Dispelling Modern Myths Of Muslim Anti-Semitism

[Purveyor]

By Mark R. Cohen

On one of my many trips to Israel, in January 2012, words spoken at the celebration of the founding of the PLO in Ramallah were disseminated far and wide via the Internet by Palestine Media Watch, shocking many in and outside of the country. Introducing the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, one of the officials referred to the “enemy” (Israel) as “apes and pigs,” quoting a famous verse from the Qur’an according to which God, through His prophet Muhammad, censures the “Sabbath breakers” for violating (Jewish) law and condemns them to be transformed into “apes and pigs.” In his own speech, the Mufti quoted an equally famous Islamic hadith: “’The Hour (of Divine Judgment and Resurrection) will not come until you fight the Jews. The Jews will hide behind rocks or trees. Then the rocks or trees will call out: ‘Oh Muslim, Oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him; except for the Gharqad tree, which is the friend of the Jews.’ Therefore it is no wonder that you see Gharqad trees surrounding the Israeli settlements and colonies.” This hadith, with its anti-Semitic overtones, is famously quoted in the Hamas “Platform” as license to kill Jews.

Anti-Semitism in the contemporary Muslim world is real. It pervades the media in the very countries that are most inimical to Israel. It appears in political speeches, in cartoons, in the press and on Middle Eastern radio and television. It resonates all too familiarly with the anti-Semitism that fueled the Holocaust.

For a people who have suffered the consequences of anti-Semitism since the Christian Middle Ages, culminating in the Nazi Holocaust, such expressions of anti-Jewish hatred in the Muslim world, side-by-side with Islam’s version of Holocaust denial, militates against hopes for rapprochement, political or otherwise, with Israel’s Arab neighbors and strengthens politicians’ resolve to resist statehood for the Palestinians.

Where does contemporary Muslim anti-Semitism come from? Does it stem from the Qur’an and other foundational Islamic texts? Is it endemic to Islam? Is it therefore ineradicable? Many, especially Jews, and especially Israeli Jews, believe this to be true.

Or is this anti-Semitism new, originating in Western (Christian) Jew-hatred that arrived in the Middle East on the heels of colonialism, and later became clothed in Islamic garb? And, if so, has this Muslim anti-Semitism somehow been enflamed by the rise of Zionism and the conflict with Israel?

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http://972mag.com/dispelling-modern-myths-of-muslim-anti-semitism/71791/

[msongs]

1. probably from the same place Jews hating muslims come from - religion, the gift that keeps on giving

[Igel]

2. "Do you conduct an experiment to prove or disprove your hypothesis?"

Most kids get the answer wrong.

It's easy to prove your point. All you have to do is find the data that show you're right, pull it together in one place, and grin.

You find anti-Jewish pogroms in the 1850s, you find some pretty intense discrimination legislated and applied in Muslim territories during the last 1000 years and more. It's easy to show that all Muslims must be horrible anti-Semites.

Or you could pick the other evidence, esp. if it's in the form of laws that were on the books but might not reflect local man-in-the-street attitudes.

Sometimes you have to be clever. Maimonides wrote in Arabic during a time when he was touted as evidence of great Muslim tolerance. But he used Hebrew letters. Not because he couldn't read Kufic. But for other reasons that have little to do with tolerance. It's a question of staying inside the rules that the intolerant place upon you.

You can also find fairly good defenses of Jews and protection of their rights in Xian lands going back the last 1600 years. Esp. if you just look at the laws that were on the books. Tolerant Xians. Whoa, talk about clearing up misconceptions. But you can also find a fair number of pogroms and a lot of discrimination, confirming stereotypes. Which was it, since we insist on things being absolutely binary, Muslims (or Xians) have to be either tolerant or intolerant--and only one or the other can be true of all of them--since their inception?

Yeah. So much for nuance when there's a political or ideological point to be made.

[oberliner]

3. Whew

Well that closes the book on Muslim anti-semitism!

[delrem]

4. Do you think that's the purpose of the article?

Did you read the article?
http://www.scribd.com/doc/142181347/Modern-Myths-of-Muslim-Antsemitism-English

Do you think there's such thing as Jewish anti-Arabism, or anti-Islamicism? Don't you think the author is addressing that possibility, as well?

What do you think of this:
http://972mag.com/watch-jerusalem-days-racist-march-escorted-by-police/15554/
"Thousands of rightwing Israelis marched today in Jerusalem’s Arab neighborhoods, provoked local Palestinian residents and shouted racist remarks chants, among them “let your village burn,” “death to Mohammad” and “death to all leftists”. The event, part of the “Jerusalem Day” celebration, was organized and promoted by the municipality. Jerusalem’s police escorted the parade, and made no attempt to stop the racist calls."

I'm not expecting you to defend it, any more than you should expect me to defend some racist shit fresh from Hamas. I don't expect to ever be able to deal with people who would call out one side for racism but not the other, so whose entire energy goes into defending the indefensible.

Anyhow, it's a fairly long document and I'm just now reading it. Perplexed, though, by your insta-reaction.

[delrem]

5. Finished. A D- for trotting out every trite, 100% religious, talking point he's ever encountered.

And for leaving it at that, worthless, that.

I'd've given it an F except that the use of footnotes and a facade of scholarship made such a marking cruel.

[oberliner]

7. Pretty much

I think it is trying (and failing) to create illusions about anti-Jewish prejudices in the Muslim world. If there was a "972mag" equivalent in any of the predominantly Muslim neighbors of Israel that was willing to turn a camera and shine a light on the virulent anti-Jewish remarks and chants then that might be valuable and instructive. Of course anyone who attempts to direct attention to that sort of thing is assumed to be a RW bigot, yet somehow those who do that kind of thing in Israel and brave and heroic.

[delrem]

8. I disagree. That doesn't accord with my readings.

[King_David]

6. Anti-Semitism in the Arab/Muslim World

http://archive.adl.org/main_Arab_World/default.htm