It is now quite common in the West to ascribe to Arabs and Muslims, including the Palestinians, the charge of “antisemitism”, a matter which has recently become clear in the many comments made upon the HAMAS operation of October 7, 2023, directed at settlements in the “Gaza envelope.” HAMAS has been described as a “terrorist movement” and compared to DAISH and accused of being “antisemitic.” Comparisons were drawn between the Israeli civilians killed in the operation and Jewish victims of the Nazi concentration camps. As a matter of fact, the attitude of western politicians and the predominant media can be subsumed under the phenomenon of “Islamophobia” which mixes between Muslims and “terrorists”.
“Antisemitism” in history
The term “antisemitism” is associated with the German journalist Wilhelm Marr (1819-1904) who coined the term in 1879 to replace the phrase “hatred of Jews”. He did so in a pamphlet he published in Berlin entitled The Way to Victory of Germanism over Judaism. In that same year he founded “The League of anti-Semites” and called for the expulsion of all Jews towards Palestine. Marr did not limit the phenomenon of “antisemitism” to merely “Jew hatred” but included under it the liberal, cosmopolitan and internationalist currents which he ascribed to the Jews and added to them concepts like equality in civic rights, socialism and pacifism.
However, “antisemitism” was not born when the term was coined but goes back to the pre-modern era. The acts of violence against Jews as recorded in history and known as “pogroms” were common aspects of antisemitism. Governments frequently encouraged that violence by circulating rumors accusing the Jews of using the blood of Christian children in their religious rituals. In modern times, antisemites added a political dimension to their anti-Jewish ideology. Beginning in the last third of the nineteenth century, antisemitic political parties began to appear in Germany, France, Austria and elsewhere and pamphlets began to circulate like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion which spoke of “a worldwide Jewish conspiracy.” In 1919, the Nazi party founded by Adolf Hitler gave political expression to racist theories, basing its popularity on spreading anti-Jewish propaganda and calling for the expulsion of Jews from Germany. When the Nazis assumed power in 1933, they set in train campaigns to boycott the Jews. On 9 and 10 November 1938, Nazis in Germany and Austria destroyed Jewish synagogues and store fronts owned by Jews in what became known as Kristallnacht, a turning point on the road to the extermination of millions of Jews during World War II at the hands of Nazi Germany.[1]
Antisemitism is a western phenomenon and has nothing to do with Arabs and Muslims
The late Israeli writer Uri Avnery estimated in an article entitled “Anti what?”[2] and published in February 2015, that most attacks against Jews in Europe for which Muslim youth is accused of committing, have “nothing to do with antisemitism” but are due to two principal reasons: First, domestic, for these youths in their majority are children of emigrants from North Africa who had witnessed “how most Algerian Jews, for instance, had sided with the French imperialist regime during the bitter struggle for independence.” When all Jews and many Arabs left Algeria for France, they “brought with them their old conflict.” Having lived side by side in crowded suburbs in Paris and other cities, their mutual hostilities remained. The second reason which feeds that hostility “is linked to the ongoing Arab-Zionist conflict, since Arabs throughout the world, and most Muslims, feel that they are embroiled in that conflict” especially when “Benyamin Netanyahu wastes no opportunity to declare that he represents all Jews throughout the world thereby making these Jews responsible for Israel’s policies and actions, such as the recent Gaza War [2014].”
Antisemitism is a western phenomenon and “inseparable from European culture.” It has Christian religious roots and harks back to the “image” of the Jews who called for the death of Christ, then came to assume political dimensions. Accordingly, there appeared in many European countries “extreme nationalist groups, both old and new, who attempted to attract the masses through hatred of the Other.” The Jews have always been, and still are “the favored sacrificial lamb for the poor classes in Europe”, especially during “major and repeated economic crises and the ever growing gap between the local poor and the immensely wealthy classes of diverse nationalities.” Avnery adds that this phenomenon has nothing to do with Arabs since the latter are Semites and possibly “even more Semitic than the Jews for the Jews had mixed with non-Jews for centuries.” Avnery observes that since Wilhelm Marr had never in his life met any Arab, the only Semites for him were the Jews and his crusade was thus directed solely against them. As for Adolf Hitler, “his racism extended to all Semites.” He “could not bear Arabs too and, contrary to myth, he hated the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Hajj Amin al-Husayni, who had fled to Germany. Having once met him solely to be photographed together for Nazi propaganda purposes, he refused to meet with him again.”
“Antisemitism” and “Islamophobia” both express a racist attitude
Although the term “Semite” according to the philological dictionaries is cognate with “those who belong to the totality of the peoples of the Near East which speak or had spoken a Semitic language in ancient times,” and the term thus includes those who speak Hebrew, Arabic and their many divisions such as Ethiopic, Neo-Aramaic and so forth, “antisemitism” is nevertheless confined to “anti-Jewish acts.” While demonstrations are organized in some western cities to fight the phenomenon of “antisemitism” under the flag of a “Global Values Alliance” observers who follow these demonstrations pose the following question: Why do the organizers of these demonstrations confine themselves to condemning antisemitism and do not at the same time condemn acts of harassment and violence done against Muslims or Arabs? If this has to do with expressing solidarity with the victims of the current Israeli-Palestinian war, why are only Israeli victims given mention, and why is there no condemnation of the genocidal massacre ongoing in Gaza which has thus far left tens of thousands of civilian victims?[3]
“Antisemitism” is a plague that must be fought and today has become associated with racism against Arabs and hatred of Muslims, whereby an essential prerequisite for fighting it, as expressed by historian and journalist Dominique Vidal, is that “this fight should proceed side by side with a violent struggle against the racism suffered by citizens with emigrant roots.”[4] The racism that targeted the Jews, culminating in the Holocaust, is today targeting the Muslims, where “Islamophobia” has become, like antisemitism, the common denominator among all racist and anti-foreigner parties and ideologies throughout the world.[5]
Differences do of course exist between antisemitism and Islamophobia, but they have two important elements in common, as noted by researcher R. Zia Ebrahimi in his book Antisemitism and Islamophobia: An Entangled History, published in France in August 2021. The first element in common is “to regard the religious factor per se as an indicator of race” and the second is “belief in the existence of a conspiracy against the west contrived by Muslims and Jews.” In her review of this book, journalist Sarah Qarira [Check name-translator] states that Ebrahimi considers that “the Judaization and Islamization of the world are the two specters haunting the thinking and discourse of a number of westerners.” This is so because the old belief in the existence of an “elite Jewish group possessed of substantial financial means to exert pressure on decision makers and circles of power while working in secret to control or Judaize the nation and the world is a belief that still exists,” whereas the “Islamist conspiracy” is of “recent origin, making its appearance daily in French political and media discourse.” That discourse warns against the threat of a “demographic flood” made up of “emigrants who put their lives at risk when crossing over to Europe, in addition of course to the Muslims of France.”[6]
Tolerant coexistence among religious believers in the Liwa of Jerusalem
When the “Dreyfus Affair” broke in 1894, in which French army captain Alfred Dreyfus was accused of “treachery” and in order to “challenge the hysterical anti-Jewish feelings in certain elite French quarters, a number of intellectuals of the later Ottoman period decided to take up the cause of Dreyfus. Foremost among them was Rashid Rida, a pioneer of Islamic fundamentalist thought, who later came to prominence in Egypt through his vivid advocacy of that doctrine, then Farah Antun, a pioneer of secular modernity, who lauded the courage of Dreyfus’s defenders in 1899, in the journal Al-Jami`a in 1899.” This was cited by the journalist Sulayma Mardam Bey in an article published in Beirut’s L’Orient-Le Jour newspaper in its issue of June 17, 2022. She in turn was citing Gilbert al-Ashcar, Professor of International Relations at SOAS, University of London, who wrote: “When European antisemitism became clearly visible, especially during the Dreyfus Affair, those who followed events closely expressed in most cases their sympathy with the Jews, where Jews were regarded as ‘Oriental cousins’ within the western Christian environment.”[7]
This attitude that regarded oriental Jews as “cousins” found expression in the tolerant coexistence of Muslims, Jews and Christians in the Liwa of Jerusalem, especially after the proclamation of the Ottoman Constitution in the summer of 1908, which treated Jews as integral members of Ottoman citizenry and of the inhabitants of Jerusalem. When Italy declared war on the Ottoman state following Italy’s occupation of Tripolitania in September 1911, the Jews of Jerusalem joined in the campaign to rally around the Ottoman state and to aid it in facing Italy’s aggression. Thus, the Spiritual Israelite Council of Jerusalem published the following prayer in Hebrew : “ Our Sublime Ottoman state, may God aid and support it, is very generous and gracious and its grace spreads over all peoples and nations without distinction…But now the enemies have declared war against it and invaded our ancient frontiers… accordingly, we, your Israelite people who at present live in Jerusalem and in its land and benefits from all national rights like all other inhabitants living in peace and comfort in our country, beneath the shadow of our great, gracious and merciful King and his just ministers, offer to you, O King of Kings, our humble prayers, to have pity on us, and to enlighten our merciful Sultan and his ministers, to guide them aright in the path they choose to take, and to steady their hand in war and in the weapons they aim with.”[8] The General Assembly of the Liwa of Jerusalem, which acted as a legislative body that oversaw the Liwa’s development, included Muslim, Christian and Jewish representatives. Among these latter and in the autumn of 1911 was Haim Effendi Eliyachar, a Jerusalem resident, and Harun Effendi Almani, a resident of Hebron.[9] When the law of mobilizing non-Muslims was passed, Jewish youth volunteered for service in the Ottoman army. The Israelite Chief Rabbi submitted a request to the Justice Ministry calling for the “appointment of two rabbis in the Ottoman army to care for their fellow religionists, an 8-day holiday at their major holiday and 2 days for the New Year and Minor Holidays, to be allowed to visit a synagogue on Saturdays, and to construct a synagogue in a special room.” The rabbi of the Israelite community in Jerusalem sent “a telegram to Istanbul asking that Israelite troops be exempt, for religious reasons, from sharing their meals with non-Jews and instead be given some coins to buy their necessities.”[10] When, in the autumn of 1908, preparations were afoot in the Liwa of Jerusalem to elect three representatives from the Liwa to the Mab`uthan parliament in Istanbul, among the ten candidates was Izhaq Levi, former Inspector of agriculture in the two Liwas of Syria and Beirut, who published his electoral program in which he emphasized his willingness to do his utmost “ in pursuit of the best interests of the homeland in general and the Palestinian lands in particular.” He promised his fellow citizens that he would pay close attention to “reforming agriculture, commerce and industry” and would demand incessantly and with all his power “building all roads necessary for communication and easing of economic life” and will loudly advocate “without fear the construction of numerous schools.” He would further work to ease “the problem of credit by establishing many banks” and would demand “cleansing all laws and courts of justice from the injustices that suffocate justice and truth.” He ended his program by asserting that he would bear no grudge against people who did not elect him and that he sought no material benefit from being elected, adding: “If you prefer someone else to me, I would not tell you that you are mistaken but rather that you doubtless know the people whose services to you are very necessary at this time. As for me, I would not have lost anything save the chance to serve you in all frankness and honesty because the material benefits accruing from the wages of parliamentarians are very meager whereas my present job is, thank God, a senior post that makes me dispense with any pursuit of material gain.” In the elections held in the spring of 1912, two Jews declared their candidacy, David Yellin and Yusuf Hai.[11] At the celebrations held in Jerusalem by the Society of Union and Progress to commemorate the first anniversary of the Constitution, Jacob Levi gave a speech on behalf of the Israelite Teachers College in Jerusalem where he stated: “You have graciously invited us to join this splendid national carnival, on our dear Constitution Day, and we have accepted your invitation…How can we not do so when we see in this carnival a real revival of the concept of unity and fraternity among the young generations of diverse religions and sects,” and added: “Who values liberty more than students well acquainted with historical events? Which people has most right to enjoy equality and fraternity more than the Israelite people who have suffered from injustice and despotism throughout the ages?” He then saluted the Society of Union and Progress in his name and that of his colleagues among Israelite students, praising it for “having the proud distinction of removing and uprooting despotism”, and adding: “Long Live the Society of Union and Progress! Long live our constitutional Ottoman state! Long live our first constitutional monarch!”[12]
Zionism changes the equation
The rise of Zionism, the Balfour Declaration and the British occupation of Palestine led to scuttling the formula of coexistence prevalent in the Ottoman period. However, anti-Zionism did not manifest itself as anti-Judaism, i.e. directed against followers of a particular faith, but rather expressed hostility to a colonialist movement which enjoyed the support of western colonialism and which sought to dominate Palestine and to uproot its original inhabitants. Little by little, and as a result of the Arab-Zionist conflict, the history of peaceful coexistence between Muslims and Jews was erased. Most Arab Jews became “the second victims of Zionism” when most North African, Iraqi, Egyptian and Yemeni Jews left their Arab homelands for Israel, where they occupied the lands vacated by the Palestinians who had been driven out of their cities and towns during the Nakba.[13]
As a response to the Nakba, there appeared some Arab nationalist and Islamic writings which, clearly inspired by western antisemitism, confused Judaism with Zionism. The Arab Nationalist Movement in its early publications equated Judaism with Zionism, regarding the latter as “the modern political aspect” of the former. These publications argued that those who thought of Judaism simply as a religion and not an organized and tightly knit power “cannot understand the great strength of the enemy we are fighting, an enemy that is not confined to the state of Israel but includes millions of Jews throughout the world, dominant Jewish capitalism, vast Jewish economic resources and their ability to redirect policy, especially in western nations.”[14] The Society of Muslim Brothers adopted this viewpoint of equating Judaism with Zionism and, following the Nakba, blamed the defeat of the Arabs on an “alliance between a Christian crusade and world Judaism.” The Society argued that “it was in the lap of the crusading spirit dominating western states that Zionism or world Judaism was born, the two terms being synonymous.”[15]
Palestinian resistance and the goal of a democratic state
Ever since the rise of the PLO in 1964, its “National Charter” distinguished between Judaism and Zionism. It rejected “the claim of historical or spiritual links binding the Jews to Palestine” and defined Judaism as a divine religion and not an independent or separate nationality.” Zionism was defined as a “colonialist movement in its inception, aggressive and expansionist in its aims and racist and exclusivist in its make-up.” The Charter regarded “Jews of Palestinian origin to be Palestinians provided they agreed to live in peace and harmony in Palestine.”[16]
This viewpoint underwent a noteworthy development with the rise of FATH which proposed the creation of an independent Palestinian state in 1968. That movement noted in its very first declaration addressed to the western press in January 1968 that its struggle was not against Jews as Jews but against “Fascist and militaristic Zionism” emphasizing the fact that the Palestinians clearly realize that “on the day when the
flag of Palestine shall flutter over their liberated, democratic and peace-loving land, a new era will commence when, once again, Palestinians and Jews shall live side by side in amity.” In its declaration addressed to the UN in October of that same year, the FATH movement noted that the objective of Palestinian resistance was “to liberate the whole of Palestine from rapine and occupation and to create a sovereign democratic state where all its legitimate citizens enjoy equal rights irrespective of their religion or language.” In the spring of 1969, Salah Khalaf, one of FATH’s most prominent leaders, asserted that in a democratic Palestinian state the right of citizenship will be guaranteed for every Jew “and not simply one who fights Zionism but also one who rids himself of Zionist ideas, meaning one who becomes convinced that Zionist ideas are alien to human societies.” To achieve that goal, Khalaf emphasized the importance of highlighting the humane and non-racist aspects of the Palestinian revolution in a manner that “clarifies our benevolent attitude to the Jews as human beings” and convinces them “that we are not, as depicted in Zionist propaganda, barbarians intent upon slaughtering them and tossing their women and children into the sea.” It called upon Arab states to express their willingness to “receive back all the Jews who emigrated to Israel from these countries and restore to them their properties and civic rights as Arab citizens of these states on equal footing with other Arab citizens” and to exploit the contradictions inside Israeli society especially between oriental and western Jews. The leftist movements inside the PLO went even further. In 1970. The PFLP estimated that the socialist and unionist current in the Arab world will furnish the “correct and democratic solution to all nationalities and minorities not only in Palestine but throughout the Arab world,” adding that within the framework of the state that will be created following the liberation of Palestine from Zionism “a democratic solution will be provided to the Jewish question in Palestine when Jews become citizens in that state enjoying the same rights and obligations like all other citizens.” At that same period, the PDFLP asserted that a “Jewish people” had come to exist on the land of Palestine which has the right to enjoy complete equality within the democratic Palestinian state and the right to develop their national culture. The PDFLP expressed its rejection of all “chauvinistic, and reactionary Zionist solutions based upon recognition of the state of Israel” as also “Palestinian and Arab chauvinistic solutions proposed before and after 1967, calling for slaughtering the Jews and tossing them into the sea.” The PDFLP called for the creation of a democratic and popular Palestinian state, once the “Zionist entity has been dismantled” where Arabs and Jews “live together without discrimination, in a state which opposes all kinds of class or nationalist oppression while giving Arabs and Jews the right to develop their own national culture.”[17] In later years, these views developed further and the various movements within the PLO accepted the principle of partitioning Palestine. In 1988, the PLO openly adopted the aim of creating an independent Palestinian state with its borders as of June 4, 1967, and in 1993, the leadership of the PLO recognized the right of the State of Israel “to exist in peace and security.”
HAMAS evolves its program
In the period between its “Charter”, adopted in August 1988[18] and the “Declaration of General Principles and Policies” announced in April 2017[19] there occurred a noticeable development in the programs of the HAMAS movement which emphasized its national Palestinian Islamic character at the cost of its global Islamic character. If its “Charter” had once clearly displayed the influence of western antisemitic writings, including confounding Judaism with Zionism, that influence was absent from its “Declaration”, a fact evident when one compares the two texts.
The “Charter” begins by stating the HAMAS is “an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine and the Brotherhood is a global organization” whereas the reference to the Brotherhood and its “global” nature is absent in the “Declaration.” This latter states that HAMAS is a “movement of liberation and national Palestinian Islamic resistance,” and while the “Charter” affirmed that the land of Palestine is “an Islamic Waqf land bequeathed in perpetuity to succeeding Muslim generations” the “Declaration” described Palestine as “the land of the Palestinian Arab people” which “Islam has dignified.” Furthermore, while the “Charter” considered the liberation of Palestine “to be the individual responsibility of every Muslim wherever he may be” and that “the rapine of Palestine by the Jews must be faced by raising the standard of Jihad,” the “Declaration” announced that the liberation of Palestine “is the special duty of the Palestinian people and the general duty of the Arab and Muslim nation as also a human responsibility in accordance with truth and justice.” It added that “resistance to occupation, by all measures and means, is a legitimate right enshrined in all divine religions, conventions and international laws” and that “resistance will continue uninterrupted until achieving liberation, the right of return, and the creation of a fully sovereign state with Jerusalem as its capital.”
The influence of western antisemitic writings on the “Charter” is evident when the “Charter” discusses “the standpoint of those powers which support the enemy,” where it cites the following: “The enemy have for long laid down their careful plan to achieve what they have achieved…they amassed vast monetary and influential resources which they devoted to fulfilling their dream. Through wealth they came to dominate the global media…through wealth they incited revolutions throughout the world to realize their own interests and reap the resultant harvest. For it is they who stand behind the French and communist revolutions and other revolutions we hear about here and there. Through wealth they formed secret societies spread throughout the world which aim at undermining society and achieving Zionist interests, such as the Free Masons, Rotary Clubs, Lions Clubs, Children of the Covenant and so forth.” The “Charter” adds: “Through wealth they were able to control the imperialist powers, driving them to colonize many lands so that they could exploit the wealth of these regions and corrupt them. They were able to obtain the Balfour declaration and created the League of Nations to rule the world through that organization… They were behind World War II, and gained vast wealth through arms trading, prepared the way to creating their state, and, to replace the League of Nations, were behind the creation of the UN and the Security Council in order to rule the world through these bodies.” On the other hand, the influence of western antisemitism is totally absent in the “Declaration” which affirmed that HAMAS “believes that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance, under whose shade can live adherents of all faiths in peace and security, and further believes that Palestine was and remains a model of coexistence, tolerance and cultural creativity.” HAMAS further affirms that “the struggle against the Zionist project is “not a struggle against Jews because of their religion” and “is not fighting Jews as Jews but is carrying on a struggle against aggressive Zionist occupiers whereas it is the leaders of the occupation who bandy the slogan of the Jews and of Judaism in this conflict and describe their illegal entity as such.” The “Declaration” continues: “HAMAS opposes the oppression of any human being…and views the Jewish question, antisemitism, and the oppression of the Jews as phenomena associated basically with European history, and not with Arab or Islamic history and traditions.”
Conclusion
Antisemitism is a Western phenomenon, born and bred in the West, and then assumed its most glaring aspect in the Nazi Holocaust which murdered millions of Jews. This phenomenon has nothing whatsoever to do with Arabs and Muslims, and history does record a number 0f prominent Arab figures who denounced it.
While Jews had coexisted in peace and security with other Muslims and Christians in Arabic and Islamic countries and were perceived as citizens enjoying equal rights and obligations in these countries, it was the rise of Zionism and the crystallization of its colonialist and occupation program in Palestine that upset that formula, creating a state of “hostility” towards Jews and causing some political parties, especially after the Nakba, to be influenced by western antisemitic writings. Although these writings left no impact on the Palestinian movements that gathered within the framework of the PLO and adopted the aim of creating a democratic Palestinian state, the Islamic HAMAS movement, influenced since its inception by these writings, succeeded some years later in shedding that influence. It abandoned the confounding of Judaism and Zionism and attributed antisemitism and the oppression of Jews to western history. In point of fact, some HAMAS leaders, even during this genocidal war being waged by Israel on Gaza, announced their acceptance of an independent Palestinian state on lands occupied by Israel in 1967, and went as far as expressing a willingness to “recognize” Israel.
[1] https://www.amazon.fr/victoire-juda%C3%AFsme-sur-germanisme/dp/1648586708
https://www.universalis.fr/encyclopedie/antisemitisme/
[2] Uri Avnery, “Anti quoi?”.
[3] https://www.alterpresse68.info/2023/11/09/a-mulhouse-une-veillee-pour-gaza-contre-le-racisme-et-lantisemitisme
[4] https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2005/06/VIDAL/12502
[5] https://www.emancipation.fr/2020/01/24/de-lantisemitisme-des-annees-30-a-lislamophobie-daujourdhui/
[6] https://orientxxi.info/lu-vu-entendu/article5124
[7] https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1302887/antisemitisme-dans-le-monde-arabe-histoire-dune-importation.html
[8] "Prayer of the Israelis in Jerusalem for the sake of war," Al-Quds newspaper, issue 268, the fourth year, Tuesday, 4th and 17th of October 1911, p. 2.
[9] The same source, issue 198, the third year, Tuesday, 16th and 29th of November 1910, p. 2.
[10] The same source, "Local News," issue 105, the second year, Friday, 20th of November and 3rd of December 1909, p. 3; "The Israeli Soldiers," issue 206, the third year, Tuesday, 21st of December 1910, and 3rd of January 1911, p. 2.
[11] The same source, "Statement (from Isaac Levi, former agriculture inspector in the provinces of Syria and Beirut, candidate for the Council of Delegates)," issue 9, the first year, Friday, 3rd and 16th of October 1908, pp. 2-3; "Rouhi Pasha Al-Khalidi, and Osman Effendi Al-Nashashibi, and Ahmed Effendi Aarif Al-Husseini," issue 295, the fourth year, Friday, 20th of April and 3rd of May 1912, p. 1.
[12] The same source, "After Three Days," issue 70, the first year, Tuesday, 7th and 20th of July 1909, p. 1.
[13] https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1302887/antisemitisme-dans-le-monde-arabe-histoire-dune-importation.html
[14] Mentioned in: Maher Charif, "The Palestinian National Project: Development, Dilemma, and Destiny " (Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies, 2021), pp. 61-62.
[15] Mentioned in: The same source, p. 70.
[16] Mentioned in: The same source, p. 95.
[17] See: The same source, pp. 132-136.
[18] Charter of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas)," in: Maher Charif, " In Search of an Entity: A Study of Palestinian Political Thought, 1908-1993" (Nicosia: Center for Research and Studies on the Arab World, 1995), pp. 467-482.
[19] "Political Document of the Hamas Movement (Principles and General Policies Document)," April 2017.