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Antisemitism ENG.Indd THE JEWISH PEOPLE POLICY PLANNING INSTITUTE (Established by the Jewish Agency for Israel) Ltd. MUSLIM ANTI-SEMITISM The Challenge and Possible Responses Prof. Emmanuel Sivan With the collaboration of Dr. Dov Maimon Partners and Members Board of Directors and of the General Meeting: Professional Guiding Council: Sandy Baklor Chairman Stuart Eizenstat Lester Crown and Charles Goodman on behalf of the Crown-Goodman family Associate Chairman Leonid Nevzlin Jack Kay David Koschitzky Members of the board as Chair of the UJA Federation of Ya’acov Amidror Greater Toronto Charles Burson Hagai Meirom Irwin Cotler as Treasurer of JAFI Sami Friedrich Dan Halperin Sanford Neuman Steve Hoffman as Board Chair of the Jewish Arlene Kaufman Federation of St. Louis Morlie Levin Irina Nevzlin-Cogan Judit Bokser Liwerant Isaac Molho on behalf of the Nadav Foundation Steven Nasatir Richard L. Pearlstone Jehuda Reinharz as Chairman of the JAFI Board of John Ruskay Governors Suzanne Last Stone Charles Ratner Aharon Yadlin John M. Shapiro President as President of the UJA Federation of Aharon Zeevi Farkash New York Natan Sharansky Director General as Chairman of JAFI Executive Avinoam Bar-Yosef Saul Silver as Chairman of the JAFI Budget and Projects Coordinator Finance Committee Ita Alcalay Our thanks to the UJA Federation of New York, the UJA Federation of Toronto, the Jewish Federation of St. Louis, the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago and Alex Grass z”l for their support of this project. MUSLIM ANTI-SEMITISM The Challenge and Possible Responses Prof. Emmanuel Sivan With the collaboration of Dr. Dov Maimon Editors: Rami Tal • Barry Geltman Jerusalem 2009 The Jewish People Policy Planning Institute Jerusalem FOREWORD The Muslim world’s hostility towards Israel and the Jewish People has intensified in the last quarter century. This hostility, which some have called ‘Muslim anti-Semitism,’ is even prevalent in Egypt and Jordan, both of which have signed peace agreements with Israel. Among the mega-trends affecting the world at large, including Israel and the Jewish People, the rise in the power of radical Islam has a substantial global impact. Fears with respect to the rising power of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan and Egypt are forcing these regimes to navigate constantly between the considerations of their own survivability and stability and maintaining peace with Israel. We are thus witnessing various manifestations of leniency towards the pressures of Islamic opposition. This phenomenon is not limited to countries that have reached agreements with Israel; rather, it is widespread, encompassing the entire Sunni and Shiite Arab world, as well as Islamic nations in the East. The phenomenon of Jew hatred in the Muslim world and its dangers are the focus of Prof. Sivan’s study. His historical analysis exposes the ancient roots of this hatred, tracing them to the modern age of the 19th and 20th centuries, when Muslim-Christian relations deteriorated, first as a result of the occupation of some Maghreb countries (North Africa) by Christian powers, and later, with the expansion of European colonialism throughout the Arab and Muslim realm. Certainly, the main catalyst for the increase in Israel hatred is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which has intensified the waves of hostility, from the agitation by the Mufti of Jerusalem in the 1920s, through the Arab Revolt, the establishment of the State of Israel, to the stinging defeat in the Six Day War. All of these have engendered a deep frustration in the Arab world, which has translated into burning animosity towards Israel and the Jewish People as a whole. This animosity has spilled over beyond the boundaries of Arab Islam and reached far into Islamic countries outside the region, which have taken the lead in highlighting the cultural-religious-political ugliness attributed to the Jews and Israel, their subversion and treachery, portrayed as innately Jewish by nature, ever since the days of the Prophet Muhammad. This hatred has found expression, among other things, in Holocaust denial and in accusing the Jews of exaggerating its scale, or even fabricating it altogether, in order to justify their conquering territory that is an Arab endowment. 3 Professor Sivan’s persuasive argumentation leads him to a number of important conclusions and recommendations. The first of these concerns the need to focus on the anti-Semitism that is manufactured and promulgated mainly by the Muslim Brotherhood and other organizations of its ilk, the Saudi regime and the Shiite regime in Iran. It follows that the primary endeavor to address and diminish the intensity of the hatred should be directed towards each specific manifestation which takes on unique dimensions in various countries. Unlike the Al-Qaeda organization, this is not a global phenomenon. Anti-Semitism and hatred are ‘national’ in character, and their containment must be achieved by focusing on each host-nation according to its specific conditions and characteristics. The second recommendation derives from the first, and focuses on the need to reduce the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Middle East, the Maghreb and Europe. Along with its franchises, such as Hamas, the movement has managed to thrive and increase its influence, especially within the Palestinian Authority during the two Intifadas and with Hamas’ rise to supremacy in the Gaza Strip. Underlining the need to deepen our understanding of adversaries and enemies and the application of proven, reliable and relevant information in a systematic and non- sporadic manner could bring about a more effective management of the struggle against anti-Semitism. This recommendation also includes supporting ‘interfaith dialogue’ which may be effective due to the broad theological common ground shared by believers of Islam and Judaism. Within this dialogue, a concerted effort must be made to eradicate negative stereotypes of Muslims held by Jews, and of Jews held by Muslims. The September 2001 terror attacks, which have pushed many moderate Muslims into a tight corner, could serve as a common ground for understanding the plight of any stigmatized group. Prof. Sivan’s extensive knowledge, expertise and close familiarity with Islamic tradition, as well as his thorough understanding of the effects of the Israeli-Arab conflict, have joined to created the basic infrastructure so vital to formulating recommendations for action and response vis-à-vis Islamic extremism, which finds expression in promoting and escalating Jew-hatred for the purpose of attaining other goals. Prof. Sivan’s recommendations provide a sound and rational basis for action to decrease hostility towards and hatred of Israel and the Jewish People. Aharon Zeevi Farkash President of the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute 4 INTRODUCTION This position paper seeks to describe and analyze the phenomenon of hatred against Jews in the Muslim world, note the dangers it embodies, and suggest courses of action for its thwarting and/or alleviation. The work discusses: 1. The legacy of the near and far Islamic past, its empirical presence, its present usages, as well as the influence of the Israeli-Arab conflict and the current Muslim revival. 2. Cultural dialogue as a potential factor in reducing hostility and hatred. 3. Assuming that such dialogue is of limited importance, we examine the deep meanings of Jew hatred, which are critical for any informed strategy to counter the phenomenon. 4. Based on all of the above, we propose possible responses. In the external environment of the Jewish People, the world of Islam is a prominent force. Although it is based on a monotheistic faith that is similar in many respects to Judaism (e.g., the supremacy of Scripture and of the Law), it is currently hostile to Judaism. Such hostility is often dampened down by the geo-strategic considerations of decision makers in the Muslim world (such as peace agreements, or common interests shared by Sunni Muslims and Jews against Iran and the Shia). This hostility is fueled to a large degree by a surge of hate that has surfaced in the last quarter century, and is referred to by the media as “Muslim anti-Semitism”. Essentially this wave is a cultural-political phenomenon affecting the “political public” in Islamic countries, that is, that segment of the public that is interested in political issues, whose portion of the general population is usually estimated at 10-15 percent, comprising mostly city-dwelling/urban men. The “political public” includes many active supporters of the incumbent regime and its clients, or followers/cronies (Khodi in Iran), as well as active opposition forces, their leaders and grassroots activists. The top echelons of the political elites (with the exception of Iran and perhaps Saudi Arabia) are not anti-Semitic, unlike the situation in the 1960s, and do not conduct intensive anti-Semitic propaganda. Muslim regimes are on the whole authoritarian, but they are preoccupied by their own survival and not by the question of Palestine or by the “plots of world Jewry.” Today, many of them are so worried by the threat 5 posed by Iran and emergent Shiism they carry out covert or overt cooperation with Israel – “the enemy of my enemy… Decision- makers are motivated mostly by regime survival and geo-strategic considerations (which often tends to diminish the hate, as mentioned above, turning it into latent hostility). Yet these regimes’ margin of maneuver is also constrained by the currents flowing within the “political public” and its spiritual and communal leaders, which is more or less equivalent to the public of newspaper readers, radio listeners, TV news viewers and Internet surfers, i.e., people who customarily discuss among themselves the meaning of the content offered to them by the media. Within this public, there are various prisms for making sense of reality, and such prisms have a certain cultural depth. By their very nature, prisms also define what is “inconceivable” and who is “abominable.” Unfortunately, Judaism and the Jews have recently become such “abominations”, so that peace or even “co- existence” with them tends to be perceived as “inconceivable” among significant segments of the political public, including the establishment.
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