Washington Times offers a review of a new book, The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism, by Andrew Bostom. The review is largely on point, though the reviewer, I think, errs in stating that the Muslim/Jewish/Christian comity of Andalusia was an ‘aberration’. According to Michael O’Shea’s Sea of Faith, Andalusia was one of several such instances. Many instances do not make for an aberration; they make for an alternative.
There’s no question that anti-Semitism is a serious problem in Saudi Arabia and throughout much of the Islamic world. There’s no question, either, that verses in the Quran harshly characterize and condemn Jews. It’s a fair statement to make that Islam is inimical to Judaism, at least in some ways.
But the day-to-day facts on the ground show that this is not necessary; there are alternatives. While, for instance, the Jewish population of Bahrain is small, it is not particularly put upon by its Muslim neighbors. At least until it became a political issue, Jews in North Africa and Iraq had a living—and livable—relationship.
I think most of the anti-Semitism stems from two roots: ignorance and the establishment of Israel. Those roots, unfortunately, are watered by certain Quranic verses.
Most Muslims have never met a Jew, to their knowledge. When they discover, after years of knowing and working with an individual, that he or she is Jewish, their first reaction is stunned silence. All the stereotypes they’d carried in their minds crumble into dust as they discover that they don’t fit.
The fact of Israel angers many, particularly Arab Muslims. The anger, though, is not due to anti-Semitism, but to the politics of having one group forceably displace a resident population. The anger would have been there had Israel been founded by Maoris or Mexicans. That anger is exacerbated by the fact that Jews can be more-or-less readily cast as ‘the Other’. As ‘the Other’, it’s only too easy to search for the Quranic verses that justify, further, the anger and enmity.
Tolerance is practiced by the majority of Muslims in nearly all things in their daily lives. Some find extremism a release and escape from the duty of personal responsibility and demanding responsibility of their governments. That, I think, is what keeps Islamic anti-Semitism burning.
Islam’s history of anti-Semitism
Raymond IbrahimIs there such a thing as Islamic anti-Semitism? That is the implicit question that Andrew Bostom’s new book, “The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism,” tackles. The regrettable answer that presents itself is not based on conjecture, political correctness, anachronisms or wishful thinking — increasingly the domains and paradigms of modern academia — but rather primary texts that speak for themselves. Dr. Bostom, whom I have met and who evinces a passion for the subject of his book, still manages to approach it objectively. A medical doctor by profession, he applies the scientific method and bases his conclusions on the data — as all scholars used to.
And his data is significant: This consists of approximately 700, double-column pages of mostly primary text material, loosely divided into two genres: 1) Islamic law’s stance toward the Jew, as delineated by Muslims (lest the charge of “bias” be made) and 2) historical texts documenting Jewish life under Islamic rule.
What does one learn from this approach? The historical documents make clear that, from day one, Jews and Christians have been systematically treated as second-class citizens, “dhimmis,” in the regions conquered by Islam. Thus even if there were some sort of Andalusian “golden age” — as academics are fond of reminiscing and insisting — that’s exactly all it was, an “age,” an “aberration.”
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17:08,
“the establishment of Israel” is given as a “reason” for Islamic anti-semitism, to which I say: LIE.
I have first-hand anecdotal evidence from Arab-country born Jews about virulent, rabid, deadly anti-semitism many many years before the establishment of Israel. Also, the “blood libel” of Syria in the 1840s, 100 years before Israel.
Then there is the “politics of having one group forceably displace a resident population”. Huh? Lots of history being forgotten or rewritten here. Don’t forget that the Arabs rejected the UN partition plan, refusing to live with Jews in their midst as equals. Also, at the threshold of the War of Independence for the State of Israel, the Arabs broadcast over and over again to the indigenous Arab population to vacate their homes in order to make way for the victorious Arab armies as they drove the Jew into the Mediterranean Sea. Oops, slight miscalculation, there. Golda Meir wrote in her autobiography about how she stood on the beach at Haifa begging the fleeing Arabs to stay: “we NEED you”, she said.
“The fact of Israel angers many, particularly Arab Muslims.” This, in itself, is barely veiled anti-semitism on the part of this blog writer. You are saying that Israel should not have even been established and that the Jews of the world have no right to even a piece of their ancestral homeland, not to mention that they would need a place to escape from the rest of the world’s anti-semitism, not a small part of it perpetrated by Muslims.
All in all, this blog comment is a nice try at attempting to show some sort of “tolerance” but in reality, is as anti-semitic in its undertones as those it writes about.
18:26,
I consider the British plan to set up a Jewish homeland, which then turned into the establishment of a Zionist state, to be one of the most serious political mistakes of modern times. You can guess what motivates that conclusion all you like, but it is not anti-Semitism.
I also consider Israel to be a fact of life: it’s not going anywhere, nor its citizens.
It is also a fact, convenient, comfortable, likable or not, that the fact of Israel is one of the driving forces for modern Islamic and Arab anti-Semitism. That politics and religion get confused is not surprising, though it is sadly mistaken.
It is my opinion, i.e. not necessarily a fact, that ancient history does not equal modern history and that attempts to conflate them confuse the issues needlessly. It also appears to be an attempt–albeit a different one–to confuse religion with politics.
Might I suggest that you read The Arabs and Zionism Before World War I, by Neville J. Mandel? There might be a thing or two for you to learn about Arab-Jewish relations in Palestine.
23:48,
I consider the British plan to set up a Jewish homeland, which then turned into the establishment of a Zionist state, to be one of the most serious political mistakes of modern times.
A “mistake” for who, exactly?
00:09,
Generally, a mistake for the world. Sixty years of bloodshed might have been avoided.
Rather than taking land already occupied by a predominantly Muslim population, who had been the majority for the last 1,300 years, space in Europe, taken from the defeated Axis powers, would have made far more sense in many ways, IMO, including cultural. It would also have been far more ‘fair’ to have the instigator of the Holocaust pay the serious prices of the Holocaust rather than shift them on to someone else.
If part of Germany could be ceded to the Poles, as it was, another part of Austria-Germany, maybe even including part of Italy, could have been ceded to create a Jewish state.
08:49,
a mistake for the world.
It’s all tied in to the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
A mistake for Europe? No, because it got another “finger in the eye” buffer state (along with Greece & Lebanon) that it wanted to prevent the formation of another Empire that would invade the continent, as Persia, Arabia, and Turkey had done so often in the past.
A mistake for the Jews? In the case of Jews living in the Middle East, when Arabs were ruled by the Ottomans good relations were much more common. However, once Arabs gained power the idea that one could seize the property of minorities for personal enrichment of the rulers and distribute crumbs to the remainder took hold; Arabs didn’t want the multi-ethnic system that the Ottomans encouraged to retain power. Jews weren’t the only victims - consider the Assyrians 80 years ago, or the Yezidis today. But Jews were the only ones with no place to go - America was as difficult for most Jews to enter after the 1923 immigration restrictions as it is for Saudis today.
In the case of Jews living in Europe, life was distinctly unfriendly by the late nineteenth century, and after WWII the surviving Jews weren’t exactly welcomed back either: their homes had been seized or destroyed, their neighbors unfriendly. Behind the Iron Curtain no Jews got any property back until the Berlin Wall fell, and the process of return or compensation continues even today.
Carving out a state in Southern Germany and Northern Italy - a distinctly Saudi idea, if I recall correctly - would have been really weird and involve enormous movements of populations (far greater than what happened in Palestine) and severe economic disruptions for decades. Jews would not have been particularly interested in it; “Palestine or nothing” was the conclusion of the Seventh Zionist Congress, the conclusion being that Jews had no natural right, no moral claim, to a self-governing state if it wasn’t in Palestine. The failure of the Soviet “Jewish” enclave of Birobizan teaches the same lesson.
Furthermore, singling out Germany and Italy would ignore the active role of other nationalities who enthusiastically supported “The Final Solution”.
Finally, there was simply no international political support for such a thing. I don’t recall Arab states seriously advocating such an approach in 1945.
A mistake for the Arabs? The return of Jews to Palestine and was the start of a new and more prosperous economic age for the Arabs living there, as the Jews brought technical, medical, and financial skills with them and paid better wages than the Arab ruling class. This ruling class bitterly resented its declining influence and resorted to employing violence directed not just against the Jews but also their Arab friends. The survival of new Jewish communities in Palestine for the first thirty years of the twentieth century is due in no small measure to the goodwill and efforts of the many Arabs who supported the Zionist project, sometimes with their lives. That support continues in some measure even today among the Arab population of Israel.
For the Arabs not living in Palestine itself, especially the new ruling class, the Jewish settlers were another matter entirely: they expected that with the expulsion of the Ottomans the entire Middle East would be theirs, and here was this pipsqueak state-in-the-making right in their midst! The Brits publicly promised the Jews one thing, yet secretly promised their Arab allies even more. Arab “Nationalism” was stirring, augmented by Islamic religious bigotry touched off by the Muslim revivalism that had been stirring since before the days of Muhammad_Ahmad and his “Mahdi Army” of the 1880s.
But their was more than one center of Arab nationalism and Muslim revivalism. The history of Palestine in the absence of an independent state or external imperial power (like Rome or Britain) is one of repeated rapine in its role as a battleground by geopolitcally opposed power centers of Egypt and Mesopotamia.
It is easy to imagine Arabs killing themselves for generations as the playthings for their leaders in such battles, with not Jerusalem as the coveted prize but access and control of the oil fields of Arabia. The establishment of Israel avoided all that.
A mistake for the rest of the world? The State of Israel does complicate Middle East affairs. But simplifying them by its absence probably would make the world a nastier place, as outlined in the scenarios above.
11:10,
Your first point doesn’t really make sense to me. A Jewish state in Europe, particularly if taken out of the territories of the Axis belligerents, would achieve the same goal of structurally preventing the rise of another monster state.
‘Palestine or nothing’ was certainly the argument of many Zionists–though other options like setting up a state in Uganda were under consideration. But that’s a political position that serves a multitude of goals and interests, none of which is necessarily ‘best’ for anyone involved.
Both the Ottomans and the British were concerned that the imposition of a Jewish state in Palestine would lead to endless conflict; they were right. In 1914, Jews held 2% of the land in Palestine, according to Mandel. Surrounded by Arabs, already restive in their subjugation to the Turks, they were not going to be welcomed. The Arabs, rightly or wrongly, did not want to deal with a multi-ethnic polity imposed from outside (Shades of today’s nativism in the US, Holland, Germany, France, etc.)
Displacing millions in Europe post-WWII would have been a big thing, assuredly, but no bigger than took place when the borders of Ukraine, Poland, and Germany were all shifted westward. I Jewish state, even in the middle of Europe, would have provided the buffer against anti-Semitism that clearly was needed at the time.
As far as a lack of “Arab states seriously advocating such an approach in 1945″, no one was taking the Arab view into consideration anyway. They were uniformly against a Jewish state being established in Palestine.
I don’t think it particularly helpful to try to determine an ‘Arab’ view of the matter at the period. There were many views, depending on how directly a particular group was being affected. Even for those in Palestine itself, there were differing perspectives. If one got rich selling land to immigrants, one could see and receive benefit. If the land was the land that your family had been farming for generations, well, there was a somewhat different view.
As you note, this was a period of Arab nationalism, with a plethora of views of what that meant. There were the secular Arab nationalist as well as those seeking a pan-Arab state, secular or religious. The pot was boiling and the British (and others) dropped a boulder right into it. We’re still dealing with the spillover today.
All of this, of course, it speculation on alternative history; fun, but not terribly productive. The fact is that Israel exists. Arab states need to find a way to deal with that fact. Israel, IMO, needs to find a better way of dealing with the fact that they are severely unloved in the region and losing support outside the region. It needs to find a way to rein in its own extremists–religious and political–to find a way to resolve the outstanding issues. No one, Arab or Israeli, is going to get the maximal return on negotiation. Both sides are going to have to lose something important to them. The benefit is worth it, I think: an end to 60 years of chaos, violence, and the death of innocents.
12:13,
Soloman’s whole post doesnt make sense, but then again, the entire Zionist project never has made any practical sense.
The idea that because some members of the Jewish faith had ties to the Middle East means that they had a right to it after some 2,000 years of being away from it just boggles the mind.
The concept that the Palestinians, who had nothing to do with the Holocaust, should be the population to pay for it is more than a bit obscene as well. Nevermind the tactics used to found the state and then keep it, and how often they tend to harken back to the historical treatment of the Jews themselves.
Soloman also shows an astounding lack of knowledge of the Middle East, Europe and Islam when he tries to claim that Arabs always mistreated Jews the first chance they got. I get he has never heard of “al Andalus” where Jews, under rule by Maghrebe Arabs enjoyed a level of living and prestige that they did not enjoy again in Europe until after WW2.
When Christians took the Muslim areas of Spain the Jews were then forced to convert, even then most often murdered, and then again fled to Muslim lands, many of them heading to Arab lands.
Israel, as a modern entity, is founded on the dispossesion of an entire peoples.
Israel is founded on the very same principles and practices that forced them to flee Europe. Some Israeli leaders know this, it is why they pointed to the Nazis on how to deal with the Palestinian issue.
I remember the one Israeli general who suggested that they look to how the Nazis dealt with the Warsaw Uprising to find inspiration for how to treat the Palestinians.
Interesting when people become what they hate and despise!
12:18,
John,
BTW, in today’s climate, anything which attacks Israel or it’s “right” to exist is considered anti-Semitic.
I know it is nonsense, but there it is. No country has a “right” to exist, let alone using ties from 2,000 years ago shared by a portion of that population and their religious book.
If Soloman is living in the USA I suggest that he donates his house and land to the local American Indian tribe. It is their land, they existed on it longer than the Israelis did in Palestine.
Make your support known for the Zionist concept Soloman, give up your house!
16:11,
I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration. Certainly, there’s some of that. But there’s also anti-Semitism disguised as anti-Zionism. And for some audiences–like the majority of Saudis–there’s no difference whatsoever. That’s just a sad fact.
21:25,
“the Palestinians, who had nothing to do with the Holocaust”…
First off, what is a “palestinian”? “Palestine” is the name given to the region in the Middle East that was dismembered by the Romans in 67AD. Before the early 1960s, “palestinian” was a word used to refer to Jews living in Palestine. Arabs who lived there were called “Arabs”, Syrians, Lebanese… Those that lived there thought of themselves as part of “Southern Syria”.
As for having “nothing to do with the Holocaust”, I guess you could say that technically, that is true. After all, very few, if any at all, ran any of the gas chambers or crematoriums in any of the death camps. However, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem met with Hitler in 1942 to help each other with their plans to exterminate the Jews. The Mufti is on record as saying many times that Hitler should finish the job so he would not have to smell the Jews in his world anymore.
Also, the hue and cry of so-called “hospitable” Arab Muslims, both living in the region and outside, to turn away many many boatloads of wretched Jewish refugees that were lucky enough to get to the shores of Palestine, back to Europe and their eventual gassing and burning, gives the Arabs that were living in that area more than a bit of complicity in the Holocaust, albeit indirect.
Then, of course, there was the change in definition of the word “refugee” in the early 30s by the UN on the behest of the Arabs to say that a refugee is one who is displaced from the land they lived on for 2 years or more; this was then able to encompass most of the Arabs who were not born in the land of “Palestine”, but rather emigrated in from all of the other surrounding countries at the behest of the British in order to skew the demographics against the indigenous Jews.
“It is also a fact, convenient, comfortable, likable or not, that the fact of Israel is one of the driving forces for modern Islamic and Arab anti-Semitism.” Sorry, believing Muslims do not need any excuse or driving force to hate Jews, or for that matter, Christians. It is written in the Qu’ran to do so. See http://www.prophetofdoom.net for more on this.
It is good of you though, to admit that there was a need for Zionism. Herzl came up with it after the Dreyfuss affair where he realized that the Jews would only be safe in a country of their own.
“Israel, IMO, needs to find a better way of dealing with the fact that they are severely unloved in the region and losing support outside the region.” Yeesss… blame the victim. That woman shouldn’t be walking around in such a short skirt, it incites men to rape them.
“No one, Arab or Israeli, is going to get the maximal return on negotiation. Both sides are going to have to lose something important to them.” The difference is what each has to lose. Look at the difference in land mass between Israel and the rest of the Arab countries. Each square meter that Israel gives up is one square meter closer to being pushed into the Mediterranean Sea as the Arabs never get tired of threatening to do. Israel is not making any existential threats against the Arabs, and never has.
“no one was taking the Arab view into consideration anyway.” Sure they were. That’s why the the British decided to renege their deal to give the Jews any land at all. What eventually ended up as the State of Israel was not even %15 of the original Mandate. Looking on a map of the Mandate before the British anti-semites got finished with it shows that Jordan is “Palestine”. The Arabs were not satisfied with this and wanted “all or nothing” and still do.
“Israel is founded on the very same principles and practices that forced them to flee Europe. Some Israeli leaders know this, it is why they pointed to the Nazis on how to deal with the Palestinian issue.
I remember the one Israeli general who suggested that they look to how the Nazis dealt with the Warsaw Uprising to find inspiration for how to treat the Palestinians.”
Yes, equate the victim to their persecutor, a favorite anti-semitic tactic. Where’s your sources for any of this? Which general? When did he say such a thing and to whom?
“But there’s also anti-Semitism disguised as anti-Zionism.” Like yours.
“Displacing millions in Europe post-WWII would have been a big thing, assuredly, but no bigger than took place when the borders of Ukraine, Poland, and Germany were all shifted westward. I Jewish state, even in the middle of Europe, would have provided the buffer against anti-Semitism that clearly was needed at the time.”
Interesting. You justify the policy known as “transfer” that most mainstream Israelis reject as being inhuman, that of moving all “palestinians” across the Jordan River into Jordan where they should have been in the first place if the original promise of the British Mandate had been kept.
21:48,
I’m afraid your arguments are both shopworn and puerile. It’s pure tendentiousness to dismiss the presence of Arabs in the Mutassariflik of Jerusalem, who were known colloquially as ‘Filstiniyiin’. I’d strongly recommend reading outside the Zionist talking points; there are plenty of Israeli scholars who could enlighten your point of view.
Sure, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was anti-Semitic. So were Henry Ford, King Edward VIII, and a lot of other political leaders of the period. It was a miasma that covered most of the globe. Singling out Arabs, as though they were the epitome of anti-Semitism is disingenuous, at best.
And trotting out the hoary accusations of ‘blame the victim’ to avoid substantive argument is exactly what is meant when people claim that any anti-Zionist comment is–presto-chango–turned into an anti-Semitic argument. Thus, you do yourself and your argument a grave disservice.
Try sticking with the topic, not redefining categorical terms by assertion, and maybe even do a little more reading of non-participant histories.
I reject ‘transfer of populations’ today, not in the aftermath of WWII. At that time–60+ years ago–it made sense and was likely the only available solution to the problems of the day.
Today, it’s totally inappropriate and is, in itself, a human rights violation of the highest order. Not as serious as terrorist bombing, assuredly, but neither is it an appropriate response to it.
04:59,
Good debate…just want to reaffirm that the majority of Saudis I know despise Jews for whatever reasons….
I believe it is not just the Palestinian issue but it runs deeper than that as has been touched upon.
Perhaps we can partition the earth off for each religion???
All the major religions can get a bigger slice and a few slivers for the odd religions. Perhaps we can ship certain groups of people off to Mars one day. That way we won’t have to see their ugly faces.
07:44,
There are a large number of science fiction stories that start with people of specific religions heading off into space to colonize plants for those religious groups.
But on this planet, we’ve become so interdependent and globalized that it’s not possible to segregate religions, even within one country, though the KSA puts up an effort.
11:29,
Great comments John. I wonder if “anonymous Jewish” poster thinks that Israel should have been founded in Vatican City because of the Pope’s well known associations with Nazis and Facists?
Interesting to note that anti-Semitism, in it’s current form in the Middle East, is almost entirely European in it’s background.
I guess if the Zionists, complict with large sections of the world, hadnt stolen Palestinian lands, it might not be the issue it is today.
Full stop, the world community, under whatever guise, had no right to give away Palestinian lands.
I have nothing against Jews, I do not believe that Israel was set up in a moral or legal fashion. Two different things.
13:07,
Andrew Bostom will be my guest on News Talk Online on Paltalk.com at 5:30 PM New York time today.
You can join the conversation by clicking on the link from my blog, http://www.garybaumgarten.com
The show is likely to excoriate the Saudi Academy, based on the USCIRF report, as well, so all interested might want to take a look—JB