapidly
growing throughout the Muslim world and particularly the Middle East.
Thus, toward the end of the Twentieth century, the Middle East finds itself in
the throes of a vicious cycle. On the one hand, Arab governments are being
pressured by the United States and the West to further their “peace process”
with Israel - signing formal agreements and committing themselves to
improvement of relations. On the other hand, the ground swell of
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument ] 17
conservative Islamism, fueled by growing misery and destitution as well as
the backlash of westernization, pressures these same governments into
adopting increasingly belligerent position toward Israel or risk eruption at
home. Rather than face the US-led West over the viability of the “peace
process”, Arab governments prefer to fuel the grassroots hostility by using
virulent anti-Jewish and anti-Judaism incitement which thus provide them
with an excuse for not pursuing normalization of relations with Israel.
Meanwhile, falling on receptive and fertile ground, the anti-Semitic
incitement only enhances the grassroots Islamicization and hostility toward
Israel, making a genuine solution of the Arab-Israeli crisis impossible
irrespective of the number of agreements signed between the governments
involved.
★ * *
] is Yossef Bodansky
CHAPTER 6
JEWS AND POST-KHOMEYNI MILITANT ISLAMISM - 1980s-1990s
While the rise of Khomeyni to power in Iran and the initial implementation
of his vision of an Islamic State were a cataclysmic turning point in the
evolution of militant Islamism, they did not take place in a vacuum. The
Islamist trend throughout the world of Sunni Islam had been accelerating by
the time the Islamic Revolution took place in Tehran. Hence, Khomeyni’s
urging for Islamic uprisings and defiance in the Muslim World fell on fertile
ground. In the late 1970s there was already growing hatred to Israel and Jews
in the aftermath of Arab military reversals in Yom Kippur and Anwar Sadat’s
ensuing embarking on a US-dominated political process that would bring him
to Jerusalem in 1977. For the Islamists, the growing American influence and
presence constituted a new height of affront to Islam and thus threat to its
ascent - a crisis made all the worse because the Jews are the perceived
winners of the “peace process”.
These sentiments prevail even within the Egyptian religious elite sanctioned
by President Sadat himself. For example in the late 1970s, even such
luminaries as Shaykh Abd-al-Halim Mahmud, the rector of al-Azhar
University openly identified the Jews as Islam's worst enemies. He defined
the Jews as the “the friends of Satan” and noted the divine command to fight
them.239 Indeed, the increase in Islamist anti-Semitism in Egypt was initially
encouraged by the Government. Initially, the primary organ for the
semi-official anti-Jewish incitement was al-Da'wa - the monthly of the
Society of the Muslim Brethren. Back in July 1976, Anwar Sadat permitted
the Ikhwan to publish this magazine as a way of reducing internal pressure
and controlling some of the Islamist incitement. Ultimately, Sadat ordered
the closure of al-Da'wa in September 1981.240 However during this short
period of its existence, al-Da'wa served as a primary vehicle for Islamist
propaganda and incitement on issues sought after and approved by official
Cairo.
For the editors of al-Da'wa, there were four horsemen of the apocalypse:
“Jewry”, the “Crusade”, “communism”, and “secularism”. Among these, for
the editors of al-Da 'wa. “‘Jewry’ was the ultimate abomination”, notes Gilles
Kepel.
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 119
The word “Jew” (yahud) is used indifferently to apply to both Israeli
citizens and other Jews. Israeli citizenship, in fact, is seen as merely
an attribute of the Jew, defined ontologically on the basis of racial,
historical, and religious criteria.241
The image of the Jews projected by al-Da 'wa, and other Islamist organs, was
reminiscent of the “Jew Suss" of the Nazi era. And this intense demonization
intensified as the Egyptian-Israeli peace process was progressing. In
November 1978, for example, Al-Da'wa considered that “every Muslim who
wishes to live in harmony with his faith must refuse to make agreements with
Jews and to establish diplomatic, economic, and cultural ties with them, for
the Jews are usurpers and aggressors. One can expect nothing from them.
There can be no peace with them, only holy war. They must live as a
minority within the Arab world.”242
In April 1980, Al-Da’wa set forth a list of the “twelve Jewish vices”:
I.	opportunism
2.	schizophrenia
3.	blind racism
4.	the desire to destroy the world
5.	egotism
6.	pillage
7.	sadism
8.	love of money
9.	extortion
10.	violation of promises
11.	dishonesty
12.	the art of sowing discord/”
Special attention was paid to, and effort put into, anti-Jewish incitement
aimed at the young audience - mainly children. For example, Al-Da 'wa had
a children’s supplement called “The Lion Cubs of al-Da’wa" (Ashba!
al-Da ’wa) - a pull-out section inserted into the magazine. In this supplement
120 Yossef Bodansky
there was a column titled “Recognize the Enemies of Your Religion"
(Ta 'arraf 'ala Ada 'Dinika). The October 1980 issue carried an article called
“The Jews”. The text requires no commentary:
Brother Muslim Lion Cub,
Have you ever wondered why God cursed the Jews in His book -
Those of the Israelites who disbelieved were cursed by David and
Jesus the son of Mary (V, 78) - after he had earlier preferred them to
the rest of the world? Children of Israel, remember that / have
bestowedfavours on you and exalted you above the nations (11,47)...
But by this preference, God was testing the children of Israel see
whether they would be associationists [mushrikin: meaning those
who “associate” other gods with the One True God and therefore
count as polytheists] or infidels: We tested them with blessings and
misfortunes so that they might desist from sin (VII, 168). And what
was the result? God grew weary of their lies. God has heard the
words of those who said: "God is poor but we are rich. ”
Their words We will record, and the fact that they have slain their
prophets unjustly. We shall say: "Taste now the torment of hellfire"
(III, 181). They associated others with God, they were infidels: The
Jews say Ezra is the son of God (IX, 30). ...His preference was met
with ingratitude and denial of divine power. The Jews say: "God's
hand is chained." May their own hands be chained! May they be
cursed for what they say (V, 64). It may happen that a man lies or
falls into error, but for a people to build their society on lies, that is the
speciality of the children of Israel alone! The Jews who listen to the
lies of others and pay no heed to you (V, 41). They listen to
falsehoods and practise what is unlawful (V, 42). Such are the Jews,
my brother, Muslim lion cub, your enemies and the enemies of God,
and such is the truth about them as told in the Book of God... Such is
their particular natural disposition, the corrupt doctrine that is theirs,
...they have never ceased to conspire against their main enemy, the
Muslims.
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 121
In one of their books they say: “We Jews are the masters of the world,
its corrupters, those who foment sedition, its hangmen!”
They do not like you, Muslim lion cub, you who revere God, Islam,
and the Prophet Muhammad...
Muslim lion cub, annihilate their existence, those who seek to
subjugate all humanity so as to force them to serve their Satanic
designs.
God has power over all things, though most men may not know it (XII,
21).244
And so went the education of Egyptian children about the Jews by a
government sanctioned periodical - al-Da’wa - in an era of peace making
and reconciliation with Israel. The article left no doubt that the Jews were
inherently corrupt, full of duplicity, and that Muslims had everything to lose
by dealing with them. There was no solution for the Jewish problem but their
extermination. Al-Da'wa went further, defining Palestine as a part of the
Islamic nation usurped by the Jews. Hence, by the definition of al-Da'wa,
not only can there be no acceptance or legitimization of Israel’s right to exist,
let alone have peace with Egypt, but even the presence of the Jewish
inhabitants cannot be tolerated given the inherent threat they constitute to
Muslims. And this, in a government sanctioned monthly at the climax of the
Egyptian-Israeli “peace process”.
By now, Khomeyni’s Islamic Revolution had proven that Islamists can defeat
a US-dominated regime and Islamist governments can be established.
Consequently, in the aftermath of the Khomeyni revolution, both leftist and
Islamist revolutionaries in Egypt found a very important common
denominator in his teachings - namely, the priority that must be given to
destroying Westernized governments and the establishment of an Islamic
revolutionary governments in their stead. The Islamists had long argued that
the Believers must cleanse their society and bring society, even if by force
and terror, to closely follow the strict tenets of Islam. Only a pious Muslim
society can be expected to bring about the revival of Islam. This realization
determines the set of priorities of the Believers in their pursuit of their
Islamic utopian solution. A short booklet called The Absent Percept by Abd
122 Yossef Bodansky
al-Salam Faraj constituted a milestone in the evolution of the ideology of
Islamic Jihad and was seen as “capable of changing the face of Egypt and
upsetting the balance of power in the region”.243 Abd al-Salam Faraj, an
electrical engineer who had given up on secular progress to become the
ideologue of the Egyptian Jihad organization,246 defines the approach of the
contemporary radical revivalist Islam toward the attainment of their goals:
There are some who say that the Jihad effort should concentrate
nowadays upon the liberation of Jerusalem. It is true that the
liberation of the Holy Land is a legal percept binding upon every'
Muslim...but let us emphasize that the fight against the enemy nearest
to you has precedence over the fight against the enemy farther away.
All the more so as the former is not only corrupted but a lackey of
imperialism as well... This Islamic Jihad requires today the blood and
sweat of each Muslim.247
Significantly, the Iranian Shi’ite revolutionary ideology, and especially
Khomeyni’s writings, began influencing the Egyptian Islamist movement
only at the time of the Iranian Revolution. The Egyptian street was excited
by the news of Khomeyni’s triumph in Tehran, interpreting it as an Islamic
victory over Westernization and the US. In January 1979, Islamist riots
broke out in Assyut protesting the arrival of the deposed Shah in Egypt. The
rioters were Sunni Muslims who were not supporters of Khomeyni or his
ideology.248
Khomeyni’s primary book - Islamic Government - was translated to Arabic
only in mid 1979. In Egypt, a leftist Islamist thinker, Dr. Hasan Hanafi
published an annotated translation with a generally supportive but critical
introduction and analysis. Hanafi endorsed the concept of Islamic
Revolution and the supremacy of the faqih as undisputed tenets derived from
the Qn’ran, but objected to several key means of implementation of the
Khomeynist state ranging from the undisputed total power of the faqih to the
all-out rejection of everything Western.249 Despite subsequent Arabic
editions of Khomeyni’s writings published by Tehran and spread all over the
Arab World, Hanafi’s book remains the standard reference to Khomeyni’s
ideology in Egypt.
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 123
Egypt’s theological elite received the Iranian Revolution with a mixed
reaction. Islamist activists had a wide variety of opinions about the legality
of a Shi’ite revolution as a precedent and inspiration for a Sunni movement.
A wholehearted endorsement was expressed by ‘Umar al-Tilmisani of the
Muslim Brotherhood who expressed his delight with the victory of the
Islamic Revolution in Iran.230 In his introduction to Khomeyni’s book,
Hanafi emphasized that the differences between Sunna and Shi’a “have been
played with by imperialism and Zionism...but Khomeyni...leads a truly
Islamic revolution that surpasses these sectarian borders. ...Its elan goes back
to the first revolutionary achievements of the earliest phases of Islam.”231
Dr. Rivka Yadlin explains that Islamism appealed to Hanafi as a populist
movement that might provide vehicle for the implementation of the
long-overdue social and economic reforms in Egypt. As such, he
spearheaded the discovery of Khomeynist and militant Islamism by Egypt’s
revolutionary left. Islamism is also at the forefront of defending Arabism and
Islam against the encroachment of western cultural imperialism bent on the
ultimate subjugation of the Muslims. Hanafi is convinced that only
widespread populist resistance to the encroachment of the alien civilization -
Westernization - can reverse the course, and only the Islamist trend can
mobilize and unify the masses, not socialism, that is, an ideology of the
educated elite.232
Of great importance is Hanafi’s writing for his former colleagues - the
Egyptian leftist intellectual elite - that he was trying to convince of the
importance of joining the Islamist militant camp against a common enemy.
Hanafi used anti-Judaism as the basic common denominator. In his approach,
the struggle against Jews constituted a singular objective encompassing both
the liberation of Egyptian society from the encroachment of anti-Muslim
Western civilization that had been significantly expedited by the Jews’ access
to Egypt that was made possible in the aftermath of the peace, as well as the
liberation of al-Aqsa mosque and Palestine as a whole, a predominant
nationalist objective of the Egyptian intelligentsia. Given the treachery of the
Zionists/Jews, only a radical solution - the destruction of Israel - can reverse
the relentless expansionism of the Jews and thus prevent their threat to Islam.
Indeed, Hanafi could not see any possibility for reconciliation between Islam
and Judaism in the aftermath of Zionism’s crimes against the Arabs and
Muslims other than conversion to Islam.’3’
124 Yossef Bodansky
Hanafi also stressed that a close examination of Judaism demonstrated that
contemporary Jews were not monotheistic - that is, people of the book - but
rather Satan worshipers. As such, Islam orders their killing in the course of
Jihad. Hanafi constructed a direct continuation from the original sin of the
Jews against Muhammad, that appealed to the Islamists, to the current
political challenge that appealed to the Leftists. Hanafi then addressed the
Jewish stubborn apostasy and ignoring of the truth in order to prove that they
were irredeemable. And this blatant disregard of, and active resistance to, the
truth and reality applied as much to the Jews’ original refusal to recognize the
Prophet as to their current refusal to abide by the political realities of the
Middle East, namely, recognize the Muslims’ right to Palestine/ 4
Hanafi also repeated the “ordinary” characterization of the Jews as greedy,
dishonest, stealing money from honest Believers, which not only reaffirmed
his ideological position, but also placed his writing in the context of
established anti-Semitic perceptions prevailing in the Muslim World.
Similarly, Hanafi stressed that Jews were inherently ingrate - starting with
their betrayal of God as described in the Bible, to their confronting, resisting
and even fighting the rise of Islam, to their current betrayal of the sustaining
and tolerance of Jews under Islam by supporting and bolstering the Zionist
aggression - Israel. God’s original covenant with the Jews, as described in
the Bible, was conditioned on their ultimate recognizing Divine authority -
the Prophet Muhammad. The Jews’ subsequent refusal to accept Islam thus
demonstrated their breaking of this covenant and therefore Palestine was not
theirs anymore.23"
Hanafi concluded that given the overall character of the Jews - duplicity,
aggressiveness and bellicosity - it is impossible to reconcile and co-exist
with the Jews. There are irreconcilable contradictions between the existence
of Israel as a Zionist entity and the good of the Arab and Muslim World. He
noted the direct continuation of inherent threats of Jewish transgressions
against Islam from the early days of Islam to the present time. Hence, Israel
must be destroyed before the Jews afflicted greater calamity on Islam.
Hanafi stressed that this was an urgent undertaking for the Jews in Israel were
working relentlessly to destroy the culture and civilization of the others -
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 125
namely, Muslims. In so doing, the Jews were the spearhead of the Western
onslaught and would not relax until the Muslim convert, and
imperialism-Zionism ruled their lands.236
Other Islamist organs in Egypt also reiterated proven anti-Semitic themes.
For example, in 1981, a-Sha’ab explained that the Jews and Israel were
directing their international relations on the basis of teachings of The
Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The paper argued that this realization should
govern the Arabs’, specifically Egypt’s, approach to diplomatic relations with
Israel. “Thus clarifies the danger of friendship with Jews under any name...or
in the framework of any type of international relation, because it is their
ideological way and moral behavior that are dictated by guidelines they
consider sacred, but actually they are racist, loathsome, destructive. It is
extremely dangerous to establish ties with them because their ideological
onslaught and cultural colonialism are their primary objective, in order to
annihilate Christianity and Islam.”237
Meanwhile, the spread of state-sponsored international terrorism starting the
early 1980s, particularly by Islamist organizations controlled and sponsored
by Iran and Syria, necessitated the formulation of ideological justifications
for striking at objectives worldwide. While the location and intensity of the
spectacular terrorist strikes were, and still are, determined by strategic and
political considerations of the terrorism sponsoring states, it has always been
imperative to provide theological justification for the perpetrating
organizations and the bodies of their supporters. After all, it is in the name of
Islam, and not some strategic calculation, that the Islamist terrorists kill,
maim and commit martyrdom.
Hence, since the 1980s, the leading Islamist terrorist leaders have been
formulating a global doctrine justifying the expansion of their theater of
operations. A crucial component of this doctrine has been the blurring of the
distinction between Zionists - the traditional and localized enemy of the
Islamists - and the Jews of the world. The massive anti-Semitic -
anti-Jewishness and anti-Judaism - propaganda and inciting material
prevalent throughout the Muslim World serves as a convenient bridge
connecting the anti-Israel Jihad with a world-wide Jihad against the Jews and
126 Yossef Bodansky
their home-governments - the entire West. Consequently, there has been a
distinct blurring of the difference between “Zionists” and “Jews” in the
theological literature and populist propaganda of the various Islamist terrorist
organizations. While the HizbAllah was the first and most eloquent source of
this transformation, other organizations, including Sunni Islamist groups like
the HAMAS, quickly adopted these tenets.2’8 And these were not empty
words for since the late 1980s there have been numerous terrorist attacks
against Jewish targets and many more strikes have been prevented and
averted virtually all over the world. Among the more lethal terrorist attacks
on Jewish targets include the attack on the synagogue in Istanbul (September
1986) and the destruction of the AMIA building in Argentina (February
1994).
In articulating the Islamists’ “case” against world Jewry, the spiritual leader
of the HizbAllah, Ayatollah Muhammad Hussayn Fadlallah is the most
eloquent. Since the late 1980s, he has developed the logic of the continuation
of the anti-Jewish Jihad the original confrontation between the Prophet and
his foes, through the struggle against the Israel - now labeled “the Jewish
state” - and on to confronting the Jewish global conspiracy. Fadlallah warns
about the magnitude of the Jewish threat:
The Jews want to be a world superpower. This racist circle of Jews
wants to take vengeance on the whole world for their history of
persecution and humiliation. In this light, the Jews will work on the
basis that Jewish interests are above all world interests. No one
should imagine that the Jews act on behalf of any super or minor
power; it is their personality to make for themselves a future world
presence.2’9
The intensity and ferocity of the Islamist Jihad must accord with the
immensity of the anti-lslamic plot.
Echoing the Iranian doctrine, the escalation of Sunni Islamist terrorism in
Israel was defined as a part of a global Islamic revolution. Shaykh Abd
al-Aziz Awdah, a senior Islamic Jihad leader from Gaza, considered the rise
of Khomeyni “an important and serious attempt to achieve Islamic
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 127
awakening [and] to unify the Islamic Nation”. In mid 1987, Shaykh As’aad
Bayyud al-Tamimi, Hebron-born, a former preacher in the al-Aqsa Mosque
who had been expelled by Israel to Jordan in 1970 where he became an
inflammatory preacher, placed the Islamic Jihad in a historic context. He
explained that until the Iranian revolution, Islam “was absent from the
battlefield”. In Palestine, Jihad receded and only as a result of the shock of
the “shameful defeat” of 1967 was there an Islamic revival that brought about
a spread of Islamist awareness. However, it was Khomeyni’s triumph that
has finally proven to the masses that “Islam was the solution and Jihad was
the proper means.” This is evident from subsequent general developments in
Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Afghanistan, Egypt and Palestine, and especially
from diversified events ranging from the assassination of Sadat, the
blowing-up of the Marines barracks in Beirut and the grenade attack in
Jerusalem. All these seemingly unrelated events, concluded Shaykh Tamimi,
are actually components of a single Islamist Jihad. Little wonder that for
Islamic Jihad, the Palestine problem was “an Islamic, not a national
[wataniyya] problem, concerning the Palestinians, not an all-Arab
[qawmiyya] problem, concerning the Arabs.”
It was the problem of the “Islamic Nation” [umma] in its entirety, just as
advocated by Ayatollah Khomeyni.260 This definition did not detract from
the profoundness of the struggle against Israel. Shaykh Tamimi insists that
the Jihad would bring about “an end to the Jewish state” and warned the Jews
of Israel of the upcoming confrontation “in an Islamic battle that will end
your state, so that it will become part of history’s residue”.261 Shaykh
Tamimi defined his concept in a booklet The Destruction/Elimination of
Israel - the Decree of the Qu’ran that was widely distributed all over the
Arab World including Egypt.262
Widespread riots erupted in the Gaza Strip in December 1987 and soon
spread to the entire Judea and Samaria, becoming the Intifada - a challenge
to the Israeli rule through the use of popular violence and terrorism. As riots
continued, young Islamist militants, influenced by the Islamic Jihad, urged
the further escalation of the Ikhwan's participation in the armed struggle
associated with the Intifada*' From the very beginning, the HAMAS stated
clearly that it was committed to the total destruction of Israel. “Only Islam
128 YossefBodansky
will break the Jews and destroy their dreams,” meaning, Israel.-64 Thus, from
the beginning, the HAMAS was committed to uncompromising terrorism and
violence in the name of Islam, while insisting on their being the vanguard of
a future struggle. Shaykh Khalil Quqa pointed out that:
The Intifada constitutes a lesson strengthening the next generation. It
put aside any wishful thinking. The stone will take apart the state of
Israel. The gun and the Qu ’ran determine our identity confronting the
Jews?65
The HAMAS also viewed the Intifada as a spearhead of a pan-Islamic
struggle: “Israel is a cancer spreading over the Islamic World in its
entirety.”266 The Ikhwan's formative period ended on 18 August 1988 when
the Islamist resistance consolidated its ideological profile in the HAMAS
Covenant.267 By then, the HAMAS was already well established as the
leading force of the intifada in the Gaza strip and was rapidly becoming the
leading force in Judea and Samaria.268
Indeed, just how fully integrated anti-Jewishness and anti-Judaism are in the
Islamist struggle against Israel can be best learned from the ideology of the
Islamic Resistance Movement - the HAMAS. By its own definition, the
HAMAS is a Palestinian Islamist movement fighting for the liberation of the
entire Palestine, the destruction of Israel and the establishment of an Islamic
State in its stead. However, starting with its most basic ideological literature,
most notably the HAMAS' Covenant of August 1988, the organization
stresses that its actual struggle is global and as much against the Jews as
against Israel or its Zionist inhabitants. The HAMAS ideology has adopted
some of the basic claims of international Jewish conspiracy as depicted in
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The HAMAS populist propaganda -
slogans and graffiti - portrays the organization’s struggle as a direct
continuation of Prophet Muhammad’s fight against the Jews in the 7,h century
A.D. Among these slogans are “O Jews, leave our land,” and “Khaibar,
Khaibar, О Jews, Muhammad’s Army will return.” HAMAS leaders insist
that their blurring of distinction between Jews and Zionists even when their
Jihad is ostensibly confined to Palestine is the outcome of the character of
the threat they are facing. “They [the Jews] made their religion their nation
and state,” argues HAMAS leader Mahmud Zahar.
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 129
They have declared war on Islam, closed mosques and massacred
defenseless worshipers at al-Aqsa and in Hebron. They are
Muslim-killers and under these circumstances we are obliged by our
religion to defend ourselves.
The spate of martyrdom-terrorism against civilians throughout the heart of
Israel is the HAMAS concept of defense against an enemy they define as
“Jews or Zionists”.269
The HAMAS Covenant is one of the most important Islamist doctrinal
documents concerning Jews and Israel and thus merits detailed analysis. In
the Covenant, the HAMAS claimed leadership over the Palestinian struggle as
an integral component of the Ikhwan's global Islamist struggle.
The Islamic Resistance Movement is a branch of the Muslim
Brotherhood Organization in Palestine. The Muslim Brotherhood
Organization is a worldwide organization and is the largest Islamic
movement of the modern age.270
The HAMAS put the liberation struggle in the context of Islamist Jihad.
From the point of view of the Islamic Resistance Movement,
nationalism [wataniya] is a component/part of religious belief. There
is no greater and profound nationalism than a situation where the
enemy occupies Muslim land. Then the Jihad becomes an obligatory
duty for every Muslim man and woman.271
The HAMAS identified the PLO as “the closest organization” to the Ikhwan
but emphasized their profound disagreement with the “idea of secular state”
adopted by the PLO. “The secular idea completely contradicts the religious
thought,” the HAMAS decreed.272 Meanwhile, in other doctrinal publications,
the HAMAS was urging the unity and resolve of all the forces participating in
the intifada against Israel:
The question of a Western-Zionist attack on Palestine has been
missing from the Islamic scene for many years. In Palestine, Islamic
diversity and pluralism continued to yield nothing but negative
consequences. Nothing of major, positive significance was achieved
130 Yossef Bodansky
because Islamic diversity is a phenomenon associated with other Arab
and Islamic conditions and lacks the opportunity to contribute to an
Islamic awakening in Arab and Islamic countries. This phenomenon,
whose existence is based on the Palestinian national concern, does not
attempt to initiate conflict with the Zionist enemy, the main opponent
to the Muslim people of Palestine. It was a major tragedy that the
National Palestinian Plan was set forth while Muslims looked on with
enviable neutrality.
Once again, Palestine became the main concern of most Islamic,
Palestinian forces and many Islamic forces in the world. A formula
for the unity of Islamic, Palestinian forces must now be found as a
condition for the establishment to the establishment of the Islamic
plan in Palestine.273
The unwavering anti-Jewish and anti-Judaism commitment of the HAMAS is
an integral part of their all-lslamic character. Beverley Milton-Edwards
noted the overall anti-Jewish attitude of the HAMAS.
Each time HAMAS addresses the Palestinian people or proffers a
thesis, critique or argument it includes as a significant part of its
reasoning its opposition to the existence of Jews in Palestine. Its
hatred of the Jews is almost blind, extending well beyond the realm of
religion, theology or ecumenical conflict. Some claims made by
HAMAS, even by its own religious terms of reference, stretch the
limits of credibility and are clearly a symptom of racism rather than
religious difference.274
The HAMAS adopted the Islamists’ approach to Judaism, namely, that the
Jews are the enemy of Islam, not just Zionism, and therefore the struggle
over Palestine is not a contemporary confrontation with Israel as a state, but
rather a new phase of the eternal struggle between Muslims and Jews started
by the Prophet Muhammad.
Indeed, the HAMAS Covenant codifies this definition. The HAMAS is
striving to further the Islamist struggle against the Jews, not Israel. This is
stated in the introduction to the HAMAS Covenant:
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 131
This is the Charter of the Islamic Resistance (HAMAS) which will
reveal its face, unveil its identity, state its position, clarify its purpose,
discuss its hopes, call for support to its cause and reinforcement, and
for joining its ranks. For our struggle against the Jews is extremely
wide-ranging and grave, so much so that it will need all the loyal
efforts we can wield, to be followed by further steps and reinforced by
successive battalions from the multifarious Arab and Islamic world,
until the enemies are defeated and Allah’s victory prevails. Thus we
shall perceive them approaching on the horizon, and this will be
known before long.372
Most important, and revealing, is Article 32 of the HAMAS Covenant (as
translated by Raphael Israeli):
World Zionism and imperialist forces have been attempting, with
smart moves and considered planning, to push the Arab countries, one
after another, out of the circle of conflict with Zionism, in order,
ultimately, to isolate the Palestinian people. Egypt has already been
cast out of the conflict, to a very great extent through the treacherous
Camp David Accords, and she has been trying to drag other countries
into similar agreements in order to push them out of the circle of
conflict.
The HAMAS is calling upon the Arab and Islamic peoples to act
seriously and tirelessly in order to frustrate that dreadful scheme and
to make the masses aware of the danger of withdrawing from the
circle of struggle with Zionism. Today it is Palestine and tomorrow it
may be another country or other countries. For Zionist scheming has
no end, and after Palestine they will covet expansion from the Nile to
the Euphrates. Only when they have completed digesting the area on
which they will have laid their hand, they will look forward to more
expansion, etc. Their scheme has been laid out in The Protocols of the
Elders of Zion, and their present [conduct] is the best proof of what is
said there.
Leaving the circle of conflict with Israel is a major act of treason and
it will bring a curse on its perpetrators.
132 Yossef Bodansky
Who so on that day turns his back to them, unless maneuvering for
battle or intent to join a company, he truly has incurred wrath from
Allah, and his habitation will be hell, a hapless journey’s end. [Sura 8
(al-Anfal, Spoils of War), verse 16.]
We have no escape from pooling together all the forces and energies
to face this despicable Nazi-Tatar invasion. Otherwise we shall
witness the loss of [our] countries, the uprooting of their inhabitants,
the spreading of corruption on earth and the destruction of all religious
values. Let everyone realize that he is accountable to Allah.
Whoever does a speck of good will bear [the consequences] and
whoever does a speck of evil will see [the consequences].
Within the circle of the conflict with world Zionism, the HAMAS
regards itself the spearhead and the avant-garde. It joins its efforts to
all those who are active on the Palestinian scene, but more steps need
to be taken by the Arab and Islamic peoples and Islamic associations
throughout the Arab and Islamic world in order to make possible the
next round with the Jews, the merchants of war.
We have cast among them enmity and hatred till the day of
Resurrection. As often as they light a fire for war, Allah extinguishes
it. Their effort is for corruption in the land, and Allah loves not
corrupters. [Sura V (al-Ma 'idah, the Table Spread), verse 64.]276
And the HAMAS ideological writings take from there, justifying and
explaining why the Jews are the enemy. This explanation also elaborates on
the magnitude of the international conspiracy the HAMAS is facing, explains
Beverley Milton-Edwards.
The authors of HAMAS publications are apparently convinced that
Zionism and Israel are part of a Jewish conspiracy to conquer the
world. Indeed Zionism, Israel and the Jews are to them
interchangeable words. For HAMAS the idea of a Jewish anti-Zionist
is impossible; all Jews are Zionists.277
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 133
And this theme was used effectively to incite the Palestinians to launch
terrorist attacks, as well as against any form of co-existence with Israel.
During the Intifada, all the Palestinian organizations and movements used the
leaflets as the primary venue for elucidating their ideological messages in the
most populist, yet authoritative, way. Hence, the context and terminology
used in these leaflets an accurate expression and/or reflection of the vision of
the Palestinian terrorist organizations.278 The HAMAS leaflets are full of
discussion of the Jewish problem. Esther Webman noted that the
terminology used against the Jews in these leaflets was “a mixture of Western
anti-Semitic and Islamic rhetoric”. Among the more frequently terms used in
these leaflets to describe Jews one can find: “The brothers of the apes”, “the
killers of the Prophets”, “blood suckers”, “warmongers”, “barbaric”,
“cowards”, “cancer expanding in the land of Jsra’ [reference to Palestine
which was the destination of Muhammad’s night journey) and Mi'raj
[Muhammad’s ascent to heaven] threatening the entire Islamic world”, “a
conceited and arrogant people”, “the enemy of God and mankind”, “the
descendants of treachery and deceit”, “Nazis”, “spreading corruption in the
land of Islam”, “the Zionist culprits who poisoned the water in the past, killed
infants, women and elders”, “thieves, monopolists, usurers”.279
The HAMAS is not the only Islamist organization spreading anti-Jewish
incitement. Islamic Jihad, for example, routinely portrays the confrontation
with Israel in terms of Islam’s struggle against the Jews. For example, on
November 23, 1988, Shaykh al-Tamimi published an open letter to Yasser
Arafat in which he emphasized the eternity of the Islamic struggle for
Palestine:
This land has been the eternal area of conflict between the infidels and
the Muslims. It was lost once in history, but the Muslims did not
recognize the Crusader state. Crusader Europe disappeared quickly
and we regained our land.
At present, Tamimi explains, the Palestinian revolution is rushing to political
solutions that are tantamount to the betrayal of the Islamic heritage. This is
because the Palestinian Revolution, having discarded Islam, ran out of steam.
134 Yossef Bodansky
The revolutionaries are tired of the long march. They wanted to
recognize the Jews’ right to settle and stay in a country which is the
jewel of the world. This country is the lighthouse of the Muslims.
No, this decision will not succeed. The Jews will not settle in our
.	280
country.
The same overall attitude is stressed by the Shi’ite organizations. In his
analysis of the doctrine of Shaykh Fadlallah of the HizbAllah, Martin Kramer
notes his global anti-Jewish depiction of the Islamist struggle against
Israel.281 Shaykh Fadlallah stressed that Israel’s objective was not simply a
confrontation with the Palestinians over the control of a certain territory'.
Ultimately, Israel was “not merely a group that established a state at the
expense of a people. It is a group which wants to establish Jewish culture at
the expense of Islamic culture or what some call Arab culture.”
The ultimate objective in the establishment of Israel was to bring “all the
Jews in the world to this region, to make it the nucleus for spreading their
economic and cultural domination”.282 Using Israel as a territorial
springboard, the Jews would then proceed to realize their ultimate and global
objective - the comprehensive eradication of Islam.
This need not surprise contemporary Muslims, Fadlallah stresses, because the
current anti-lsrael struggle in the Middle East is a direct evolution of the
Prophet’s original fight against the Jews of Arabia.
We find that the struggle against the Jewish state, in which the
Muslims are engaged, is a continuation of the old struggle of the
Muslims against the Jews conspiracy against Islam.
Presently, Fadlallah explains, there existed “a world Jewish movement
working to deprive Islam of its positions of actual power - spiritually, on the
question of Jerusalem; geographically, on the question of Palestine;
politically, by bringing pressures to block Islam’s movement at more than
one place; and economically, in an effort to control Islam's economic
potential and resources, in production and consumption.”283
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 135
Given the profoundness and fatefulness of the present Arab-Israeli struggle,
there is no possibility that Israel would accept and honor separate agreements
- be it peace with an Arab neighbor or comprehensive security arrangements
concerning south Lebanon. Thus, regardless of the peculiar terms of any
peace or security arrangement, Fadlallah stresses, Israel would always “find
justifications for reviving this problem in the future” in order to continue the
Jewish territorial expansion and their quest for the destruction of Islam.284
The significance of this argumentation and logic is increasing in the era of the
“peace process”. A most important and politically crucial aspect of
contemporary Muslim anti-Semitism is the profound demonization of Jews
because this creates more than counter-balance to the “Peace Process”.
While “Peace” is an instrument of statehood that is alien to Islam, the
irreconcilable enmity with the Jews as stipulated in the Qu’ran is unrefutable.
Ayatollah Fadlallah is most explicit in defining the role of Islamist
anti-Semitism in countering the “peace process”:
The battle which will commence after reconciliation with Israel will
be the battle against the subjugation of the Arab and Muslim person to
Israel, in politics, culture, economics, and security. In the vocabulary
of the Qu’ran, Islamists have much of what they need to awaken the
consciousness of Muslims, relying on the literal text of the Qu'ran,
because the Qu'ran speaks about the Jews in a negative way,
concerning both their historical conduct and future schemes. The
Islamists must deploy their Qu’ranic and Islamic legal culture to
combat normalization.285
Hence, irrespective of what states and their governments say, the public
throughout the Arab World will neither make peace with, nor legitimize,
recognize and even accept the right to exist of, the demonized State of Israel.
Considering that governments are the primary source of anti-Semitism in the
Muslim World, the essence of their commitment to the “Peace Process” and
even the extent of their willingness to even recognize Israel’s right to exist
should be doubted.
136 YossefBodansky
By the mid 1990s, the delegitimization of Israel and the “peace process”
through the use of Qu’ranic anti-Jewish precedents became the primary
Islamist venue. The direct connecting of the Prophet’s own problems with
the Jews and the contemporary political events has made any deviation from
the Islamist interpretation of relations with the Jews and Israel virtually
impossible. And the Islamist media continues to hammer this line of
incitement into a receptive audience. Indeed, Islamist media noted that the
Egyptian Mufti Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi completed a doctoral
dissertation on the Jews in the Qu’ran which contains a section on the “evils
and sins” that the Jews are encouraged to perpetrate by their holy books.
This material, though still unpublished, would have provided valuable
scientific evidence on the danger the Jews pose to the world.286 This kind of
endorsement opened the gate for a flood of specific discussions.
For example, in the Spring of 1994, the Islamist media noted that the term
“peace” as defined in the “peace process” pursued between Arab states and
Israel did not appear in the Qu’ran or in the classical dictionaries of the Arab
language. Moreover, there could be no agreement with Jews because they
habitually violate agreements. Believing they are God’s Chosen People,
Jews insist on establishing Greater Israel at the expense of the Arabs. But
there’s nothing new or unexpected in this behavior for the Qu ran already
recognized the perfidy of Jews as some 30 percent of the blasphemies in the
Qu 'ran refer to the Jews. These psychological complexities and their
inherent evil traits of the Jews still motivates them in pursuing the “peace
process”, the Islamists argue.287
At the same time, the HizbAUah pursued a comparable line of propaganda
and incitement. The Qu’ran “tells us to reject the hegemony of the Jews on
the land of the Muslims”, noted Shaykh Hasan Nasrallah, the HizbAUah
Secretary General, later that Summer. “And although we are witnessing a
major Jewish ascent”, this “makes us feel that fulfillment of the divine
promise of triumphing over Jews is approaching.”288 Mustapha Mashhur, a
regular columnist in the HizbAUah's paper al-Ah'd, stressed that it is the
legacy of the Jews that makes reconciliation or co-existence with them
impossible. He explained that “we have prior experience in dealing with the
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 137
Jews. We saw how they were planning to control our trade and economy,
how they had a monopoly over several basic commodities, and how they
manipulated prices to serve their interests. ...The Jews have not changed.”289
Moreover, these observations had direct ramifications for the selection of
legitimate targets by the HizbAUah. For all intent and purposes, there is no
real distinction between “Zionist” targets and “Jewish” targets for the
Islamist terrorists. For example, in mid December 1994, when he addressed
the anticipated confrontation with Israel, Shaykh Hassan Nasrallah, the Chief
of the HizbAUah vowed a major escalation of anti-Jewish terrorism, including
suicide-operations, all over the world. He made the threat at a funeral
ceremony for four HizbAUah fighters recently killed in clashes with Israeli
forces in south Lebanon. Shaykh Nasrallah warned “all the enemy’s leaders
that Islam...the Islam of mujahideen [strugglers] and shuhadah [martyrs], is
coming to you Jews; in south Lebanon, Palestine and all over the world. It
will vanquish you!”
The forthcoming struggle against the Jews will be fierce and
uncompromising despite Israel’s threats to retaliate. “The Zionists are
beginning to understand that they are fighting a kind of people who are not
afraid of death,” Nasrallah declared. “The enemy’s threats do not frighten us
and will change nothing in the resistance’s resolution or its will.” Nasrallah
also promised that the Hizb Allah's struggle against Israel will end only when
“the Israeli funeral processions start to reach the occupied lands in Palestine,”
that is, the level of losses will become intolerable to the Israeli population.'90
The Sunni Islamists also relied on the direct relationship between the Jewish
historical conspiracy against the world and the Zionist threat to the Arabs
around them. In the Fall of 1994, the HAMAS warned about “The Risks of
Rapprochement between the Arabs and the Zionist Enemy”. The HAMAS
used the Qu 'ran's discussion of the Jewish inherent greediness as a primary
argument, but then noted that more contemporary Western (anti-Semitic)
literature reaffirmed this Jewish characteristic. The HAMAS also repeated the
anti-Semitic themes mentioned in the Egyptian media in order to substantiate
their argumentation. Thus, the HAMAS recounted that “Zionists” had been
arrested in Cairo promoting prostitution and drug smuggling in order to
138 Yossef Bodansky
spread AIDS among Egyptians. These cases alone proved that “Zionists”
were treacherous and should not be trusted by Muslims. “The Jews are on
their Way to Control the World Economy,” was the rallying cry of the
Islamist propaganda later that Summer. The Islamists relied heavily on The
Protocols of the Elders of Zion in order to prove their point. They stressed
that Protocols was highly relevant to current events in the Middle East since
“the philosophic and religious foundation of the Jews’ plans to control the
economic resources of the world” equally apply to the Zionists’ aspirations in
the Middle East.291
The signing of the Israeli-Jordanian peace in the Fall of 1994 brought an
outburst of anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic sentiments from the Jordanian
Islamists. Most important were the Jordanian representatives of the Islamic
Action Front (IAF) that is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. The 1AF
stated that the new peace agreement was but a phase in “a major conspiracy”
aimed to splinter the Muslim Nation and legitimize Israel into the Muslim
Middle East. “This is the scheme of creating a Greater Israel without war,
human losses or attrition of the enemy’s economic resources,” noted a
HAMAS-?ST\liated commentator. The IAF considered Jordan particularly
vulnerable and endangered by this “tyrannical Zionist plan” to dominate the
Middle East through the aggregate impact of economical, political, cultural
informational and military means rather than a direct confrontation and
war.’92 One of the reasons Jordan’s situation was uniquely precarious was
because the Jews were able to directly exert psychological pressure by
roaming about Jordan freely. For example, the IAF warned, repeated visits by
Jews to Jordanian archeological sites might be followed by Israeli claims that
these places were historically Jewish and thus must belong to Israel. Once
the Jews find “a Torah dimension” in any of these places, they use it as a
pretext to claim their rights over Jordan.295 However, Islamist leaders
emphasized, the problem of the Jewish-Zionist encroachment was not
Jordan’s alone.
The entire Islamist discussion that followed since early 1995 was conducted
in the context of a clear and unambiguous decree given by HAMAS leader,
Shaykh Ahmad Yassin. In an interview smuggled from the Israeli jail, he
stated that any form of reconciliation with the Jews was “a crime whenever it
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 139
seeks to legitimize the occupation”. Islam permitted the Imam of the
Believers only temporaiy truce or cessation of fighting, and these only for a
specific period of time when the Muslim are weak and need time to prepare
and build up their strength. All Arab relationships with Israel should be
conducted in the context of this preamble, Yassin decreed. He stated:
I single out Palestine in particular, because it is a land of holy places
and an Islamic religious endowment [IVaq/J that cannot be conceded
by any ruler, president or king. Nor may any generation concede it,
because it is the property of all generations of Muslims until the Day
of Judgment.294
Thus, starting early 1995, Islamist leaders, such as the Jordan-based HAMAS
spokesman Ibrahim Ghawsha, stressed the profound difference in attitude
toward Israel between the PA and the Palestinian Islamists. While the PA,
like some Arab states, give priority to the ongoing activities of Israel -
namely, the pursuit of the “peace process” and normalization - the Islamists
rely on the depth of historical perspective. For the Islamists, the reference to
Zionists and Zionism is but an integral component of the all-encompassing
challenge of Judaism and the Jews. Ghawsha noted that the agreements with
Israel were actually drafted by the Jews and thus reflected their way of
thinking and were aimed to expedite their ultimate objectives. He explained:
We in the Islamic movement study the Jews from a religious and
historic basis, which is better than the way pursued by those who
claim to be advanced in tactical matters. Regrettably, the Palestinian
Authority and the PLO have not read Zionism and Judaism very well
and do not know exactly what the Jews want. Therefore, they are now
reaping the bitter fruits.
Therefore, the Arab governments failed to understand that their agreements
with Israel help it realize the Jewish aspiration for the Greater Israel
stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates by economic and cultural means.
Ghawsha stressed that this objective had been repeatedly mentioned by
Jewish writers and politicians."93
140 Yossef Bodansky
Meanwhile, in the aftermath of the relatively warm peace with Israel, the
Jordanian Islamist media embarked on a relentless drive to portray an
all-encompassing Jewish threat that goes beyond the immediate seemingly
benign image of the Israelis then in Jordan. The Jordanian Islamists warned
about the inherent and irreconcilable hostility between Muslims and Jews.
They stressed that the Jews follow the commands of a militant God, who,
they believe, ordered the Children of Israel to destroy all civilizations, carry
out racial cleansing and kill all non-Jews. This belief stands in contradiction
to the Islamic perception of a benevolent God and human beings. A close
examination of the Jewish Holy Books - the Torah and the Talmud - reveals
that their dominant theme is a religious support for, and legitimization of, the
racial and terrorist activities the Zionists habitually perpetrate. However,
while the Zionist threat is directed mainly at Arabs, the overall Jewish threat
affects the entire world. Jewish terrorism in and against the West is
perpetrated clandestinely through the Masonry movement with the declared
goal to destroy Christianity.296 This later theme builds on the studies of Dr.
Salih Hasan al-Maslut, a history professor at the prestigious al-Azhar
University - an expert on the history, foundations and aims of the Masons.
Prof. al-Maslut considers the Masons to be “a clandestine Jewish
organization”, whose primary objective is to destroy non-Jewish nations and
governments in order to establish a global Jewish government. In order to
ensure the subservience of the vanquished, the Jews, through the Masons,
intend to ultimately obliterate all other religious and nationalist sentiments.297
To the Jordanian Islamists, these vicious characteristics and objectives of the
Jews serve to explain the current state of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the
growing negative image of Islam in the West, and, most importantly, the root
cause of Israel’s superiority over the Arabs. The Islamists openly w'onder
how 15 million Jews could determine the fate of the world. This is because
in adhering to their historic religious leadership, the Jews are leaders without
a people while, in the absence of Islamic leadership, the Arabs are people
without leaders.
The Jews are historically known for their opportunism, cowardice and
lack of responsibility but at this vile time they selected leaderships
which were capable of achieving tangible gains.298
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 14]
In accordance with the prevailing theme of Jewish religious predominance
over the political, that is Israeli, leadership, the Jordanian Islamists stress the
guiding hand of the Jewish religious leadership over the contemporary
behavior and actions of the Zionists. A recent event reaffirmed this
observation, the Islamists note. A “rabbinical fatwa" was issued by an Israeli
military rabbi and affirmed that the killing of Arabs was a sacred duty. Thus,
the irreconcilable enmity and related violence are bound to continue.299
The contemporary political importance of the issue of direct continuity in
Jewish behavior and perfidy between the days of the Prophet and the mid
1990s was clearly reflected in the publication of series of major studies of
this heritage. Most important were the series of articles by Dr. Hasan Makki
Muhammad and by Dr. Salah al-Khalidi. Taken together, these series
constituted a comprehensive effort to explain the Arab-Israeli relations in mid
1995 in the context of the legacy of the Muslim-Jewish relations starting
form the original and bitter Islamic historical experiences. The articles by
Dr. Hasan Makki Muhammad stressed the validity of the original interaction
between the Prophet and the Jewish tribes of Arabia. Although the Prophet
was repeatedly willing to accommodate the Jews, they persistently rejected
Him and His Message, as well as breached their agreements. This Jewish
behavior was not accidental and is identical to the Israeli attitude toward
agreements with the Arabs, Dr. Hasan Makki Muhammad concluded. Two
themes emerged in Dr. Salah al-Khalidi’s series of articles. The first
reasserted the Muslims’ role as God’s Chosen People since the Jews had
breached their earlier promise to God and thus forfeited their posture.
Subsequently, the Jews have habitually distorted the Torah with numerous
lies and false practices. Moreover, they refused to adopt Islam and instead
launched an aggressive war against the Prophet. Thus, Dr. Salah al-Khalidi
concludes, there started a fateful confrontation between Muslims and Jews
which still continues and thus constitutes the quintessence of Arab-Israeli
relations.300
A concurrent series of articles by Isam Abd al-Aziz examined the possibility
of normalization in the context of the legacy of Muslim-Jewish relations.
“The issue of normalization emerged as the core of the developments and
change in the region,” he wrote.
142 YossefBodansky
The ongoing cultural conflict with Zionism the Arab world is
immersed in is a direct evolution of Islam’s historic confrontation with
the Jews. Current events are best understood in the context of Jewish
history and international Jewish quest for power. Historically, “the
Zionists” - a term he freely interchanges with “the Jews” - have not
been able or willing to live and merge with any other people and
therefore created ghettos and segregated societies. From there, they
sought to both avenge and control others. The essence of the Zionist
movement is to sustain the isolated Israel through a program to
dominate the Muslim Middle East as well as enable the West to
preserve its interests in the region.
Al-Aziz concludes, “...the normalization process is yet another imperialist
opportunist step. Its twin objectives are to sustain Israel as a future entity for
all the Jews of the world, and consolidate a comprehensive political and
economic influence in the world, starting with the Middle East. The Zionist
goals have always been aggressive and strategic because they reflect the
Jewish mentality. The normalization process, he warns, is not different.”301
For the Jordanian Islamists, the Israeli issue was firmly decided in October
1995 when 19 Jordanian ulama issued a strong fatwa banning the sale or
lease of lands or any other property in Jordan to Jews. Significantly, the
fatwa stressed that the decree was issued not merely in reaction to the
unfolding “peace process”, but in a greater historical context. The fatwa
decreed that it had been established that the Jews were the most hostile to
Muslims and that “God obligated the Believers to kill the Jews, the usurpers,
the aggressors and to oust them from all the lands they usurped.” Given
access to Muslim lands, as is Jordan, the fatwa warned, Jews might use their
corrupted and shameful habits to diffuse obscene language, fornication and
302
crimes.
By now, the Fall of 1995, the Egyptian Islamists were even harsher in their
judgement of relations with Israel in the historical context of Muslim-Jewish
relations. The mere existence of Israel, they argued, is but a transient phase
in a fateful struggle which ultimate outcome is certain. “God affirmed in the
Qu ran that we will eventually win over the Jews.” Given this, there can be
no long-term acceptance of a Jewish state in Palestine.
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 143
We consider the mere existence of Israel as a constant offense to us
Arabs and Muslims alike, and one could think of normalization only
after the deportation of all Zionists from Palestine back to their
original countries.
Indeed, another scholar, Abd al-Qadir Salah, stressed that the Jews consider
any normalization an instrument for the submission of Arab society to the
Zionist will. The “peace process” is aimed to defeat the Arabs from within,
paralyzing their resistance and erasing their Arab and Islamic identity. The
Deputy Guide of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Mustafa Mashhur,
concluded that “the Zionist scheming” had continued since the age of the
Prophet Muhammad. Therefore, he decreed, it is “a religious and national
duty” not to be deceived by what the Israelis call peace, because it means
“imposing submission one time by force and coercion and another by trickery
and deception”.303
Throughout this time, the HizbAUah and the Shiite elite were not far behind
their Sunni counterparts. Their propaganda and incitement organs pursued
the same themes. Noted one analyst:
If we try to read the history of the Jews wherever they were, we will
discover that these malicious traits are deep-rooted in the souls of all
Jewish generations and were the source of consecutive crises, leading
to their rejection by all societies, expulsion and frequent execution.
Little wonder, that in April 1995, the Islamic Ulama held a conference in
Beirut and endorsed the fatwa prohibiting the conceding of Muslim land in
Jerusalem, Palestine or elsewhere to the Jews. The ultimate objective,
however, is the fateful struggle. “God Almighty...knows better what is a
Jew,” declared Shaykh Hasan Nasrallah, the HizbAUah Secretary General.
“He tells us about these Jews, that they are killers and criminals, that they are
treacherous and corrupt.” Shaykh Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah, the
Hizh Allah's Spiritual Leader stressed that peace with Israel was juridically
forbidden. “Israeli Jews usurped Palestine,” Fadlallah explained.
The Jews killed us and ousted us from our homes. They follow the
Muslims everywhere in the world, oppress them, weaken them and
enter into alliances with world arrogance against them.
144 YossefBodansky
Other allied terrorist leaders concurred. “Peace for us,” Dr. Ramadan
Abdallah, of the Islamic Jihad noted, “means dismantling the settlements and
the cancerous growth called Israel ...Palestine is our property; this is a divine
and historical law which cannot be abrogated by any of these agreements.’”04
The Islamists expanded in 1996 their efforts to provide a comprehensive
theological justification to their uncompromising position vis-a-vis Israel.
Several series of articles were published in the Islamist papers, demonizing
the Jews as a doomed people and delegitimizing their right to Palestine.
Salah al-Khalidi published another series of articles stressing that “the Jews
are corrupt and liars who distorted the Torah.” The greatest long-term threat
lies in the Jewish relentless effort to “Zionize” world leaders and
international institutions so that they support their positions.30’ A long series
of articles by Ibrahim al-Ali studied the inherent Jewish hostility to Islam and
the Jews’ evil behavior, as well as God’s wrath and due punishments on the
basis of Prophet Muhammad’s words about Jews.306 Salah al-Khalidi also
revived the series of articles he had started in 1995, analyzing the
contemporary significance of Qu’ranic verses about the Jews and other
Jewish historical episodes from the time of the Prophet in order to
demonstrate the enduring Jewish threat to Islam and Muslims. Salah
al-Khalidi argued that both the historical record and the present day
performance of the Jews prove them to be despicable, cowards when weak
and oppressors when powerful. Because the Jews had disseminated
self-serving myths and fallacies among the Arabs, they ought to be hated and
found distasteful. Until the Jews are destroyed at God’s will, al-Khalidi
concluded, the Muslim Umma must be aware of their danger and assumed the
divine duty of ridding the world of the Jewish menace.307 Muhsin Abd
al-Hamid also studied Jewish-Muslim relations in three key periods of
Islamic history, starting with the Prophet’s days. This historical record
reaffirms the Prophet’s warning in the Qu’ran that “the Jews are the most
hostile to the Believers,” Abd al-Hamid concluded.308 “The danger of the
Jews”, argued Abd al-Munim Abu Zanat, “had grown in recent years with the
establishment of their ‘evil cancerous state’. The Jews used false lies,
distorting the Torah and the Talmud, in order to justify the establishment of
Israel. Meanwhile, Jews all over the world continue to worship money and
plot conspiracies against their adversaries, damaging their mental, social,
economic, political and military cohesion.”
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 145
“Given the magnitude of the Jewish threat”, Abu Zanat warned, “the Arabs
must uproot this cancerous state before it exploded in the body of
humanity.”309
These religious definitions served as the foundation for political analysis of
unfolding events in the Middle East. For example, argued a Jordanian
Islamist, the policies of Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu could be best
understood in the context of several religious principles of the Torah and the
Talmud. His policies are based on the premise that the Jews were created by
God and are God’s Chosen People. Therefore, he is convinced that Jews are
the best and all the rest are Goyim who constitute the ultimate evil. The Jews
are also convinced that the earth and all that is on it is their property.
Moreover, the killing of non-Jews and spilling their blood is not only allowed
by the Jews’ God but is a sacred duty. Netanyahu is determined to further
these Jewish sacred objectives in the Middle East, establishing the Jewish
homeland extending from the Euphrates to the Nile at the expense of the
hated Arabs.310
The Egyptian Islamists also maintained a coherent policy of demonizing the
Jews as a justification for policies vis-a-vis Israel. The Jews were immersed
in a conspiracy to dominate the Middle East as a first step in their drive to
dominate the world. The only obstacle standing in the Jews’ way was the
Arab struggle against Israel. Therefore, this struggle was eternal, and
demanding the mobilization of the armed forces and military industrial basis
of the entire Muslim Nation. Mustafa Mashhur, the Supreme Guide of the
Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, stressed that in formulating their attitude
toward Israel, the Arabs must not forget that the Qu’ran has already
determined that the rancorous, aggressive and dishonest Jews are the Arabs’
most dangerous and malicious enemy. Another commentator noted that the
Jewish history is replete with conspiracies against Muslims starting with their
conspiracy against Prophet Muhammad. Jewish hatred toward the Prophet
surpassed all subsequent confrontation with Muslims because the Jews just
could not recognize him as the Messiah. Hence, the Prophet had no choice
but to expel them forever from Arabia. The legacy of the Jewish
confrontation with the Prophet also served as a precedent to their eternal
146 Yossef Bodansky
duplicity, having betrayed the Prophet. Just as the Jews had attempted to win
over Islam by abusing the Israilyyat (anecdotes falsely attributed to the
Prophet), they presently continue this drive by posting anti-lslamic fallacies
on the Internet.111
Thus, by the late 1990s, the leading Islamist terrorist organizations - most
notably the HizbAUah and the HAMAS - have unified the objectives of their
Jihad to include both Zionism/lsrael and the world Jewry. The ideological
justification and elucidation of this move is derived from the classic
anti-Semitic literature prevailing in the modem Arab and Muslim World.
Meanwhile, Arafat’s own PLO/PA is not far behind the Islamists’ Jihad in
both repeating the classic anti-Semitic themes, and in anticipating the
resumption of struggle against both Israel and the Jews. By now, the official
media of the Palestinian Authority (PA) is at the forefront of the anti-Semitic
propaganda and incitement. The PA’s propaganda line has been that the
Palestinians are victims of Jewish conspiracies, and have to fight against
Jewish vicious plots. “We are fighting and struggling with an enemy who is
Shylock. We must know that he is Shylock,” explained Othman Abu
Gharbiya, Arafat’s Advisor on National Political Guidance.312 The PA must
therefore confront the Jewish machinations with all its might. “The
[Palestinian] Authority cannot do a thing, except protect its people and itself
from an enemy which bares its Jewish fangs from the four corners of the
earth,” explains the PA’s official newspaper - al-Hayah al-Jadidiah.™'
PA-controlled media is intensifying its virulent anti-Jewish and anti-Judaism
incitement. Thus, for example, Arafat’s own organ - al-Hayah al-Jadidah -
reported and endorsed the research of one Ahmad al-Awadeh on “The
History of the Conflict between Muslims and Jews”. The study ascertains
that the Jews still live by the principles of the Talmud and The Protocols of
the Elders of Zion. Hence, Awadeh concludes and al-Hayah al-Jadidah
endorses, the conflict between Muslim and Jews is an eternal conflict, similar
to the conflict between mankind. For their part, the Palestinians have to
serve as the vanguard of the entire Muslim World in this eternal battle of both
Muslims and all other nations against the “nation of Jews”.114 In studying the
challenges facing the PA, it is impossible to belittle the fatefulness of the
conflict with the Jews.
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 147
It is important to conduct the conflict according to the foundations
which both are leaning on...particularly the Jews...such as the Torah,
the Talmud and The Protocols [of the Elders of Zion]... All signs
unequivocally prove that the conflict between the Jews and the
Muslims is an eternal and on-going conflict, even if it stops for short
intervals... This conflict resembles the conflict between man and
Satan... This is the fate of the Muslim nation, and beyond that the fate
of all of the nations of the world, to be tormented by this nation [the
Jews]. The fate of the Palestinian people is to struggle against the
Jews on behalf of the Arab peoples, the Islamic peoples and the
peoples of the entire world.315
Indeed, argued another article in al-Hayah al-Jadidah, Muslims are not the
only victims of Jewish conspiracies. “The soldiers of the Talmudic offensive
do not hesitate to call openly for revenge against Christianity for having
persecuted European Jewry,” explained Hasan al-Kashef, the
Director-General of the PA Information Ministry.
We know that Jesus was a victim of the roots of Talmudic extremism,
which is currently waving a national flag, wearing a helmet of a
national army and employing state-run terrorism by means of armed
settlers and an army.316
And such devious conspiracies are the hallmark of Jewish confrontation with
all their enemies. An editorial in al-Hayah al-Jadidah explains
We believe that the Israelis are not adventuresome because the Jewish
brain is cowardly and does not tend toward adventure, but rather
exchanges it for plotting. These things have to be said as a description
of the situation, and as a description of the baseness of this reactionary
and cruel American Jewish world.317
Indeed, it is the entire US Government that is both controlled and victimized
by the conspiring Jews. “The White House is a hostage of ‘the two prisons’
or the two Houses - the Senate and the House of Representatives - which are
more extreme than the Elders of Zion,” editorialized Hafiz al-Barghouti, the
editor of al-Hayah al-Jadidah,318 In a subsequent editorial, al-Barghouti
148 Yossef Bodansky
noted that Edward Walker, then the US Ambassador-Designate to Israel,
“underwent extensive hearings in the Congress or, that is, in the ‘Council of
the Elders of Zion’, in order to win his post.”319 Little wonder that Arab
governments refuse to succumb to American pressure. In yet another
editorial in al-Hayah al-Jadidah, al-Barghouti explained “Egypt declared its
absolute refusal to grant a prize to Israel - the convening of the Doha summit
- and displayed its indifference to American pressure-tactics employed by the
Judaized Congress.”320
In the Fall of 1997, the Jerusalem-based newspaper al-Quds lamented that the
dire state of the PA - its inability to retrieve more land from Israel - was the
outcome of the PA’s ignoring of the “Jewish factor” in dealing with the
Israeli government. “We did not take into account the way of thinking of the
other side which is a Jewish mentality based on the love of controlling
everything, and which does not easily grants others their rights,” an editorial
explained.321 A subsequent editorial in al-Quds elaborated on the question of
“The Legend of Jewish Superiority?!” Al-Quds concluded that the
Palestinians were confronting a Jewish conspiracy aimed to enshrine the
notion of Jewish superiority so that the Arabs did not resist them.
The rumor about the “superior Jew” versus the “stupid” others which
are not worthy of anything but of serving as subjects, is spread around
the world. The Jews put their best efforts into creating it. Every
genius has to be of Jewish descent; if he is not of Jewish descent he is
forced to make one up for himself. Additionally, any talented military
commander, either his mother is Jewish if his name is reminiscent of
anything Jewish, or, if his mother is not Jewish - then he ends up
being a Jewish agent. The Jews succeeded, during their history, to turn
the massacres they were subjected to into a “weapon of mass
destruction” against their adversaries and used the weapon of
anti-Semitism in an impressive way... In order to establish their
“superiority” they provided proof and claimed that the founder of
modern psychology, Sigmund Freud, is a Jew in origin and blood; that
the father of the Theory of Relativity, who changed the face of
science, Albert Einstein, is a Jew inside and out, and that Isaac
Newton, who discovered gravity, is wholeheartedly a Jew. The best
proof of the Jewish political ability is the Communist Karl Marx, who
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 149
is also a Jew from birth. Regarding the millionaires...from Rothschild
through Montefiore to Moskowitz: aren’t they sufficient proof of
Jewish “superiority”?322
Indeed, argued al-Hayah al-Jadidah in late November 1997, in its dealing
with Israel, the Palestinian Authority was facing the global Jewish
conspiracy.
“Netanyahu’s Plan” completely matches the foundations of the greater
Zionist plan which is organized according to specific stages that were
determined when The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was composed
and when Herzl, along with Weizmann, traveled around the world in
order to determine the appropriate location for the implementation of
this conspiracy.323
Such a vicious plot merits a fateful and resolute response from the
Palestinians. Hence, these sentiments are manifested in calls for action by
senior PA leaders. On PA TV, on December 2, 1997, for example, Saadi
al-Karnaz, a member of the PA’s Legislative Council, openly called for a
struggle against the Jews in order to destroy Israel and establish a Palestinian
state in its stead.
Our struggle is still necessary, we are still at the beginning of the road.
Our war with Israel and the Jews has not ended and will not end until
the establishment of a Palestinian state on the entire land of
Palestine.324
Moreover, one of the most persistent and effective users of this logic is
Yasser Arafat. In his speeches in Arabic, he repeatedly highlights and
stresses this contradiction between sacred Islamic obligation to enmity
toward Jews and the “peace process” with Israel. For example, on August 6,
1997, an emboldened Arafat called on the Palestinians to prepare for “the
great battle” that is coming soon. In a speech delivered to a major conference
of Fatah senior officials, mostly senior security, intelligence and
military/police officers, Arafat vowed that the struggle will continue until the
Palestinian flag is hoisted over Jerusalem. “The coming confrontation is a
most difficult challenge,” Arafat stressed.
150 Yossef Bodansky
The campaigns behind us were relatively easy compared to the
campaigns facing us. We are all living martyrs, ready at a moment
notice to express our loyalty to the message of the armed struggle we
have started many years ago.
Throughout the speech, Arafat repeated several time a crucial slogan - “a
contract is a contract, and a vow is a vow” - which the audience chanted with
him. The use of this Islamist saying, usually associated with the HAMAS, is
most important to understanding Arafat’s state of mind. The slogan
differentiates between the two forms of agreement acceptable to Muslims. A
contract, such as Prophet Muhammad’s Treaty of Hudaibiya (that
Muhammad unilaterally violated, leading to the slaughter of Jews) or
Arafat’s own agreements with Israel, is a transient form of agreement signed
for its expediency at the time, and which a Believer is not obliged to abide by
once it has outlived its usefulness. A vow - such as the declaration of the
entire land of Israel “from the sea to the river” as a sacred Waqf - is a
religious obligation that is eternal and no Muslim can disavow. Thus, by
adopting this slogan, Arafat is saying that nobody should confuse between
the transient agreements with Israel and the sacred commitment to the entire
land of Israel. Arafat concluded
Particularly in this hour and under these conditions, we are all obliged
to this slogan, and we should comprehend that the campaigns facing
us will be far more difficult and thus demand both Palestinian and
Arab depth [of commitment]?2’
Should there have been a doubt about Arafat’s position and intentions,
Hassan al-Turabi clarifies them. Discussing Islam as the key to the future of
the world, Turabi touched on the Jewish question. Islam cannot accept the
State of Israel as a Jewish State “because this country is based on violence,
genocide and aggression.” Instead, Turabi envisions a regional entity
dominated by Muslims in which Jews and Christians will live as Dhimmis in
accordance with the principles of the Umariyah. Turabi does not believe the
Jews will rule Israel for long because “God didn’t give Israel to the Hebrews
for eternity. The Qu ran explains it clearly.” Throughout history, Jews have
been evicted and exiled from Palestine several times by armies empowered
by God to punish them for their sins. “This lesson is important for the
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 15]
Muslims too,” Turabi suggests. Moreover, Jewish transgression against
Prophet Muhammad led to their eviction from Arabia, a precedent frequently
cited by both Arafat and the Islamists as the justification for the
irreconcilable enmity between Muslims and Jews.
Turabi has no doubt about Arafat’s position on these issues. Arafat is
striving to reach “reconciliation between the PLO, which he leads and the
Islamist movement HAMAS", and Turabi is assisting him in this regard. The
seeming differences between Arafat and the Islamists - be they the HAMAS
or Turabi himself - are not as big as they seem. Turabi thinks Arafat “was
wrong to sign the Oslo accords with the Israelis” but his error lies in the
choice of venues to reach their common objective. Turabi has no doubt that
“in reality, he [Arafat] aspires to the same thing as 1. I’m certain that at the
bottom of his heart, nothing separates us with regard to our ultimate aims.”
Only the strategies of Arafat and the Islamists diverge, their ultimate
objective is identical, Turabi insists. As for this ultimate objective - Turabi
has clearly stated his, and thus Arafat’s as well.326
And these are not empty threats. Recently, in late October 1997, anti-Semitic
conspiracy themes identifying the Jews as controlling both the US and Israel
constituted the underlining logic of the Communique of the Vanguard of
Conquest and the Jihad Group - both under the command of Dr. Ayman
al-Zawahiri, a close protege of Hassan al-Turabi. “The Islamic Jihad against
America’s world dominance, the international influence of the Jews, and the
US occupation of Muslim lands will continue,” the Communique declared.
The United States realizes that its real enemy, as it has declared many
times, is Islamic extremism, by which it means the Islamic Jihad, the
Jihad of the entire Muslim nation against the world dominance of
America, the international influence of the Jews, and the US
occupation of Muslim lands. The Islamic Jihad is against the theft of
the Muslim Ummah's riches, this disgusting robbery, the like of which
has not been witnessed in history.
To avert the promised wave of violence against the US and its Middle East
allies, the US must evict the region and face the establishment of Islamic
governments. Otherwise, the Islamists promise a relentless terrorism
campaign against the US.
152 Yossef Bodansky
Yes, America’s enemy is Islamic extremism, meaning the Islamic
Jihad against America’s preeminence...the Islamic Jihad which stands
against Jewish expansion.327
Zawahiri’s terrorists are responsible for the November 1997 terrorist carnage
in Luxor, Egypt.
In early December 1997, in a further intensification of this Islamist
declaration of confrontation, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri’s Jihad Group
determined that a fateful confrontation between the US and militant Islam, in
which the Jihad intends to “offer martyrs”, is both inevitable and imminent.
A conflict between the Muslim Ummah [nation] and the United States
is unavoidable; in fact we have no other option but to confront atheism
and its ringleader, the United States, which is confronting us
everywhere.
In a special Bulletin, the Jihad identifies Israel as the American spearhead in
the Hub of Islam, and offers the only viable solution to this problem. “The
Islamic Ummah rejects Israel’s existence in the first place, let alone its
continuing aggression and repeated massacres against us.”
However, the forthcoming terroristic Jihad will not be limited to strikes
against Israel. “With Allah's help, we know the United States well,” the
Jihad Bulletin notes, “we also know its weaknesses.” The Bulletin stresses
that “the most vulnerable spot of the United States and Israel is to send them
the bodies of their sons.” Therefore, the Jihad declares, “we should throw in
their faces the flesh of their sons, minced and grilled. The United States must
pay the price; it must pay dearly.”
Zawahiri’s Jihad Group has no doubt .about the ultimate objective of the
forthcoming confrontation. “The Americans themselves admitted half of the
truth when they said that the United States’ first enemy is Islamic extremism,
but they hid the other half, namely that the United States’ destruction will -
InshAllah - be at the hands of Muslims.”328
A profound escalation in the Islamist struggle against the US-led West has
taken place since early 1998. The theological foundations of this escalation
were codified in a series of Fatwas issued in late February. The first Islamist
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 153
Fatwa in this series was issued on February 20 and set the tone and direction
for the call for Jihad. Essentially, the Fatwa announces the establishment of
a “world front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders” - now known as the
World Islamic Front - and declares its commitment to “kill the Americans,
civilians and military”, in retaliation for any US attack on Iraq or any other
demonstration of hostility anywhere else in the Muslim World. Moreover,
the Fatwa decrees that the US threat is profound and all encompassing
because “US aggression is affecting Muslim civilians, not just the military.”
The key undersigned are Shaykh Usamah Bin-Muhammad Bin-Ladin,
Ayman al-Zawahiri, Amir of the Jihad Group, Rifai Ahmad Taha
(Abu-Yassir), a leader of the Egyptian Islamic Group, Shaykh Mir Hamzah,
secretary of the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Pakistan, Fazlul Rahman Khalil, leader
of the Ansar Movement in Pakistan, and Shaykh Abdul Salam Muhammad,
Amir of the Jihad Movement in Bangladesh. '29
It is significant that although prompted by the concurrent and immediate
future threats to the Muslim world such as the US presence and intervention
as well as the Israeli military threat, the Fatwa defined the overall and
historical threats facing the Muslim world as being “Crusaders” - that is
Christian invaders that, like their predecessors of several centuries ago,
would ultimately be defeated and evicted from the region - and “the Jews” -
not just the Zionists or the state of Israel. The identification of the Jews as
the Islamists’ foes is not accidental. It means that the destruction of Israel
and the defeat and/or eviction of the Zionists will have not resolved the
enmity and conflict/struggle between Muslims and Jews. The Islamists’
Jihad will continue. And these are not idle threats or symbolic phrasing.
With even the most pro-US and secularist governments in the Middle East
openly endorsing the Islamist position that the US is bent on punishing the
Arab World for being Muslim, and that therefore there can be no compromise
between the US and the Muslim World, there is no stopping of the surge of
Islamist militancy and terrorism. With the levels of popular support, “The
World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders” will continue to
strike out if only to enhance and preserve its legitimacy in the Muslim World.
154 YossefBodansky
In mid May 1998, the World Islamic Front for Jihad against the Jews and
Crusaders issued a second statement titled “Wounds of al-Aqsa Mosque”.
This statement reiterated the urgency of “the Jihad against the Americans and
the Israelis wherever they are”, as well as clarified some of the front’s
positions. The statement stressed that the Front “is one of the trenches
pooling the [Muslim] Nation’s energies in order to perform their duty
imposed by God, namely the Jihad against the atheists among Americans
Christians and Israeli Jews.”
The Front noted the centrality of the American Christian-Jewish conspiracy
to the Israeli oppression of Palestine.
The US Jews and Christians are using Israel to bring Muslims to their
knees...the Jewish-Crusader alliance led by the United States and
Israel is now operating blatantly...the United States, government and
parliament, always worked to spoil Israel and bolster its economic and
military power.
However, this situation is not irreversible or doomed. The Front’s statement
emphasized that “despite the scale of the catastrophe, the glimmer of hope
has become a reality and hopes are kept alive through the martyrs’ blood, the
pain of the sufferers, and the bullets of those fighting for the sake of God's
„330
cause.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Islamist leadership in Jerusalem - both the PA
appointed preachers and these representing international Islamist entities -
have intensified the virulence of their attacks on both the Jews and Israel.
Most significant is the repeated preoccupation with the international Jewish
conspiracies against Muslims and the rest of the world. This is clearly
reflected in the weekly Friday sermons delivered in the al-Aqsa Mosque in
Jerusalem and then broadcast on the PA radio and/or distributed to the entire
Muslim world via the Internet and a host of Islamist publications. Not only
are these sermons filled with hatred, but they constantly portray every
disaster befalling the Muslim world - and not just the Palestinian issue - as
the consequence of evil Jewish machinations and conspiracies. As such these
sermons fill a very' important role in the overall Palestinian incitement against
Israel. The vile delegitimization of Jews and any possibility of reaching an
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 155
accord with them — over Palestine or anywhere else — complements and
enhances the PA’s own incitement that is relatively more narrowly focused
on Arab-Israeli issues.
Thus, in 1997, PA appointed preachers openly discuss such classic
anti-Semitic themes as the Jewish control over the US as the cause for the
PA’s setbacks. Unlike the PA that pretends to be on friendly relations with
official Washington, the preachers have no such constraints in their sermons.
Thus, for example, Mufti Ikrima Sabri, the PA appointed preacher in al-Aqsa
Mosque called for God’s punishment of the US. “Oh, Allah, destroy
America for it is controlled by Zionist Jews,” Shaykh Sabri declared. Sabri’s
discussion of the situation in the territories used the traditional vile terms to
describe the Jews, thus making sure his audience has no doubt about the
impossibility of any coexistence with the Jews around them. '"''Allah will
avenge, in the name of his Prophet, the colonialist settlers who are the
descendants of monkeys and pigs.” And he added, as a point of inciting the
crowds for not doing enough against the Jews, “forgive us, oh Muhammad,
for the acts of these monkeys and pigs who wished to profane your
holiness.”311 Another PA appointed preacher at al-Aqsa mosque expanded
the threat to include the Jewish conspiracy against the entire Muslim world.
“The Jews always set a trap for the community of Muslims,” he explained.
“The Qu’ran repeatedly warns against the traps and plots of the ‘People of
the Book’. They relentlessly scheme in all times and places and this is what
they do today and tomorrow against the Muslim camp,” he concluded.’32
As of the Spring of 1998, the al-Aqsa sermons distributed through the
channels of the al-Muhajiroun organization in the UK and like-minded
Islamist organizations throughout the West have become one of the most
authoritative and important source of incitement on all-lslamic issues. These
al-Aqsa sermons leave no doubt about the Islamists’ ultimate objective - the
revival of the global Khilafah - and the identity of their key enemies - the
Jews. The al-Aqsa sermons stress again and again the primacy of the military
solution in Islam’s relentless struggle against its foes.
Our political and military power is the only way to make the Jews
submit. Our political and military power is the only way to force
America and Europe to submit to our demands. The Islamic army and
the Islamic State are the only way to guarantee liberation for
Palestine.333
156 Yossef Bodansky
Morever, in the Palestinian context, the repeated hammering of the
all-lslamist sacred causes and implacable enemies - the Jews - ensures that
the Believers reject any chance for normalization with, or legitimacy of,
Israel irrespective of the prevailing situation around them because of the
overall context of the Muslim struggle against the Jews.
In the Summer, the al-Aqsa sermons stressed the profound and irreconcilable
conflict between Islamist revivalism and the Jewish-led Western conspiracy
to stifle it. It is a fateful struggle for the future of Islam. Thus, the al-Aqsa
preacher stressed, “Jews and Christians are at one side against us Muslims.
They will never be satisfied until we [Muslims] change our path and follow
theirs.”134
Indeed, the current plight of the Muslims in Palestine, as well as the entire
Muslim World, is the outcome of a series of conspiracies initiated by the
Jews and perpetrated by them and the Crusaders.
The decision to unify Jerusalem, and before it the decision to occupy
Jerusalem, and before it the decision to establish the State of Israel,
and before it the decision to demolish the Islamic Khilafah, all these
decisions were cooked in the Crusaders’ and the Jews’ kitchens and
the international Masonic Kitchens. These are the ones who bear a
grudge against the word of “La llaha Ula'LLAH” [“There’s no God
but Allah”] from the time this word came down to earth.
The preacher warned that the absence of a decisive solution to the Palestine
problem - the destruction of Israel and the establishment of an Islamic state
in its stead - only emboldens the Jews to expand and intensify their onslaught
on Islam.
The Jews today, are becoming more arrogant they did mischief on the
earth, they were elated with mighty arrogance. All this occurred in the
absence of the ones who can stop them and destroy their power.
The obvious conclusion is that only a resolute Jihad, beginning in Palestine,
can reverse the current trend.330
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 157
These al-Aqsa sermons combine analysis of the major world news,
particularly events directly involving Muslims, with “historical precedents” -
both Qu’ranic traditions and myths - aimed to substantiate and reinforce the
preachers’ conclusions. All of the news and unfolding events are being
interpreted through the prism of additional facets in the expanding and
relentless Jewish conspiracy against Islam and Muslims.
In early October 1998, for example, the al-Aqsa preacher looked at the
improving relations between Israel and Turkey, and the growing tension on
the Syrian-Turkish border because of the Syrian support for, and sponsorship
of, the PK.K. terrorists.
What is happening now on the Syrian-Turkish borders is a new plot
against Muslims by the spiteful Jews, because the Jews hate the
Turkish, the Syrians, and everyone who says, “there is no god but
Allah.”
The Islamists consider the collapse of Ottoman Empire as the beginning of
the current crisis. The al-Aqsa preacher stressed that “the Islamic Khilafah
also fell with the help of the Dunma Jews headed by the British agent
Mustafa Kamal Attaturk.” The al-Aqsa preacher sees a direct continuation
between the events of almost 80 years ago and the current situation in the
Middle East. These are all facets of a global Jewish conspiracy that now
even engulfs the White House.
Now Attaturks’ grandchildren are plotting a new war that might
inflame the whole region between Sunni and Shi’a. And Israel will
emerge from that war the strongest regional state. The Jews now find
the time appropriate with the American political weakness in the
region. The weak Clinton, this man who was blackmailed by the Jews
through the use of his sexual scandals. The Jews sent their prostitutes
after Clinton and finally it was the Jewish Monica Lewinsky who
succeeded in the so-called “Monicagate”. This is like Irangate,
Contragate, Watergate...alI these were concocted by the Jews to
pressure the American president at the right time. And the now right
time had come in order for them to implement their plans in the
Middle East.336
158 YossefBodansky
One should not be surprised by the magnitude of such Jewish undertaking,
the al-Aqsa preacher explains. There is a historical record for such
worldwide plotting. As a proof he introduces a concocted story combining
Roman leaders and biblical figures in one plot. For the largely illiterate
audience, the historical inaccuracy is irrelevant. They are vaguely familiar
with some of the names - both ancient and contemporary - and that’s
enough. The message, however, is precise and vicious:
This is a habit of the Jews throughout history. They have killed their
own Prophets. They have conspired against the saints. And we know
that they bile the hand that helps them. Look what they have done to
Herodous, they made him marry Ester and they wanted through Ester
to control the Roman Empire until Chitous became angry and came to
Jerusalem and destroyed their temple over their heads, killing them in
the beginning of A.D. chronology. Clinton is in no way better than
Herodous. And the Jews will in no way change their habits and
malicious actions.’37
Therefore, the inevitable conclusion of this and comparable al-Aqsa sermons
is that the resolute and uncompromising Jihad must escalate, for there is no
other way to ensure the survival of Islam and the Muslim world against the
scheming Jews.
The signing of the Wye Agreement, in which the PA has reiterated once
again to desist incitement, would not silence the PA appointed preachers. For
example, on November 3, 1998, PA TV carried a religious program in which
the Jews were portrayed in the most crude anti-Semitic terms.
There is no light nor teaching in their Torah today. Their Torah today
is just a collection of writings in which those people wrote lies about
God, His prophets and His teachings...the Jews are the seed of Satan
and the devils.... The Jews believe only in the first five books, which
includes the Book of Genesis, all of w hich is lies about God and about
the day of Creation... To their Prophets they attribute the greatest of
crimes: murder, prostitution and drunkenness. The Jews do not
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 159
believe in God or in the End of Days. They have distorted it [the
Torah], lied about it and forged it... They invented it as a history
book for the Jews, full of promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that
they would be given the land of Palestine...the entire Torah comes to
demand ownership of the land for the Jews. Their history is full of
rebellion and humiliation - God protect us from humiliations! They
have distorted the faith and exchanged the gift of God for heresy,
rebellion and prostitution, and distorted the Torah...”8
Meanwhile, even as the PA was heading to the revival of the “Peace Process”
through the Wye negotiations, PA media in Gaza continued to carry the
hate-filled sermons from the local mosques. Preachers used commemoration
of “historical events” in order to incite their audiences for revenge and stress
the relevance of considering Israel as the primary enemy. At times, the Gaza
preachers also expanded their incitement to include all Jews and Judaism in
this context. Thus, for example, the Sheikh of the Adjlaan Mosque in Gaza
used the 1982 massacre in Sabra and Shatila, which was carried out by
Lebanese Christians, to stress Islam’s historical enmity with the Jews:
On the anniversary of the massacre in Sabra and Shatila the Jews have
not changed their ingrained nature, students went to school yesterday
and came back to their homes wallowing in their blood. On the 16th
anniversary of the Massacre of our people in Lebanese camps of Sabra
and Shatila by the Jews we remember the painful massacre, which was
planned by someone who still today serves in the occupying
government. Our enemies carried out this despicable crime against
our sons, children, wives, elderly. The heads of the children were cut
off and their bodies torn to pieces and their limbs dispersed and the
honor of the women violated in front of everyone. Our enemies still
desire the heads of our sons and the Palestinian blood is still being
spilled like water and it has not stopped and will not stop because the
policy that our enemies take against the Muslims is written since the
start of our history. They [the Jews] were the first tribe that breached
the contract with Muhammad. This is how the Jews acted with our
160 Yossef Bodansky
Prophet on the anniversary of the painful inassacres and during the
continuous murder of our people, our only consolation is that our dead
are in the Garden of Eden and their murderers are burning in fire.”9
Indeed, the same theme - the Israeli perpetration of the massacres in Sabra
and Shatila - was also stressed by such PA notables as Brigadier General
Saib Alajiz, the Head of National Security in Northern Gaza. In an interview
with PA TV, Alajiz, however, went beyond the usual observation that “the
Israelis wanted to kill a maximum number of [Palestinian] people” to
attribute the event to the inherent Jewish characteristics. He explained that
“many massacres were carried out against the Palestinian people” and
therefore Sabra and Shatila should not be considered a unique event or even
an aberration. Alajis believes that there are two causes behind the Israeli
repeated massacring of Palestinians.
One is the Israeli mentality which is based on the Talmud and the
Torah which believe that the Jews are a chosen people and the second
is that their existence in this area was based on power and anyone
whose existence is based on power it breeds in him policies that are
based on power and terror.140
This theme - the demonizing of Jews as an explanation for Israel’s actions -
is frequently repeated on PA TV. “I would like to make it clear that the
Jewish character or Israeli characteristics have not changed at all when we
look at the personality with whom we are negotiating today, absolutely
nothing has changed: opportunistic respecting neither contract nor
agreement,” explained those interviewed in the few days preceding the Wye
Conference.141
It is not by accident that the October 23, 1998, signing of the Wye Agreement
- ostensibly aimed to clear the logjam in the “Peace Process” and expedite
the progress toward a permanent agreement between Israel and the PA - was
accompanied by a barrage of anti-Semitic incitement in the PA-controlled
media. The dominant theme was the historic duplicity of the Jews, their
global plotting, and influence over the rest of the world. An early November
1998 article in the PA-controlled cd-Hayah cd-Jadiduh is most revealing. The
article explains:
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 15]
Corruption is part of the nature of the Jews. So much so that it is only
on rare occasions that one finds corruption in which Jews were not
behind it. Their intense love of money and accumulating wealth is
well known and they do not care what method is used to achieve it.
They are likely to use the lowliest and most convenient methods to
achieve their objectives. If one studies their history, it becomes
apparent that the Jews were subjected to losses and expulsion as a
result of their wickedness and their despicable acts. All this occurred
after their true nature and their responsibility for destroying the world
was revealed.
This historical background dominated the current Jewish behavior. “Since
this is their mode of behavior, they have focused their efforts on developing
their plotting mentality, as they believe the secret of their survival lies in their
control over the economies of the countries which opened their gates before
them,” the paper continues.
These Jewish conspiracies and plots have direct and adverse impact on the
Palestinians and the PA, al-Hayah al-Jadidah stresses. This is achieved
through the Jewish unproportional influence over the US, which, in turn,
mediated the Wye Agreement. The article concludes:
It is interesting how those who are harmed by their curse continue to
remain under their influence...among those who have been harmed in
this manner are Bill Clinton, the president of the largest country in the
world. Zionism began to besiege him when he was still a state
governor. He began to carry out what World Zionism dictated to him
out of fear that his proclivities would become revealed. Even though
he is the head of the biggest country in the world, he understands that
he is a servant of his desires, with which the plotters tripped him up.’42
The obvious implication of this diatribe is that the Jews coerced the US into
supporting an agreement that the PA considers unfavorable to the
Palestinians' interests. Therefore, given the inherent hostility and duplicity
of the Jews, it is impossible to adhere to such an agreement irrespective of
Arafat’s signature. Moreover, the overall negative portrayal of the Jews,
including the repeating of anti-Semitic stereotypes, reinforces the overall
162 Yossef Bodansky
grassroots perception that it is impossible to come to terms and reconcile with
the Jews and/or Zionists irrespective of agreements the PA had been coerced
into signing by the Jewish-manipulated US.
With the official Egyptian media endorsing the Wye Agreement, the Islamist
media once again provided the counterbalance. Most significant in this cycle
of anti-Jewish incitement was Dr. Fahmi Abd al-Salaam’s article “The
Talmud, the Jews and Human Sacrifice” published in a-Sha’ab. Relying on
material found in a 1991 book by Orpah Abdah Ali titled The Jews in Egypt
in the Modern Era, Abd al-Salaam uses the classic blood libel theme - that
Jews consume matza baked with human blood on Passover - as an indicator
of the essence of their character. The author contrasts between the inherent
character of Jews and the impact the practice of Judaism has on their
behavior.
Throughout history, the Jews have been known to be a depressed and
whiny people. There is a clear connection between the Jewish race
and depression, and many writers have described Jewish depression as
a trait characteristic of this despicable race.
It is the fulfilling of their bloodthirsty religious ceremonies that makes the
Jews aggressive. As Orpah Abdah Ali notes in his book, special attention
should therefore be paid to “the religious ceremonies conducted by Jews on
behalf of their God, who is the blood-thirsty God which the Jews invented in
accordance w ith their nature”.
The book further explains that “the Talmud, which is full of errors,
falsehoods and fabrications, played an important pail in the formulation of
the of the phenomenon of 'fanatic nationalism' among the Jews, and they
prefer it over the Torah.”
And this “fanatic nationalism” is the driving force behind the Jewish
aggression against the Arab world.
The most important ceremonies bolstering Jew ish aggression are the “human
sacrifices to please their [the Jews’] blood-thirsty God”, primarily, during
"the Feast of Matza [Passover], using matza mixed with human blood”, Abd
al-Salaam explains. And he provides gruesome details of how these
ceremonies take place.
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 153
The author of the book [Orpah Abdah Ali] surveys the methods by
which the rabbis slaughter a person prior to his being sacrificed to
God: (1.) The first method is that the victim is brought while still
alive and placed into a large barrel with sharp needles embedded in its
side. The needles pierce the victim’s skin and his blood begins to drip
into the barrel. The more the victim moves due to the pain, the worse
his wounds become until finally his body is emptied of all blood.
Thus, when his soul departs from his body, the last drop of his blood
leaves as well. (2.) The second method is used in places which are not
secure for Jews, where they are compelled to carry out their crimes
quickly without enjoying them: they slaughter the victim by severing
his neck and arteries after having placed a receptacle underneath him
so the blood will flow into it. Afterwards, the blood is gathered in a
jar. These jars are brought on Passover and Purim to the leading
rabbi, who blesses the blood. Then, they mix the blood together with
flour to make matza. Afterwards, the matza is distributed to
God-fearing Jews and they eat it with an appetite commensurate with
the depth of their hatred for Jesus and Christians.
Lest his readers doubt the veracity of this venomous article, Abd al-Salaam
explains that before writing this article, he himself “had thought that the
matter of Jewish matza mixed with blood was a fabrication, but the shocking
thing is that it is a fact, a fact which has been proved in some 400 cases
which have become known, while the number of cases that have not been
revealed is far higher.”
In conclusion, Abd al-Salaam stresses that the source of blood must be a
Christian, and, in a clear reference to the normalization of Arab-Israeli
relations, he stresses that the victim “must be a friend of the Jews, so that the
blood will not be contaminated by hatred for them”. And it is here that the
latent but crude message lies - hating Jews is not only justified, but it might
save the reader from becoming their victim.'
Ultimately, Islamist writers argue, neither the Palestinians nor the Egyptians
are the only victims of the Jewish plots. The current plight of Islam, its bad
image and identification with terrorism, are all the outcome of a greater
Jewish conspiracy. “The Jewish owned and managed western media” has
164 Yossef Bodansky
been the primary instrument in this plot as a result of which “the world has
been convinced that Islam equals Terrorism.” However, while this is a most
glaring and flagrant aspect of the Jewish campaign against Islam, the media
aspect is but a relatively minor component of a multi-faceted conspiracy of
great persistence and immense power.
The Jews are not a stupid people. Just the opposite. They are very
smart. Anyone who had ever read The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
can attest to that. Protocols was written well before any of the
modem day political disasters occurred. Yet it chronicles them in
detail. Is it not a delicate irony that the woman who brought down the
President of the United States of America is Jewish?
Therefore, Muslims have no alternative to “joining forces to form an Islamic
state, even on paper, lead by a Khalifa!!" that would be able to wage the Jihad
for the restoration of Muslims’ rights and dignity against the mounting
conspiracies.’44 Thus, for the Islamists, there is no alternative to a fateful
armed confrontation as the sole viable way of defeating the Jewish
conspiracy against Islam.
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument (65
CHAPTER 7
THE SPECTER OE INTENSIFYING HATRED
In coming to assess the importance and effectiveness of the state-initiated and
state-sanctioned anti-Judaism and anti-Jewishness, two issues outside the
ordinary scope of “anti-Semitism research’’ are of great importance:
I.	The conduct of Islamist terrorism against distinctly Jewish targets (as
opposed to Israeli targets) that demonstrates the clear blurring of
distinction between Israel/Zionism and Judaism; and
2.	The propagandistic and virulent anti-Semitic onslaught at various
UN-related agencies.
*
Beginning in the mid 1980s, when state-sponsored Islamist terrorism became
the prominent trend in international terrorism, there has been a distinct
focusing on Jewish objectives - as distinct from Israel-related or
Zionist-related objectives - throughout the world. This shift was driven by
more than the often-cited pragmatic consideration - that since they belong to
local communities, the Jewish institutions are usually less protected than such
Israeli installations as embassies and EI-AI offices.
One of the first such operations against distinctly Jewish targets was the
September 6, 1986, Iran-sponsored attack on the Neve Shalom Synagogue of
Istanbul. Two terrorists fired submachine guns and threw grenades into a
crowd of worshipers, killing at least 24 and wounding three. Among the
several organizations that later claimed responsibility for the operation were
The Palestinian Vengeance Organization, the Palestinian Resistance
Organization, the Organization of Unity of the Arab North, Islamic Jihad, the
Fighting Internationalist Group - the Amrush Martyr Group, and the Abu
Nidal Group.343 The mere fact that they considered a Synagogue of a local
Jewish community as a legitimate and viable target in their “struggle” for the
destruction of Israel and the liberation of Palestine demonstrates the blurring
of any distinction between Judaism and Zionism among the Islamists and
other Muslim radicals. This is the outcome of the intense anti-Semitic
incitement.
166 Yossef Bodansky
The attacks on distinct Jewish installations peaked with the July 18, 1994,
car-bombing of the AMI A building - the Jewish center - in Buenos Aires. It
was a highly professional operation that claimed the lives of 104 people and
injured close to a thousand more. The operation was conducted under the
tight supervision of Iranian and Syrian intelligence. 46 Although Islamist
terrorist leaders denied any connection to the Buenos Aires bombing, they
nevertheless reiterated the logic behind it and the legitimization of Jew ish
objectives as targets in the struggle against Israel. For example, Shaykh
Subhi al-Tufayli, the former secretary general of the HizbAllah who was
implicated in the AM IA bombing, sees no distinction between the two
entities. Asked for his reaction to rumors that Syria was considering a
declaration of principles with Israel, Tufayli responded: “Even if the whole
world signs a peace agreement with them, we will continue to battle the
Jews.”447
Moreover, in a kind of a full-circle, global anti-Semitic themes are even used
by the Islamist terrorists to explain and justify their strikes against Israeli
targets in Israel itself. Many HAMAS and Islamic Jihad operatives are
convinced they are resisting a devious plot by the Jews to dominate the world
as explained in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Jewish Holy books.
"According to the Torah”, would-be suicide-terrorist Hisham Ismail Hamad
explained “the Jews say they are the leaders of nations. But in fact, Israel
wants to destroy the world. They want to destroy American society, French
society and British society. They want to destroy the whole world. ...But we
believe Israel will be destroyed by Muslims. This is what the Qu 'ran says.”
On November II, 1994, a few days after making this statement, Hisham
Ismail Hamad committed what he considered martyrdom. With a bomb
strapped around his waist, he rode his bicycle into the IDF Netzarim
checkpoint near Gaza. He then blew' himself up, killing three Israeli soldiers
in the process.,4X Other Islamist terrorists in both pre-1967 Israel and the
territories used and relied on anti-Semitic motivational literature, including
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, when preparing for their operations.
Meanwhile, both the Islamist incitement for terrorism and violence
specifically against the Jews as well as the willingness to implement such
operations, have already reached the United States. In a December 1997
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument ]^7
lecture in Detroit, Shaykh Wagdi Ghoniem, a visiting Egyptian cleric, urged
the killing of Jews. “The hour will come when the Muslims will kill the
Jews,” he explained. “With Allah’s help...we will find the Jews and we will
kill them.” In a May 1998 lecture at Brooklyn College, New York, Shaykh
Wagdi Ghoniem used classic Islamic anti-Jewish terms. “No to the Jews,
descendants of the apes”, he declared. “The Jews killed the prophets and
worshiped idols.” He used this incitement in order to fundraise for Islamist
terrorism. “He who equips a warrior of Jihad is like the one who makes
Jihad himself,” Shaykh Ghoniem told an audience of about 500. He was not
alone in bringing up anti-Jewish theme. An audiocassette offered by vendors
at the event boasted of “exposing” how the Jews control America.349
And these are not idle words, for members of the New York area Islamist
community are ready to kill Jews in the context of an Islamist Jihad. For
example, in July 1998, Gazi Abu Mezer, a Palestinian on trial in New York
for plotting to blow up a Brooklyn subway train, stressed his intended targets
were the Jews. When arrested, he was planning to kill “as many, as much
[Jews] as 1 could take,” with a suicide bomb. He explained in his trial that he
had come “to the United States because I feel that [the] United States is
supporting the Jewish state and [the] United States should be punished...for
supporting Israel,” Abu Mezer told the jury. “1 always dreamed to be [a]
martyr.” Answering a subsequent question, Abu Mezer reiterated that he
“wanted to use it [his suicide bomb] against the Jewish [people] of the United
These strikes, along with several prevented attacks, are the beginning of what
Professor Martin Kramer calls “a global Jihad against the Jews”. In an
October 1994 article published in the aftermath of the AM1A bombing,
Kramer stressed the significance of this transformation in Islamist
international terrorism.
The choice of a Jewish target was no mistake. It came as the
culmination of a shift in the thinking of many Muslim
fundamentalists. Today they are in thrall to the idea that Jews
everywhere, in league with Israel, are behind a sinister plot to destroy
Islam. The battleground is anywhere Jews are organized to assist and
168 Yossef Bodansky
aid in this plot. This is a new concept even for Islamic
fundamentalism, and it represents an especially virulent form of
anti-Semitism, one so widespread and potentially violent that it could
eclipse all other forms of anti-Semitism over the next decade.’?l
Since the early 1990s, Arab governments and Muslim organizations from all
over the word have been flooding the UN and affiliated international
organizations with a torrent of memos and complaints on such anti-Semitic
issues as Israel’s sponsorship of the spread of AIDS, the distribution of
promiscuity causing and libido enhancing chewing gum, and even acts of
violence against Palestinian children reminiscent of classic blood libel related
accusations. These documents include blatant propaganda and crude
incitement, often quoting from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, not likely
to be taken seriously by these international bodies. Yet, there is a persistent
push of such anti-Semitic incitement by Arab and Muslim states. And there
is perfect logic behind this rapidly intensifying campaign.
The governments and organizations filing and disseminating this incitement
do so not because of their intent to “convince” the international community
about the veracity of their anti-Semitic accusations. What’s crucial for them
is the subsequent use of the mere international and/or organizational record of
these filings as “proofs” of international dealing with these subjects - thus, a
form of legitimization crucial for domestic use. Hence, the mere Muslim
anti-Semitic activities at the UN and affiliated organizations serve as a clear
manifestation not only of the Arab/Muslim states’ involvement in the
dissemination of anti-Semitic incitement, but of the importance of such
propaganda to these states’ governments. Indeed, the Arab governments
involved in these “exercises” at the UN and affiliated organizations care so
much about enhancing the veracity and legitimacy of their anti-Semitic
claims, that they are ready and willing to engage in this exercise that is
politically embarrassing at the international level. Thus, this type of
diplomatic activity should serve as an indicator of the importance of the
anti-Jewish and anti-Judaism propaganda and incitement to the governments
of the Arab/Muslim states. Unlike the anti-Semitic incitement in the Arab
media, the filing of memos and complaints at the international organizations
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 169
in the work of governments - governments that are thus on record as
sponsors of anti-Semitism. This preoccupation at the international level also
reflects the prevalence of the problem throughout Islamdom.3’2
*
Throughout the Hub of Islam, anti-Semitism - that is, anti-Jews and
anti-Judaism - is not only most prevalent, but also most effective.
Increasingly anti-Semitism is an instrument of choice of leaders and aspirant
leaders eager to quickly gain popular support for unpopular steps undertaken
and/or to justify failures and setbacks of any sort. Thus, as the Hub of Islam
is returning to militant and radical Islamism as a counter-balance for, and
reaction to, modernism and the spread of westernization, there is a growing
need for a culprit - a guilty party in the midst of Islamdom. The Jews have
already emerged as the primary and commonly preferable “guilty party”.
While, it can be argued that in the Middle East, the popular attitude toward
Jews is influenced by the experience of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the
sentiments at the distant periphery of Islamdom provide a good indication of
how deep and perverse the hatred toward Jews in the context of unfolding
socio-political and economic dynamics - society’s confrontation with
modernism and the westernization that comes with it.
A good example of the extent of grass roots anti-Jewish sentiments is the
description of the attitude toward Jews in Malaysia - where there is no
Jewish community, no record of Jewish presence as well as involvement in,
and adverse influence by, the Arab-Israeli conflict. In the early 1980s, the
hatred of Jews was obvious in conversations V.S. Naipaul had with
well-educated Malays, such as doctors and lawyers. One told Naipaul that the
local religious leaders recommended that Muslims should not smoke. The
reason, however, was not the health hazard. “Most of the tobacco
manufacturers are Jewish, and in order to destroy the Jews we must not
consume their products,” the Malay explained. “The Jews are enemies of
God,” another stated. One of the greatest sins of the Jews is the invention
and propagation of the evolution theory. Because they had defied and
refused to recognize the Prophet, “the wrath of god was imposed on the Jews,
and God swore to convert the whole tribe into monkeys,” a Malay doctor
noted.
170 YossefBodansky
As a result of being turned to apes, the moral prestige of the Jews
declined. To rectify this situation, because they are already degraded
- the Jews are now pulling down the whole society with them.
In other words, this argument goes, the Jews invented the evolutionary theory
in order to suggest that all of mankind originated from the apes, and not just
them. “They have the principle,” the Malay doctor explained Naipaul. “If
they are dirty, let others be dirty.”3’3 And these are not isolated incidents.
There is a vibrant anti-Semitic industry in Malaysia. A large number of the
Islamist anti-Semitic publications in English - including several editions of
Protocols and Khomeynist texts - are published in Malaysia.
Indeed, the moment Malaysia ran into a major economic crisis, even the
Prime Minister blamed the Jews. Since the Summer of 1997, in the aftermath
of currency speculation by George Soros, who is Jewish, that adversely
affected the Malaysian economy, there has been a mounting hostility toward
Jews as whole. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad did not
deny the anti-Jewish strain in the Malaysian media but tried to explain and
excuse the accusations.
No, we are not anti-Semitic because, as you know, the Arabs are also
a Semitic [race]. But when a person of Jewish origin does this kind of
thing [currency speculation], the effect is the same as when a Muslim
carries out something akin to terrorism. So much as some people link
terrorism to Islam and Muslims, some people in this country' tend to
link such activities with being a Jew'. Most Jews I think are quite
innocent...but the impression created is, of course, that being Jewish
they have a lot of money. They know’ how to manipulate money as
much as people assume we Muslims are naturally terrorists, including
myself. That is unfair. I think you shouldn’t label people this way.3 4
However, in October 1997, with the currency crisis growing. Dr. Mahathir
himself adopted anti-Semitism when identifying the culprits in Malaysia’s
financial crisis. In a speech to a mass gathering at the Sultan Mahmud
Airport in Kuala Terengganu, he stated that his government suspected that
the Jew's had an agenda to destroy the economy of Malaysia and other
Muslim countries. Mahathir concluded
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 17]
We do not want to say that this is a plot by the Jews, but in reality it is
a Jew who triggered the currency plunge, and coincidentally Soros is a
Jew. It is also a coincidence that the Malaysians are mostly Muslim.
Indeed, the Jews are not happy to see Muslims. If it is in Palestine,
the Jews would rob Palestinians. Thus this is what they are doing to
our country?”
The same type of dynamics is taking place in the Caucasus, among the
Islamist groups fighting Russia. Initially, the spread of anti-Semitism was a
by-product of the contact between the Caucasian Islamist groups and Russian
ultra-nationalist groups. However, by the mid 1990s, as a direct outcome of
the growing influence of the foreign Mujahideen operating in and out of
Chechnia, there emerged numerous extremist Islamist organizations with
distinct ideology. They insist on banning the activities and even mere
existence of Jewish organizations because they constitute a part of “a global
Zionist conspiracy directed against the Islamic religion.”356 Significantly, the
growing influence of the Islamist Mujahideen that were instrumental in the
Chechens’ war against Russia and the ensuing radicalization of the Muslim
population in the Caucasus and its mobilization against Moscow, reaches the
uppermost echelons of the local leadership. This is a profound impact on the
fiber of local elites that otherwise had no reason to hate and/or fear the Jews.
Nevertheless, in early October 1998, “President” Maskhadov of Chechnya
blamed the Jews for his plight. In a speech delivered at a “Congress of the
Chechen People” in Groznyy, Maskhadov claimed the subversive activities
Chechnya was facing might be part of a “Jewish plot against Chechnya as the
only Islamic state in the world”. Nobody in the audience challenged this
assertion. °7
Similarly, Pakistani Islamist intellectuals, particularly these close to the
government, identify a Jewish conspiracy at the root of Pakistan’s endemic
socio-economic crisis and the confrontation with Iran over the strategic
posture in Afghanistan. Islamabad’s current crises, they argue, are but an
integral component of a global Jewish plot against the Muslim world. Dr.
Israr Ahmed explains:
172 Yossef Bodansky
Nowadays, the entire Muslim world - in particular, the region
comprising Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran, which poses a big
impediment in the way of modem international financial imperialism
- is the special target of the new world order, which is in fact the
Jewish world order. This new global imperialism is determined to
provoke a ferocious war between Iran and Afghanistan. This dire
situation is the outcome of a protracted onslaught on Islamdom
currently spearheaded by the Jews.
About half a century ago, the Christian imperialism of the old Europe
started declining and Jewish imperialism started emerging, giving
birth to institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank. The entire
Muslim world has been trapped by this new international financial
global power. In particular, the Arab world has been taken over by
this imperialism.3’8
As the sole alternative to fratricidal wars incited by “this global imperialist’’,
Dr. Israr Ahmed urges the emergence of a regional bloc comprised of
Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan because they “are countries that can stop the
upcoming flood of Jewish imperialism and can act as the final means of
salvation. If they do not unite, Jewish imperialism will destroy each one.
The importance of this region is also highlighted with reference to the global
control of Islam in the light of the sayings of the Holy Prophet and the
predictions that the Islamic forces will rise from this region to free the
Bait-ul-Muqaddas [Temple Mount] from Jewish occupation.”3’9
Thus, given the extent of the demonization of Jews throughout Islamdom, it
is impossible for the Arab/Muslim World to accept, legitimize, or recognize a
Jewish State - Israel - irrespective of its size and the extent of concessions
made in the context of a peace agreement with Arab Government(s). Arab
intellectuals, primarily Egyptian journalists, do not conceal the intentional
use of anti-Jewish incitement in order to further anti-lsrael policies. An
Egyptian late 1996 analysis of the local media acknowledged that “the
difference between criticizing Israeli policies and categorically slandering the
Jewish people seems to be fading in the Egyptian media. With tensions at a
record high, opposition papers have taken to hitting below the belt and
reverting to old wartime stereotypic and anti-Semitic rhetoric and
;, -360
imagery.
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 173
Although, this distinction does not seem to deter Egyptian journalists from
exploiting anti-Jewish incitement, they insist they are not anti-Semitic. “The
accusation of being anti-Semitic whenever we attack Israeli policies does not
frighten us,” asserted an Egyptian columnist. He further insists that there is
factual justification for the demonization of the Jews. However, he stressed,
since Arabs are also Semites, “Anti-Semitism is a European, not an Arab
phenomenon.”361
In assessing this evolution in Arab anti-Jewish incitement, it should be
remembered that for the vast majority of Arabs Israel is still a “taboo”
irrespective of agreements signed between governments.362 The current
Islamist “scholarship” on Jewish affairs expands this virulent hate to include
all Jews. Of importance in the defining of this school of thought is the work
of Professor Muhsin Abd al-Hamid of Baghdad University. He studies the
relations between the terms “Judaism” and “Zionism” and found any
difference to be “blurred”. Ultimately, Abd al-Hamid equates “Zionism”
with “Judaism”. Based on the spiritual tenets of the Torah and the Talmud,
which, in turn, epitomize the Jewish mentality and morality, Zionism is
essentially the new face of Judaism, incorporating its inherent racism. Thus,
Abd al-Hamid concludes, in any reference to the Zionist attitude toward
Muslims and Islam, “we mean exactly the attitude of Judaism towards
them.”363
Ultimately, however, these recent developments bring into the mainstream of
Arab politics and state-controlled media the long-held grassroots sentiments
and populist conviction. An important indication of the Islamists’ grassroots
approach to Jews and Judaism, well beyond the ongoing ups-and-downs of
Arab-Israeli confrontation and overall relations, can be gleaned from the
evolution and/or persistence in the attitude toward Jews in the works -
mainly oratory - of veteran populist preachers whose sermons are widely
attended and distributed on cassettes. One of these is the Egyptian Shaykh
Abd-al-Hamid Kishk (b. 1933) whose sermons are listened to from Morocco
to Iraq and from the North African suburbs of Paris and London, to the Arab
population of South Africa. Shaykh Kishk is called by admirers and foes
alike “the star of Islamic preaching”. A populist, he is speaking to the public
in down to earth terms they can comprehend. Throughout his sermons, he
174 Yossef Bodansky
frequently quotes from the Qu ran and Hadith in order to reaffirm the
message as divine and authoritative. His prominence and popularity are so
immense, that Kishk is untouchable by official Cairo despite his Islamist
stance. Therefore, Shaykh Kishk should be considered a true spokesman of
the sentiments of most Islamists. ’64
Shaykh Kishk leaves no doubt about his attitude towards Jews as a whole -
not just in the context of Zionism and Israel. In one of his sermons he
characterized them as “snakes and scorpions” and in another written tract he
noted that when confronting Prophet Muhammad, “the hearts of the Jews of
Medina were filled with the snakes of hatred and the scorpions of hostility.”
The importance of Kishk’s attitude toward Jews is that he uses the legacy of
the Qu’ran to justify his positions on contemporary issues such as relations
with Israel. Thus the mentioning of the duplicity of the Jews in dealing with
the Prophet Muhammad served as a precedent to the delegitimization of all
contemporary Arab-Israeli treaties. By relying on these Qu’ranic precedents,
Shaykh Kishk emphasizes that all treaties with Jews - be it the treaty between
Muhammad and the Jews in Medina, or the treaty between Sadat and Begin -
have no real value and abiding legitimacy. Both the Qu’ranic record and
history leave no doubt, Kishk stresses, that “the Jews will try to attack the
Muslims and Islam anyhow, treaty or no treaty.”’63 In other sermons, Shaykh
Kishk has repeatedly reassured his listeners that “the Jews are the Jews in all
times and places.”'66
Furthermore, the indisputable Islamist authority on the key proponents of the
polity of irreconcilable historical enmity between Jews and Muslims
reinforces the importance of this approach to both Jewish-Muslim and
Arab-Israeli relations. This is significant because, traditionally, Islam had
defined both Jews and Christians as Ahl al-Kitab [People of Scripture or
People of the Book], Since the late 1980s, there has been a growing trend in
Islamist thought to reinterpret this distinction vis-a-vis the Jews in order to
justify the intensifying hostility and confrontation. Moreover, it is
noteworthy that many of the scholarly publications on this subject have been
published in English and French so as to more easily reach the assimilated
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 175
emigre Muslim communities in the West. A milestone example of this is the
book - Islam versus Ahl al-Kitab - by Maryam Jameelah, an American
Jewish woman who converted to Islam and now lives in Pakistan. The book
is extremely popular among the Islamist communities in Western Europe.
In her book, Jameelah explains why the prevailing conditions in the modern
world make it impossible for Muslims and the Ah! al-Kitab to co-exist. Hers
is a profound definition that exceeds the boundaries of the Arab-Israeli
confrontation and thus emphasizes the prevalence of the problem.
Jews and Christians share with Muslims a common religious and
cultural heritage... Tragically, however, our common legacy has never
been able to prevent the development of the most hostile feelings of
enmity and strife. Although what divides us may be narrow, the gulf
that separates us is so deep that as circumstances now stand, I fear it is
unbridgeable. Our differences appear to be irreconcilable.
The primary reason for this sudden crisis, according to Jameelah, between the
Muslims and the Ah! al-Kitab is the growing spread of Western, that is
Judeo-Christian, values into the Muslim world. This onslaught is so
pervasive that “every other Muslim country is being increasingly
contaminated by the most noxious dirt from Europe and America.”
However, Islam remains the sole defiant and steadfast force capable of
containing and reversing the spread of Western influence. Jameelah stresses
Even today when Muslims have sunk into the most abysmal depth of
degradation and decay, Islam still remains the most formidable
potential rival to the modern West, boldly challenging all its
hedonistic culture stands for.30'
In her conclusions, Jameelah is very pessimistic about a near term solution to
the problem of relations between Islamdom and the Judeo-Christian
civilization.
On what foundations can a lasting reconciliation between Muslims,
Jews, and Christians be based? We must realize that under the
existing circumstances, no friendship is possible. Jewry and
176 YossefBodansky
Christendom have joined hands to destroy us and all we cherish.
[They] have combined to annihilate us religiously, culturally and even
physically. [Boldface in the original.]
Thus, according to Jameelah, the only viable option is a bold surge of Islam
against its foes.
Peaceful relations and mutual respect among us can only be achieved
through strength. We must cease indulging in apologetics and present
the Islamic message to the world honestly and forthrightly. ...We
must establish a full-blooded Islamic state where we will witness our
percepts translated into action. Finally, we must crush the
conspiracies of Zionism, free-masonry, Orientalism, and foreign
missions both with the pen and with the sword. We cannot afford
peace and reconciliation with the Ahl al-Kitab until we can humble
them and gain the upper hand?6*
The thesis of Maryam Jameelah is significant because she defines and gives
intellectual gravity to the idea of a growing threat to Islam from Western
cultural and religious influences. This puts the role of Israel as the forefront
of the Western onslaught into Islamdom in unique perspective. Indeed, the
Islamists insist on, and contemporary Muslim governments condone, the
existence of a ceaseless historic confrontation between Judaism and Islam.
Maulana Abdul Aziz, an expert on Jewish affairs, makes the observation:
Unfortunately Islamic history offers many instances where Jews
played havoc. In almost all the pitfalls in the long course of our
historical past Jews have been active and whenever any misfortune
fell on them the Jews have been responsible directly or indirectly,
overtly or covertly. The Jews have always helped other nationalities
and religions in their fight against Muslims. They have always
collaborated with any other power, even with idol worshipers, to
inflict injury on the Muslims and their cause. ...Whenever Muslims
have suffered any defeat at the hands of their enemies, Jewish
conspiracy has been at the back of it.’’69
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 177
Thus, the modern-day emphasis on comparison between Prophet
Muhammad’s struggle with the Jews of Arabia and the present
Arab-lsraeli/Jewish-Muslim disputes constitutes a profound change in
Islam’s attitude toward Jews and Judaism. In formulating their attitude
toward Jews, the Islamists gloss over Islamdom’s medieval classical period
in which Christians and Jews coexisted with Muslims on the basis of
Dhimmitude - the Judeo-Christian surrender to Islam’s superiority and the
acceptance of its “protection”. However, in the Islamists’ world view, the
medieval dhimma is largely ignored. “At the end of the twentieth century”,
Professor Jansen observes, “the slogan of the day seems to be ‘Back, to the
Qu 'ran as far as the Jews are concerned’.”370
The quintessence of this trend, in concurrence with the intensification of
hatred as an integral part of the mobilization toward the fateful Jihad, is
ultimately aimed not so much against the Jews per-se, but for the revival and
survival of Islam against Westernization. Bat Ye’or explains:
Hatred is an integral part of Jihad, since without it the harbi would be
regarded as an equal human being. The seizure of the American
Embassy in Teheran in 1979 demonstrated the power of such hatred,
orchestrated for political purposes through contemporary techniques
of mass communication on a universal scale. Huge funds are invested
in the worldwide dissemination and exploitation of hatred against
Israel; “anti-Zionism” affects education, culture, and information. In
international forums, the world can today observe the age-old hatred
toward the rebellious dhimmis projected onto Israel.371
And not only Islam cannot lose this confrontation, but the Islamist luminaries
predict the demise of Islam if it does lose. Hence, the struggle against the
Jews - the forefront and representatives of both the encroachment of
Westernization and the rebellion against Dhimmitude - is a fateful struggle
for Islam and Islamdom.
Significantly, this relationship based on enmity and confrontation brings
Jewish-Muslim relations a full circle - back to their Qu’ranic roots.
Professor Jansen notes that “the Jews - after centuries of dhimma,
‘protection, co-existence on the basis of recognizing the superiority of Islam’,
178 Yossef Bodansky
are finally back where they belong in the Qu’ranic perspective, that is the
perspective of the earliest, golden age of Islam: the Jews who allegedly were
once Muhammad’s greatest enemies, are today the greatest enemy of the
modem Muslims as well.”372
And, the Islamist luminaries reason, just as Prophet Muhammad’s defeat and
annihilation of the Jews of Arabia was the catalyst for Islam’s unprecedented
surge and conquests, so will the annihilation of Israel be the catalyst for a
new surge of contemporary Islam. And herein lies the quintessence of the
uncompromising struggles to come.
In the practical world, such a perspective is being used by the leaders of Iran,
Sudan, Pakistan and numerous Islamist terrorist organizations to justify their
own actions and give weight to their cause. That last point is significant
because it means that, far from being a mere intellectual exercise, the new
anti-Jewish doctrine of radical Islam has a popular appeal and will therefore
set the stage for perpetual waves of international terrorism and Arab-Israeli
wars. And as history should have taught the Jews, wherever they are, in
Israel or in the Diaspora, - the anti-Semites mean what they say and would
do their utmost to implement what they preach.
* * *
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 179
ENDNOTES
1 Sharon, Moshe, Preface to Bat Ye’or [pen name of Giselle Littman], HaDhimini -
B'nei Hasut [The Dhimniis - Protected People], [Hebrew translation], Jerusalem,
Капа, 1986, p. 29.
Jameelah, Maryam, Islam versus Ahl al-Kitab, Delhi, Taj, 1989 (a reprint of a
Pakistani edition), p. 11.
For an overall discussion of the history of Jews under Islam see: Lewis, Bernard,
The Jews of Islam, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1984; Bat Ye’or,
The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam, Rutherford, NJ, Fairleigh
Dickinson University Press, 1996 (orig. 1980 & 1985).
4	Lewis, Bernard. Semites and Anti-Semites: An Inquiry into Conflict and Prejudice,
New York, NY, W.W. Norton, 1986, p. 121.
5	Bat Ye’or, The Dhimmi, Rutherford, NJ, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1996
(1985); Bat Ye’or, The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam, Rutherford,
NJ, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1996; Bat Ye’or, Juifs et Chrestiens
sous I jslam [Jews and Christians under Islam], Paris, Berg International, 1994.
6	Ayatollah Muhammad Baqer al-Sadr, Sarcheshmeh Qodarat dar Hokumat Eslami
[The Source of Power in the Islamic Government/State], Tehran, 1980, p. 37.
7	Roy, Olivier, L 'echec de TIslam Politique, Paris, Editions du Seuil, 1992, pp.
112-113, [English tr: Roy, Olivier, The Failure of Political Islam, Cambridge,
MA, Harvard University Press, 1994, p. 85].
8	Hoveyda, Fercydoun, L'lslant Bloque [The Blocked Islam], Paris, Robert Laffont,
1992, pp. 13-15.
9	Roy, op. cit., p. 153 [Eng. p. 120].
10	Jameelah, op. cit., p. 23.
11	lleikal, Muhammad, Secret Channels: The Inside Story of Arab-Israeli Peace
Negotiations, London, HarperCollins, 1996, pp. 12-13.
12	Al-Thal, Abd-Allah, The Danger of International Judaism to Islam and
Christianity. Cairo, Dar al-Qalam, 1964, p. 66; cited in I larkabi, Yehoshalat,
Emdat haAravim beSikhsukh Yisrael-Arav [The Arabs' Position in the
Arab-Israeli Conflict], Tel Aviv, Dvir, 1968, p. 249.
180 Yossef Bodansky
,л For an overall discussion of the history of Jews under Islam see: Lewis, Bernard,
The Jews of Islam, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1984; Bat Ye’or,
The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam, Rutherford, NJ, Fairleigh
Dickinson Univeristy Press, 1996 (orig. 1980 & 1985).
14	Glubb, Sir John Bagot, The Great Arab Conquests, New York, NY, Barnes and
Noble, 1995 (reprint of the 1963 British edition).
l> Bat Ye’or, The Dhimmi, Rutherford, NJ, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press,
1996 (1985); Bat Ye’or, The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam,
Rutherford, NJ, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1996; Bat Ye’or, Juifs et
Chres liens sous ГI slam [Jews and Christians under Islam], Paris, Berg
International, 1994.
16	Oak, P.N., Islamic Havoc in Indian History, Houston, TX, A. Ghosh, 1996.
17	Glubb, op. cit., pp. 55-102; Malik, Brigadier S.K., The Qu'ranic Concept of War,
New Delhi, Himalayan Book, 1986 (a reprint of the Pakistani edition of 1979), pp.
72-141; Ali, Maulana Muhammad, Muhammad the Prophet, Lahore, The
Ahmadiyya Anjuman Isha ’at Islam, 1993 (orig. 1924), pp. 80-154.
18	Malik, op. cit., p. 57.
19	Lewis, Semites and Anti-Semites, op. cit., p. 122.
20	Sawyer, John F.A., "Islam and Judaism”, in MacEoin, Denis & al-Shahi, Ahmed
(eds.), Islam in the Modern World, New York, NY, St. Martin’s Press, 1983, pp.
27-28; Jameelah, op. cit., pp. 29-40.
Pickthall, Marmaduke, The Making of the Glorious Koran, (which includes the best
English translation), New York, NY, Dorset Press, n d.; Ibn Warraq [Pseud.], Why
/ Am Not a Muslim, Amherst, NY, Prometheus Books, 1995, pp. 214-217; Sharon,
op. cit., in Bat Ye’or, op. cit., p. 31.
“ Sharon, op. cit., in Bat Ye’or, op. cit., p. 3 1.
Fattal, Antoine, Les Stat Legal des Musuhnans en Pays d'Islam, Beirut, 1958;
Laffin, John, The Dagger of Islam, London, Sphere Books, 1979, pp. 83-90.
"4 Harkabi, Yehoshafat, Emdat haAravim beSikhsukh Yisrael-Arav [The Arabs'
Position in the Arab-Israeli Conflict], Tel Aviv, Dvir, 1968, pp. 206-207. (An
edited version of this book was published in English: Harkabi, Yehoshafat, Arab
Attitudes to Israel, Tel Aviv, 1968.)
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 18]
Mitchell, Richard P., The Society of the Muslim Brothers, New York, NY, Oxford
University Press, 1993 (1960), pp. 227-231.
Harkabi, Emdat HaAravim, op. cit., p. 245.
’7 Ali, op. cit., pp. 110-111.
8 Jameelah, op. cit., p. 7.
29 Jameelah, op. cit,, p. 5.
’° Bat Ye’or. The Dhimmi, op. cit.
1	Hourani, Albert, A History of the Arab Peoples, Cambridge, MA, The Belknap
Press of the Harvard University Press, 1991, pp. 22-25 & 487.
’2 Pryce-Jones, David, The Closed Circle, New York, NY, Harper & Row, 1989, p.
184.
11	Lewis, Bernard, The Jews of Islam, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press,
1984; Bat Ye’or, The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam, Rutherford, NJ,
Fairleigh Dickinson Univeristy Press, 1996 (orig. 1980 & 1985).
’4 Pryce-Jones, op. cit., p. 185.
35 Ibn Battutah, Rihlah Ibn Battutah, (orig.), cited in Nettler, Ronald L„ Past Trials
and Present Tribulation, Oxford, Pergamon Press, 1987, p. 9.
36 Ibn Khaldun, Al-Muqaddima, cited in Lewis, Semites and Anti-Semites, op. cit., p.
130.
’7 Hoveyda, op. cit., pp. 68-96.
’8 Bat Ye’or, The Dhimmi, op. cit.
'9 Laflin, op. cit., pp. 83-90
40	Bat Ye’or, The Dhimmi, op. cit.
41	Tibi, Bassam, Arab Nationalism: A Critical Enquiry, New York, NY, St. Martin’s
Press, 1981 (translation of a 1971 text), p. 178.
42	Akarli, Engin, The Long Peace: Ottoman Lebanon. 1861 to 1920, Berkeley, CA,
University of California Press, 1993; Zamir, Meir, The Formation of Modern
Lebanon, Ithaca, NY, Corneil University Press, 1985.
182 Yossef Bodansky
43	Tibi, op. cit., pp. 64-66.
44	Lewis, Semites and Anti-Semites, op. cit, pp. 136-137.
4? Keddie, Nikki R., An Islamic Response to Imperialism, Berkeley, СЛ, University of
California Press, 1983 (1968), p. 43.
46 Cited in Keddie, op. cit., p. 114.
17 Tibi, op. cit., pp. 69-79.
4,4 Lewis, Semites and Anti-Semites, op. cit., p. 172.
44 Wistrich, Robert S., Anti-Semitism: The Longest Hatred', cited in Ibn Warraq, op.
cit., p. 237.
50	Pryce-Jones, op. cit., p. 184.
51	Rivlin, Yossef Yoel, “The Damascus Libel”, in Hacohen, Menahem (ed.),
Mishpatim veAHlot Dam [Trials and Blood Libels], Tel Aviv, Misrad Habitahon -
I lotsaa Laor, 1967, pp. 42-55.
52	Rivlin, op. cit., pp. 54-55.
s' Lewis, The Jews of Islam, op. cit., p. 158.
J 1 kiddad, Yehezkel, Yehudei Artsot Arav ve-lslam [The Jews of the Arab and Islamic
Countries], Tel Aviv, 1983, pp. 29-38.
° Bal Ye’or, The Dhimmi, op. cit., p. 98.
Sb Cited in Bat Ye'or, The Dhimmi, op. cit., p.99.
7 1 kiddad, op. cit., pp. 29-38.
Bat Ye'or, The Dhimmi, op. cit., pp. 93-95.
} Lewis, Semites and Anti-Semites, op. cit,, pp. 166-169.
00 Kohn, Ilans, Nationalism and Imperialism in the Hither East, New York, NY,
George Routlege, 1932, p. 263, [Reprinted in 1969 by 1 loward Kertig[.
>l Kepel, Gilles. Muslim Extremism in Egypt, Berkley, CA, University of California
Press, 1985, p. 22.
Ilaikal, Ikisnein, Al-Siyasah, .lune 19, 1933; cited in Ismael, Tareq, Y. and Ismael,
J.S., Government and Politics in Islam, New York, NY, St. Martin’s, 1985, p. 38.
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 183
6’ Arnon-Ohanna, YuvaL Herev Mibayit [The Internal Struggle Within the
Palestinian Movement 1929-1939], Tel Aviv, Hadar, 1981, pp. 72-75
64	Ibid.
65	Alpeleg, Zvi, HaMufti haGadol [Grand Mufti], Tel Aviv, Misrad Habitakhon -
Hotsaa Laor, 1989, pp. 31-45.
66	Al-Awaisi, Abd al-Fattah Muhammad, The Muslim Brothers and the Palestine
Question 1928-1947, London, Tauris Academic Studies, 1998, pp. 70-71; Lia,
Brynja, The Society of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt, Reading, Ithaca Press, 1998,
p. 244; Talhami, Ghada Hashem, Palestine and Egyptian National Identity, New
York, NY, Praeger, 1992, pp. 40-41.
67	Lebel, Jennie, Hajj Amin veBerlin [Hajj Amin and Berlin], Tel Aviv, 1996;
Alpeleg, Zvi, HaMufti haGadol [Grand Mufti], Tel Aviv, Misrad Habitakhon -
Hotsaa Laor, 1989; Alpeleg, Zvi (ed.), MiNekudat Reuto shel haMufti [In the Eyes
of the Mufti],'Tel Aviv, Hakibutz haMeuhad, 1995.
68	Pryce-Jones, op. cit., p. 206.
69	Lebel, Jennie, Hajj Amin veBerlin [Hajj Amin and Berlin], Tel Aviv, 1996, pp.
140-142; Lepre, George, Himmler’s Bosnian Division, Atglen, PA, Schiffer
Military History, 1997, pp. 31-35.
70	Pryce-Jones, op. cit., p. 206.
71	Alpeleg, Zvi (ed.), MiNekudat Reuto shel haMufti [In the Eyes of the Mufti], T el
Aviv, Hakibutz haMeuhad, 1995.
72	Pryce-Jones, op. cit., p. 191.
73	Bennigsen, Alexandre, Survey, March 1979.
74	Kedourie, Elie, Politics in the Middle East, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1992,
p. 346.
75	Sonn, Tamara, Between Qur'an and Crown: The Challenge of Political Legitmacy
in the Arab World, Boulder, CO, Westview, 1990, p. 159.
76	Haseeb Khair al-Din, et.al., The Future of the Arab Nation: Challenges and
Options, Beirut, The Centre for Arab Unity Studies, London, Routledge, 1991, p.
483.
184 Yossef Bodansky
77	Tibi, op. cit., p. 25.
78	Bat Ye’or, The Dhimmi, op. cit., p. 113.
79	Taheri, Amir, The Cauldron: The Middle East Behind the Headlines, London,
Hutchinson, pp. 1988, pp. 105-106.
80	Mustafa, Maj. Gen. Hassan, Israel and the Nuclear Bomb, Beirut, Dar al-Ialiah,
1961, p. 122; cited in Harkabi, Yehoshafat, Emdat haAravim beSikhsukh
Yisrael-Arav [The Arabs' Position in the Arab-Israeli Conflict], Tel Aviv, Dvir,
1968, p. 384.
81	Podeh, Elie, HaHatira leHegemoniyah baOlam haAravi [The Quest for Hegemony
in the Arab World], Tel Aviv, Misrad HaBitahon - Hotsaa Laor, 1996.
82	Peters, Joan, From Time Immemorial, New York, NY, Harper & Row, 1984, p. 78.
83	Pryce-Jones, op. cit., p. 213.
84	PeronceLHugoz, Jean-Pierre, The Raft of Muhammad, New York, NY, Paragon,
1988, p. 48.
85	Harkabi, Emdat HaAravim, op. cit., pp. 162-169.
86	Al-Quwwat al-Musallaha. November 16, 1964; cited in Lewis, Semites and
Anti-Semites, op. cit, p. 190.
87	Harkabi, Emdat HaAravim, op. cit., pp. 173-177.
88	Al-Thal, op. cit., p. 171; cited in Harkabi, Emdat HaAravim, op. cit., p. 190.
89	Harkabi, Emdat HaAravim, op. cit., pp. 210-212.
ю Bcn-lto, Hadasah, HaSheker haMesarev laMoot [The Lie That Wouldn 't Die], Tel
Aviv, Dvir, 1998, p. 334.
91	Al-Thal, op. cit., pp. 170-171; cited in Harkabi, Emdat HaAravim, op. cit., p. 224.
92	1 larkabi, Emdat HaAravim, op. cit., pp. 232-233.
Introduction by the [Egyptian] Committee on Political Books to Taro, Jirom
Wagan, When the People of Israel Rules, Cairo, Policy Papers No. 30, September
28, 1957; cited in 1 larkabi, Emdat HaAravim, op. cit., pp. 234-235.
>4 Al-Khuli, Hassan Sabri, The Palestine Problem, Published by the Indoctrination
Directorate of the Egyptian Army, 1966 (?); cited in Harkabi, Emdat HaAravim,
op. cit., p. 235.
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument |^5
95	Al-Ahram, June 12, 1964; cited in Yitshaki, Shimshon, BeEney HaAravim [In
Arabs' Eyes], Tel Aviv, Ma’arakhot, 1970, p. 14.
96	Harkabi, Emdat HaAravim, op. cit., pp. 261-263.
97	Talhami, op. cit., p. 78.
98	Ibid, pp. 79-80.
99	Brinner, William M., “An Egyptian Anti-Orientalist Writer”, in Lazarus-Yafeh,
Havah (ed.), Sofrim Muslemim al Yehudin veYahadut [Muslim Writers on Jews
and Judaism], Jerusalem, Merkaz Shazar, 1996, pp. 247-265.
100	Harkabi, Emdat HaAravim, op. cit., pp. 272-276.
101	Talhami, op. cit., pp. 63-64.
102	Heikal, op. cit., p. 87.
103	Nettler, Ronald L., Past Trials and Present Tribulation, Oxford, Pergamon Press,
1987, pp. 19-20.
104	Taheri, Amir, Holy Terror, London, Huchinson, 1987, p. 174.
105	Sivan, Immanuel, Radical Islam: Medieval Theology and Modern Politics, New
Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 1985, pp. 21-22.
106	Nettler, op. cit., p. 26.
107	Sivan, op. cit, pp. 21-22.
108	Taheri, Holy Terror, op. cit., pp. 48-49.
109	Cited in Sivan, op. cit., p. 24.
110	Cited in Haddad, Yvonne Yazbeck, Sayyid Qutb: “Ideologue of Islamic Revival”,
in Esposito, John (cd)., Voices of the Islamic Revolution, Oxford, MA, Oxford
University Press, 1983, p. 82.
111	Taheri, Amir, Holy Terror, London, Huchinson, 1987, p. 174.
112	Kepel, Gilles, Muslim Extremism in Egypt, Berkeley, CA, University of California
Press, 1986; Jansen, Johannes J.G., The Neglected Duty, New York, NY,
Macmillan, 1986; Peroncel-Hugoz, Jean-Pierre, The Raft of Muhammad, New
York, NY, Paragon, 1988.
186 Yossef Bodansky
11'	Sivan, Immanuel, “Islamic Radicalism: Sunni and Shi'ite'’, in Sivan, Immanuel &
Friedman, Menachem (eds.), Religious Radicalism and Politics in the Middle
East, Albany, NY, State University of New York Press, 1990, p. 40.
114	Taheri, Holy Terror, op. cit., pp. 175-176 & 285-286.
115	Qutb, Sayyid Muhammad, Ma'arakatuna Ma'a al-Yahud [Our Struggle with the
Jews]', an English translation in Nettler, op. cit., pp. 71-87.
116	Nettler, op. cit., pp. 25-31.
117	Nettler, op. cit., p. 30.
1	,8 Qutb, Sayyid Muhammad, Ma'arakatuna Ma'a al-Yahud [Our Struggle with the
Jews]', cited in Nettler, op. cit., p. 59.
1	,9 Qutb, op.	cit.,	in	Nettler,	op.	cit.,	pp. 60-61.
120	Qutb, op.	cit.,	in	Nettler,	op.	cit.,	p. 34.
121	Qutb, op.	cit.,	in	Nettler,	op.	cit.,	pp. 38-39.
122	Qutb, op.	cit.,	in	Nettler,	op.	cit.,	p. 34.
123	Qutb, op.	cit.,	in	Nettler,	op.	cit.,	p. 46.
124	Qutb, op.	cit.,	in	Nettler,	op.	cit.,	pp. 47-48.
125	Qutb, op.	cit.,	in	Nettler,	op.	cit.,	p. 49.
126	Qutb, op.	cit.,	in	Nettler,	op.	cit.,	p. 66.
127	Qutb, op.	cit.,	in	Nettler,	op.	cit.,	p. 68.
1-8	Nettler, op. cit., p. 69.
1-9	Al-Munagcd, Dr. Salah al-Din, “The Pillars of Naqbah'. A Scientific Discussion in
the Roots of the June 5 Defeat”, Beirut, 1968; Tr. in Harkabi, Arab Lessons, op.
cit., pp. 115-183.
10	Hourani, Cecil, An Unfinished Odyssey, London, Weinfeld & Nicolson, 1984, p.
190.
Al-Bittar, Dr. Nadim, The Revolutionary Efficiency in the Holocaust, Beirut, Dar
al-lthikhad, 1965, p. 12; cited in Harkabi, Yehoshafat (ed.), Arab Lessons from
their Defeat, Tel Aviv, Am Oved, 1969, p. 26.
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 187
1,2	[Proceedings of] The Fourth Conference of the Academy of Islamic Research,
Cairo, General Organization for Government Printing Offices, 1970; Analyzed in
Green D.F. (Ed.), Arab Theologians on Jews and Israel, Geneva, Les Editions de
Г Avenir, 1971.
135	Green (ed.). Proceedings, op. cit., pp. 9-10.
134	Green (ed.), Proceedings, op. cit., p. 13.
135	Green (ed). Proceedings, op. cit., pp. 14-16.
136	Green (ed), Proceedings, op. cit., pp. 16-17.
137	Green (ed), Proceedings, op. cit., p. 17.
138	Green (ed), Proceedings, op. cit., p. 18.
139	Green (ed), Proceedings, op. cit., p. 19.
140	Green (ed), Proceedings, op. cit., pp. 35-39.
141	Green (ed). Proceedings, op. cit., pp. 35-39.
142	Green (ed). Proceedings, op. cit., p. 53.
143	Green (ed), Proceedings, op. cit., pp. 60-61.
144	Izetbegovic, Alija Ali, Islamska Deklaracija [The Islamic Declaration], Sarajevo
1970, 1990 [reprint]; Cited in Sherman, Arnold. Perfidity in the Balkans: The
Rape of Yugoslavia, Athens, Psichogios Publications, 1993, p. 210.
145	Israeli, Raphael, Peace in the Eye of the Beholder, Berlin, Mouton Publishers,
1985.
146	Al-Jaysh. October 17, 1976; A-Dastur, 5 September 1976; Jaysh al-Shab, October
19, 1976; cited in Israeli, Peace in the Eye of the Beholder, op. cit., p. 49.
147	Al-Baath, November 8 and 11-19, 1976; Al-klhaa wal-Teleftsion, August 6, 1977;
Al-Akhbar, August 15, 1977; cited in Israeli, Peace in the Eye of the Beholder, op.
cit., pp. 19-20.
148	Mansour, Anis. Akhar Sa 'a, 3 December 1975; cited in Israeli, Peace in the Eye of
the Beholder, op. cit., p. 3.
149	Al-Gumhuriyya, April 2, 1977; Tishrin, August 15, 1977; cited in Israeli, Peace in
the Eye of the Beholder, op. cit., p. 52.
j 88 Yossef Bodansky
l>0	October. June 5, 1977; cited in Israeli, Peace in the Eye of the Beholder, op. cit..
p. 19.
4 A-Ra'i. October 25, 1976; cited in Israeli, Peace in the Eye of the Beholder, op. cit..
pp. 22-23.
,э2 Al-Usbu al-Arabi. 12 December 1977; cited in Israeli, Peace in the Eye of the
Beholder, op. cit.. p. 24.
Al-Akhbar. 24 March 1977; cited in Israeli, Peace in the Eye of the Beholder, op.
cit..pp. 20-21.
,?4 Al-Akhbar. 24 March 1977; Al-Madinah. August 17, 1977; cited in Israeli, Peace
in the Eye of the Beholder, op. cit.. pp. 20-21.
I5? Radio Amman, March 19, 1976; cited in Israeli, Peace in the Eye of the Beholder,
op. cit.. p. 54.
156	Merari, Ariel & Elad, Shlomi, Fakha Khul [The International Dimension of
Palestinian Terrorism]. Tel Aviv, HaKibutz HaMeukhad, 1986, pp. 63-66.
157	Arnon-Ohana, Yuval & Yodfat Arie, Ashaf: Dyokano she! hgun [The PLO: A
Portrait of an Organization]. Tel Aviv, Ma'ariv. 1985, p. 127.
158	Dobson, Christopher & Payne, Ronald, War Without End. London, Harrap, 1986,
pp. 173-174; Demaris, Ovid, Brothers in Blood. New York, Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1977, pp. 32-33.
159	Issae, Rael Jean, “The Israel-Egypt Experience”, Proceedings of the American
Leadership Conference on Israel and the Middle East, Arlington, VA, 10 October
1993, pp. 44-49.
100	Mansour, Anis, October. November 27, 1977; cited in Israeli, Peace in the Eve of
the Beholder, op. cit.. p. 29.
161 Al- Gumhuria. September 25, 1978; cited in Israeli, Peace in the Eve of the
Beholder, op. cit.. p. 37.
,6_ Israeli, Peace in the Eye of the Beholder, op. cit.. p. 29.
10' Eidelberg, Paul, Sadat л Strategy. Dollard des Ormeaux, Que, 1979, p. 45.
164 Rouz al-Yusouf. June 12, 1978; Jaridat Misr. June 13, 1978; cited in Israeli, Peace
in the Eye of the Beholder, op. cit.. p. 59.
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 189
16:5 Ajami, Fouad, The Arab Predicament, Cambridge, MA, Cambridge University
Press, 1981, p. 181.
166	Taheri, Holy Terror, op. cit., p. 206.
167	Yadlin, Rivka, Genius Yahir veOsheq /An Arrogant, Oppressive Spirit -
Anti-Zionism and Anti-Judaism in Egypty, Jerusalem, The Zalman Shazar Center,
1988, pp. 28-33.
168	Yadlin, Rivka. Genius Yahir veOsheq fAn Arrogant, Oppressive Spirit -
Anti-Zionism and Anti-Judaism in Egypty, Jerusalem, The Zalman Shazar Center,
1988; Slav, Arieh, HaShalom - Karikatura Aravit [The Peace - Arab Caricature],
Tel Aviv, Zmora-Bitan, 1996; Israeli, Raphael, Fundamentalist Islam and Israel,
Lanham, MD, University Press of America, 1993, pp. 73-94.
169	Mahmud, Shaykh Abd-al-Halim, Jihad and Victory, Cairo, 1979, p. 150; cited in
Nettler, op. cit., pp. 21-22.
170	Khalidi, Dr. Salah, The Jewish Mentality Based on the Qu ran, Damascus, 1987,
cited in Sharon, Moshe, Judaism in the Context of Diverse Civilizations,
Johannesburg, 1993, p. 129.
171	Taheri, Amir, The Spirit of Allah, Bethesda, MD, Adler & Adler, 1985, pp.
131-132.
172	Taheri, Spirit of Allah, op. cit., p. 159
173	The Imam Versus Zionism, Tehran, Ministry of Islamic Guidance, 1984.
174	Peroncel-Uugoz, op. cit., p. 48.
175	Israeli, Peace in the Eye of the Beholder, op. cit., p. 365.
176	Peroncel-Uugoz, op. cit., p. 54.
177	Israeli, Peace in the Eye of the Beholder, op. cit., pp. 365-366.
178	Yadlin, op. cit., p. 104, Israeli, Peace in the Eye of the Beholder, op. cit., pp.
365-366.
179	Yadlin, op. cit., pp. 105-106.
180	Yadlin, op. cit., pp. 110-112.
181	Israeli, Peace in the Eye of the Beholder, op. cit., pp. 366-367; Yadlin, op. cit., pp.
82-86.
190 Yossef Bodansky
182	Abd al-Attim, Dr. Lufti, Al-Ahram al-lqtisadi, September 27, 1982, cited in Israeli,
Peace in the Eye of the Beholder, op. cit., pp. 366-367.
183	Yadlin, op. cit., p. 40.
184	Yadlin, op. cit., pp. 40-45.
185	Yadlin, op. cit., pp. 45-49.
186	Yadlin, op. cit., pp. 49-52.
187	Yadlin, op. cit., pp. 52-54.
188	Inquiry, September 1985.
189	Cited in Pryce-Jones, op. cit., p. 214.
190	Adib'lmad-al-Din,/4/-Муа//аЛ, 19-25 June 1985.
191	Liwa al-lslam, February 1989.
192	Sonn, Tamara, Between Qur 'an and Crown, Boulder, CO, Westview Press, 1990,
p. 159.
193	Gabay, Shefi, Ma’ariv, 21 September 1990.
194	Gabay, Shefi, Ma’ariv, 22 June 1990.
195	Faour, Muhammad, The Arab World After Desert Storm, Washington, D.C.,
United States Institute of Peace Press, 1993, p. 118.
'96 Ma’ariv, May 10, 1991.
197	Kawash, Nadim, AFP, July 8, 1992
198	Aburish, Said K., A Brutal Friendship: The West and the Arab Elite, London,
Victor Gollancz, 1997, p. 13.
199	Pipes, Daniel, Hidden Hand: Middle East Fears of Conspiracy, London,
Macmillan, 1996, pp. 150-157.
200	I larkabi, Emdat HaAravim, op. cit., pp. 250-254.
201	A-Sha'ab, October 3, 1995; Al-Ah'd, October 13, 1995; A-Sha'ab, November 3,
1995; cited in Porat, Dina (Chief Editor), Anti-Semitism Worldwide 1995/6, Tel
Aviv, The Project for the Study of Anti-Semitism, Tel Aviv University, 1996, p.
180.
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 19]
"°" A-Sha'ab, August 23, 1996, Al-Liwa, 19 July 1996, A-Sha'ab, August 6, 1996;
cited in Porat, Dina (Chief Editor), Anti-Semitism Worldwide 1996/97, Tel Aviv,
The Project for the Study of Anti-Semitism, Tel Aviv University, 1997, pp.
183-184.
203	Al-Wafd, December 30, 1996, Rouz al-Yusouf, January 13, 1997, Scibakh el Khir,
30 January 1997, Al-Arabi, 21 April 1997, Egyptian Gazette, May 9, 1997;
A-Sha'ab, March 14, May 2, July 29, 1997; Al-Wafd, August 10, October 19,
1997; cited in Porat, Dina & Stauber, Roni (Editors), Anti-Semitism Worldwide
1997/98, Tel Aviv, The Project for the Study of Anti-Semitism, Tel Aviv
University, 1998, p. 186.
204	Ben-Ito, op. cit,, pp. 335-336; Lewis, Semites and Anti-Semites, op. cit, pp.
192-235.
205	October, September 9, 1993
206	Al-Hawari, Ismat, Al-Wafd, April 22, 1994, cited in Porat, Dina (Chief Editor),
Anti-Semitism Worldwide 1994, Tel Aviv, The Project for the Study of
Anti-Semitism, Tel Aviv University, 1995, pp. 155-156.
207	Egyptian Gazette, January 1997; cited in Ben-Ito, op. cit., p. 336.
208	Hijjazi, Arafat, A-Dastur, April 16, 1997; cited in Porat & Stauber, op. cit.,
(1997/8 ed.), p. 192.
209	Porat, op. cit., (1994 ed.), p. 162.
210	Porat, op. cit., (1994 ed.), pp. 157-158.
2,1	Al-Ahali, June 19, 1996, Al-Ahram, October 12, 1996; cited in Porat, Dina (Chief
Editor), Anti-Semitism Worldwide 1996/97, Tel Aviv, The Project for the Study of
Anti-Semitism, Tel Aviv University, 1997, p. 185.
2,2	Al-Hawadith, April 19, 1996; cited in Porat, op. cit., (1996/97 ed.), p. 185.
213	Porat, op. cit., (1994 ed.), pp. 162-163.
2,4	See: 'Abd al-Jalil Halabi, The Jews and Judaism, Cairo: Akhbar al-Yawm, 1997;
Munir ai-Humsh, The Condemned Peace, Cairo: Madbuli, 1997; Haytham
al-Kilani, Terrorism Founded a State: The Model of Israel, Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq,
1997; Yusuf Mahmud Yusuf, Israel: The beginning and the End, Cairo: Cairo
Workshop for the Arts, 1997; Al-Khalidi, Salah Abd al-Fattah, "Lessons on the
192 Yossef Bodansky
Jews”, Filastin al-Muslima, Jan.-July, 1997; Ibrahim al-'Ali, This Is How the
Prophet Spoke of the Jews, Filastin al-Muslima^Jan - Aug., 1997; Kamal al-Salibi,
“The Stories of the Torah and the Secrets of the People of Israel. A Reading in
the Five First Books of the Torah”, Annashra, Jan.-June, 1997; ‘Abd al-Munim
Abu Zanat, “Meditations on the Qur'an. The Chain of Divine Guarantees for the
Extinction of the So-Called Israel”, Al-Majd, Jan. 6, 20; Al-Sabil, Sept. 23,; Oct.
7; 21 Oct.; Muhammad Sa'id al-'Ashmawi, Israiliyyat, October, Oct. 12, 19, 26;
Nov. 2, 1997, cited in Porat, Dina & Stauber, Roni (Editors), Anti-Semitism
Worldwide 1997/8, Tel Aviv, The Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of
Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism, The Tel Aviv University, 1998, p. 183.
215	Akhir Saa, December 25, 1996, A-Sha'ab, July 29, 1997, A-Sha'ab, August 12,
1997, Abd-al-Nabi, Mustafa Muhammad, The Golden Age of the Jews in Egypt,
Cairo, 1997, Ali, Arfa Abduh, The Jews of Egypt. The Barons and the Wretched,
Cairo, 1997; cited in Porat & Stauber, op. cit., (1997/8 ed.), pp. 184-185.
216	Zoreff, Nir, Nativ, November 1997, 6(59), pp 46-56.
2,7	Ha 'aretz, June 29, 1997.
218	Al-Akhbar, July 1, 1997; Ha'aretz, July 2, 1997; Al-Sharq al-Awsat, July 16, 1997;
A-Sha'ab, July I, 1997; A-Sha'ab, July 4, 1997; A-Sha'ab, July 8,1997; A-Sha'ab,
July 22, 1997; Al-Sabil, July 8, 1997; Al-Wafd, July 5, 1997; Akhbar al-Yawm,
July 7, 1997; Al-Majd, July 7, 1997; Al-Usbu. July 7, 1997; A Ra'i, 7 July 1997;
cited in Porat & Stauber, op. cit., (1997/8 ed.), pp. 190-191.
219	Mideast Mirror, July 31, 1997.
220	IRNA, July 7, 1997; International Herald Tribune, July 7, 1997; 1RNA, July 10,
1997; Kayhan, July 10, 1997.
221	Al-Mustaqil, July 16, 1997; Al-Khalij, July 20, 1997; cited in Porat & Stauber, op.
cit., (1997/8 ed.), pp. 190-191.
222	Muru, Muhammad, A-Sha'ab, July 4, 1997.
225	Al-Ukkaz, August 9, 1997.
224	A-Ra'i, July 7, 1997.
22>	Al-Rimawi, Fahd, Al-Majd, July 7, 1997
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 193
226	Al-Thcrwra. August 15, 1997.
227	Al-Khalidi, Salah, Al-Sabil, 8 July 1997
228	Salama, Salama Ahmed, Al-Ahram, 13 May 1998
229	Al-Sayeed, Ambassador Muhammad Said, Al-Ahram, May 27, 1998.
2л0 Al-Ahram, June 1, 1998.
231	Al-Sid, Al-Sid Ali, Al-Arab al-Yawm, June 9, 1998.
232	Al-Madinah, June 28, 1998.
2,3	Lari, Rida Muhammad, Al-Madinah, September 27, 1998.
234	Abu-Dhikri, Wajih. Al-Akhbar, September 16, 1998.
235	Heikal, Muhammad, Illusions of Triumph, London, HarperCollins, 1992, p. 330.
236	Aburish, op. cit., p. 254.
237	Heikal, Illusions of Triumph, op. cit., p. 9.
238	Hoveyda, Fereydoun, The Broken Crescent, Westport, CT, Praeger, 1998, p. 199.
239	Mahmud, Shaykh Abd-al-Halim, Jihad and Victory, Cairo, 1979, p. 150; cited in
Nettler, op. cit., pp. 21-22.
240	Kepel, Gilles, Muslim Extremism in Egypt. Berkeley, CA, University of California
Press, 1986, p. 103.
241	Kepel, op. cit., p. 111.
242	Peroncel-Hugoz, op. cit., p. 49.
243	Cited in Peroncel-Hugoz, op. cit., p. 49.
244	Cited in Kepel, op. cit., pp. 111-112.
245	Hanafi, Hasan, Islamic Fundamentalism, Cairo, Maktabah Madbuli, 1989, p. 110.
246	Heikal, Muhammad. Autumn of Fury, New York, NY, Random, 1983, pp.
248-249; Hamudah, Adil. Bombs and Qu'rans: The Story of the Jihad
Organization, Cairo, Sinai al-Nashr, 1986; Hanafi, op. cit., p. 123.
47	Abd al-Salam Faraj, The Absent Percept, Cairo, 1981 as cited in Al-Ahrar,
December 14, 1981 & Al-Ahram. December 14, 1981; Q. in Sivan, op. cit., p. 20.
194 Yossef Bodansky
348 Heikal, op. cit., p. 222.
249	Jansen, J.J.G., “Echoes of the Iranian Revolution in the Writings of Egyptian
Muslims”, in Menashri D. (ed.), The Iranian Revolution and the Muslim World,
Boulder Co, Westview Press, 1990, pp. 208-209; Sivan, op. cit., in Sivan &
Friedman, op. cit., p. 40.
250	Al-Wadi, July 1982.
251	Q. in Jansen, op. cit., in Menashri, op. cit., p. 212.
252	Yadlin, op. cit., pp. 57-61.
253	Hanafi, Hasan, Al-Yisar al-lslami [The Islamic Left], Cairo, 1981; Yadlin, op. cit.,
pp. 61-80.
254	Hanafi, Hasan, Al-Yisar al-lslami [The Islamic Left], Cairo, 1981; Yadlin, op. cit.,
pp. 61-80.
255	Hanafi, Hasan, Al-Yisar al-lslami [The Islamic Left], Cairo, 1981; Yadlin, op. cit.,
pp. 61-80.
256	Hanafi, Hasan, Al-Yisar al-lslami [The Islamic Left], Cairo, 1981; Yadlin, op. cit.,
pp. 61-80.
257	A-Sha'ab, February 10, 1981.
258	Kramer, Martin. Commentary, October 1994; Webman, Esther, Anti-Semitic Motifs
in the Ideology of HizbAUah and HAMAS, Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv University, 1994.
259	Middle East Insight, March-April 1988.
260	Rckhess, op. cit., in Menashri, op. cit., pp. 193-195.
261	Abu-Amru, Ziyad. The Islamic Movement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, 'Acco,
Dar al-Aswar, 1989.
262	Ha'aretz, August 5, 1987
263	Hawatimah, Nay if, Filastin al-Muslimah, March 1990.
264	HAMAS Leaflet No. 1, January 1988; Mishal Sh., Ha'aretz, June 23, 1989.
265	Al-Siyasa, July 26,1988.
_	66 HAMAS Leaflet No. 16, May 3, 1988; Mish’al Sh., Ha'aretz, June 23, 1989.
267	Mithaq Harakat al-Muqawama al-lslamiyya - Filastin [The Covenant of the
Islamic Resistance Movement - Palestine], August 18, 1988. [Hence HAMAS
Covenant].
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 195
268	Nir, O., Ha'aretz, September 16, 1988; Kohen, 0., Hadashot, October 10, 1988.
269	Israeli, Fundamentalist Islam and Israel, op. cit., pp. 123-168; Abu-Amr, Ziad,
Islamic Fundamentalism in the West Bank and Gaza: Muslim Brotherhood and
Islamic Jihad, Bloomington, IN, Indiana University Press, 1994, pp. 63-89;
Milton-Edwards, Beverley, Islamic Politics in Palestine, London, Tauris
Academic Studies, 1966, pp. 185-193.
270	HAMAS Covenant Article 2.
271	HAMAS Covenant Article 12.
272	HAMAS Covenant Article 27.
273	Al-lslam wa Filastin, August 1, 1988
274	Milton-Edwards, Beverley, Islamic Politics in Palestine, London, Tauris Academic
Studies, 1966, p. 185.
275	HAMAS Covenant Introduction.
276	HAMAS Covenant Article 32.
277	Milton-Edwards, op. cit., p. 188.
278	Mishal, Shaul with Aharoni, Reuben, Avanim Ze Lo Ha Koi [Stones Are Not
Everything: The Intifada and the Weapon of Leaflets], Tel Aviv, HaKibutz
HaMeuhad, 1989.
279	Webman, Esther, Anti-Semitic Motifs in the Ideology of HizbAUah and HAMAS,
Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv University, 1994, pp. 18-19.
280	Al-Quds Palestinian Arab Radio, November 23, 1988.
281	Kramer, Martin, “The Oracle of Hizbullah”, in Appleby, R. Scott (Ed.), Spokesmen
for the Despised, Chicago, IL, The University of Chicago Press, 1997, p. 116.
282	Al-Nahar, June 24, 1989.
283	Al-Muntalaq, No. 77, April 1991.
284	Middle East Insight, March-April 1988
285	Shu un al-Awsat, December 14, 1992.
286	Porat, op. cit., (1994 ed.), pp. 162-163.
196 Yossef Bodansky
287	Al-Liwa, April 27, 1994; cited in Porat, op. cit., (1994 ed.), pp. 162-163.
288	Porat, op. cit. (1994 ed.), p. 154.
289	Porat, op. cit., (1994 ed.), pp. 155-156.
290	Voice of the Oppressed, December 19, 1994.
291	Porat, op. cit., (1994 ed.), pp. 155-156.
292	Filastine al-Muslima, December 1994; cited in Porat, Dina (Chief Editor),
Anti-Semitism Worldwide 1995/6, Tel Aviv, The Project for the Study of
Anti-Semitism, Tel Aviv University, 1996, pp. 182-187.
293	Al-Usbu al-Arabi, April 27, 1995; cited in Porat, op. cit., (1995/6 ed.), pp.
182-187.
294	Falastine al-Muslima, March 1995; cited in Porat, op. cit., (1995/6 ed.), pp.
182-187.
295	Al-Aswaq, 8 March 1995, Al-Aswaq, March 9, 1995; cited in Porat, op. cit.,
(1995/6 ed.), pp. 182-187.
гчь	Al-Liwa, April 12, 1995, Al-Liwa. April 19, 1995, Al-Liwa. June 16, 1995; cited in
Porat, op. cit., (1995/6 ed.), pp. 179-181.
297	Aqidati, June 13, 1995; cited in Porat, op. cit., (1995/6 cd.), pp. 179-181.
298	Al-Liwa, July 19, 1995; cited in Porat, op. cit., (1995/6 ed.), p. 178.
299	Al-Liwa, September 28, 1995; cited in Porat, op. cit., (1995/6 ed.), pp. 179-181.
100 Dr. Hasan Makki Muhammad, Al-Liwa, May 17, 24, 31, and June 7, 1995; Dr.
Salah al-Khalidi, Falastine al-Muslima, March through October 1995; cited in
Porat, op. cit., (1995/6 cd.), pp. 179-181.
'ol Isam Abd al-Aziz, Falastine al-Muslima, May through August 1995; cited in
Porat, op. cit., (1995/6 ed.), pp. 182-187.
’°2 Falastine al-Muslima, October 1995; cited in Porat, op. cit., (1995/6 ed.), pp.
182-187.
’°’ A-Sha'ab, September 8, 1995, A-Sha'ab, September 29, 1995, A-Sha'ab, October 6,
1995; cited in Porat, op. cit., (1995/6 ed.), pp. 182-187.
504 Porat, op. cit., (1995/6 ed.), pp. 179-187.
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument 197
105	Filastin al-Muslima, June through September I996; cited in Porat, op. cit., (1996/7
ed.), pp. 186-188.
306	Al-Ali, Ibrahim, Filastin al-Muslima, January through October, 1996; cited in
Porat, op. cit., (\99f>n ed.), pp. 186-188.
307	Al-Khalidi, Salah, Al-Liwa, March 2, through September 25, 1996; cited in Porat,
op. cit., (1996/7 ed.), pp. 186-188.
308	Abd al-Hamid, Muhsin, Filastin al-Muslima, March through May 1996; cited in
Porat, op. cit., (1996/7 ed.), pp. I86-I88.
309	Abu Zanat, Abd al-Munim, Al-Sabil, 17 & 24 September; I & 8 October I996;
cited in Porat, op. cit., (1996/7 ed.), pp. 186-188.
310	Al-Sad, Jawdat, Al-Liwa, June 19, 1996; cited in Porat, op. cit., (1996/7 ed.), pp.
191-192.
311	Ahmad, Majdi Husayn, A-Sha'ab, May 7, 1996, Mashhur, Mustafa, A-Sha'ab, June
11, 1996, A-Sha'ab, July 30, 1996, Al-Wafd, October 11, 1996; cited in Porat, op.
cit., (1996/7 ed.), pp. 186-188.
312	Voice of Palestine, March 15, 1997.
313	Al-Hayah al-Jadidah, 6 August 1997
314	Ha’etzni, Nadav. Ma’ariv, September 12, 1997.
315	Al-Hayah al-Jadidah, September I, 1997.
316	Al-Hayah al-Jadidah, July 7, 1997.
317	Al-Hayah al-Jadidah, July 27, 1997.
318	Al-Hayah al-Jadidah, October 14, 1997.
319	Al-Hayah al-Jadidah, October 30, 1997.
320	Al-Hayah al-Jadidah, November 18, 1997.
321	Al-Quds, November 1, 1997.
322	Al-Quds, November 11, 1997.
323	Al-Hayah al-Jadidah, November 30, 1997.
324	Palestinian Television, December 2, 1997; Translated in Palestinian Media
Review, December 2-3, 1997.
198 Yossef Bodansky
525 Bodansky, Yossef, Arafat's Peace Process, Tel Aviv, Ariel Center lor Policy
Research, Policy Paper No. 18, 1997, pp. 64-65.
326A1-Tourabi, Hassan, Islam - Avenir du Monde [Islam - The Future of the World],
Paris, Editions JC Lattes, 1997, pp. 270-277.
327 Al-Hayah, October 29, 1997.
328 A Jihad Bulletin in Al-Mujahidun, December 1997; Salah, Muhammad, Al-Hayah,
Decembers, 1997.
129	Al-Quds al-’Arabi, February 23, 1998.
330	Salah, Muhammad. Al-Hayah, May 19, 1998.
331	Voice of Palestine, July 11, 1997.
332	Voice of Palestine, October 24, 1997.
333	Al-Aqsa Sermon of May 15, 1998; cited in Kahl, Murray (editor), Israeli & Global
News.
334	Al-Aqsa Sermon of June 19, 1998; cited in Kahl, Murray (editor), Israeli & Global
News.
335	Al-Aqsa Sermon of June 26, 1998; cited in Kahl, Murray (editor), Israeli & Global
News.
336	Al-Aqsa Sermon of October 9, 1998; cited in Kahl, Murray (editor), Israeli &
Global News.
3,7	Al-Aqsa Sermon of October 9, 1998; cited in Kahl, Murray (editor), Israeli <£
Global News
338	PA TV, Novembers, 1998.
339	PA TV, September 18, 1998.
340	PA TV, September 18, 1998.
341	PA TV, October 6 & 13, 1998.
342	Al-Hayah al-Jadidah, November 7, 1998.
343	Abd al-Salaam, Dr. Fahmi, A-Sha'ab, November 17, 1998; cited in 1MRA.
144 “Um Nuha” [pseud. |, BIC News, November 7, 1998.
Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument ] 99
345	ANATOLIA, September 6, 1986; Ha'aretz, September 7, 1986; Beirut Voice of
the National Resistance, September 6, 1986; Nicosia Domestic Service,
September 6, 1986; Beirut Domestic Service, September 7, 1986; AFP, September
7, 1986; Voice of Lebanon, September 7, 1986; Tzadka Sh., Ha'aretz, November
13, 1986.
346	Ha'aretz, July 19, 1994; Clarin, July 19, 1994; El Periodico, September 25, 1994;
Clarin, November 15, 1994; Lantana, Jorge & Goldman, Joe. Cortinas de Humo,
Buenos Aires, Planeta, 1994.
347	L Orient-Le Jour, July 30, 1994.
348	Timmerman, Kenneth R., Los Angeles Times, November 21, 1994; Ha'aretz,
November 12, 1994.
349	New York Post, July 30 & 31, 1998.
350	Barrett, Devlin. New York Post, July 21, 1998.
351	Kramer, Martin. Commentary, October 1994.
352	The author is indebted to David Littman, a tireless fighter against these
anti-Semitic attacks, for his documents and material, as well as the explanations
about these activities and their significance.
353	Naipaul, V.S., Among the Believers, New York, NY, Alfred A. Knopf, 1981, pp.
270-273.
354	The Star, August 22, 1997.
355	Berita Harian, October 11, 1997.
356	Porat, op. cit., (\<ПЬП ed.), p. 124.
357	Interfax, October 8, 1998.
358	Ahmed, Dr. Israr, Nawa-i-Waqt, October 13, 1998.
359	Ahmed, Dr. Israr. Nawa-i-Waqt, October 14, 1998.
360	Middle East Times, December II, 1996; cited in Porat, op. cit., (1996/7 ed.), p.
181.
361	Al-Musawwar, May 24, 1996; cited in Porat, op. cit., (1996/7 ed.), p. 182.
362	Heikal, Secret Channels, op. cit., pp. 12-13.
200 Yossef Bodansky
,6’ Filastin al-Muslima, March 1996; cited in Porat, op. cit., (1996/7 ed.), p. 182.
564 Kepel, op. cit., pp 172-190, Jansen, Johannes J.G., The Neglected Duty, New York,
NY, Macmillan, 1986, pp. 91-119.
165 Jansen, Neglected Duty, op. cit., p. 103.
’6f> Jansen, Johannes J.G., The Dual Nature of Islamic Fundamentalism, Ithaca, NY,
Cornell University Press, 1997, p. 133.
367 Jameelah, op. cit., pp. xvii-xviii.
368 Jameelah, op. cit., p. 412.
169 Maulana Abdul Aziz, Introduction, in Farooqi, Misbahul Islam, The Jewish
Conspiracy and the Muslim World, Kuala Lumpur, Thinker’s Library SDN BHD,
1991 (a reprint of'a Pakistani edition of 1967), pp. 24-25.
,7° Jansen, Islamic Fundamentalism, op. cit., p. 1 17.
371	Bat Ye’or, The Dhimmi, op. cit., p. 125.
372	Jansen, Islamic Fundamentalism, op. cit., pp. 136-137.
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Anti-Semitism, that is, anti-Jewishness and anti-Judaism, is intensifying
throughout the Muslim World. The significance of this virulent
anti-Jewishness and anti-Judaism is in that this type of anti-Semitism goes
beyond the hatred it espouses. In the contemporary Muslim World,
anti-Jewishness and anti-Judaism constitute a major political instrument in
the hands of both state governments and Islamist terrorist organizations to
mobilize the entire region for the destruction of Israel - irrespective of
diplomatic treaties, including the current peace process. Both governments
and terrorist leaders are using anti-Semitic incitement as a most effective
instrument of populist agitation in order to reach the grassroots - the Arab
street - and get results. This instrument is most effective particularly when
state governments need to ignore and reverse declared policies (imposed by
international conditions). Therefore, with the spread and expansion of
militant radical Islam, anti-Jewishness and anti-Judaism will continue to
intensify in the Muslim World. Anti-Jewishness and anti-Judaism will thus
continue to be a most potent instrument of governments throughout the
Muslim World.
Yossef Bodansky is the Director of Research of the International Strategic
Studies Association (ISSA), and is also the Director of the Congressional
Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare of the US House of
Representatives. As well he is a Special Consultant on International
Terrorism for the Freeman Center for Strategic Studies. He is also a Senior
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Offensive in the Balkans, Some Call It Peace and Arafat’s "Peace Process"),
as well as several book chapters, entries for the International Military and
Defense Encyclopedia, and numerous articles in several periodicals,
including Global Affairs, Jane's Defense Weekly, Defense & Foreign Affairs:
Strategic Policy, and Business Week.
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