Myths
and Facts - Treatment if Jews in Arab/Islamic Countries
MYTH
“Arabs cannot possibly be anti-Semitic as they are themselves Semites.”
FACT
The term "anti-Semite" was coined in Germany in 1879 by Wilhelm Marr to
refer to the anti-Jewish manifestations of the period and to give
Jew-hatred a more scientific sounding name.1 "Anti-Semitism" has been
accepted and understood to mean hatred of the Jewish people.
Dictionaries define the term as: "Theory, action, or practice directed
against the Jews" and "Hostility towards Jews as a religious or racial
minority group, often accompanied by social, economic and political
discrimination."2
The claim that Arabs as "Semites" cannot possibly be anti-Semitic is a
semantic distortion that ignores the reality of Arab discrimination and
hostility toward Jews. Arabs, like any other people, can indeed be
anti-Semitic.
“The Arab world is the last bastion of unbridled, unashamed, unhidden
and unbelievable anti-Semitism. Hitlerian myths get published in the
popular press as incontrovertible truths. The Holocaust either gets
minimized or denied....How the Arab world will ever come to terms with
Israel when Israelis are portrayed as the devil incarnate is hard to
figure out.”
— Columnist Richard Cohen
Washington Post, (October 30, 2001).
MYTH
“Modern Arab nations are only anti-Israel and have never been
anti-Jewish.”
FACT
Arab leaders have repeatedly made clear their animosity toward Jews and
Judaism. For example, on November 23, 1937, Saudi Arabia's King Ibn Saud
told British Colonel H.R.P. Dickson: "Our hatred for the Jews dates from
God's condemnation of them for their persecution and rejection of Isa
(Jesus) and their subsequent rejection of His chosen Prophet." He added
"that for a Muslim to kill a Jew, or for him to be killed by a Jew
ensures him an immediate entry into Heaven and into the august presence
of God Almighty."3
When Hitler introduced the Nuremberg racial laws in 1935, he received
telegrams of congratulation from all corners of the Arab world.4 Later,
during the war, one of his most ardent supporters was the Mufti of
Jerusalem.
Jews were never permitted to live in Jordan. Civil Law No. 6, which
governed the Jordanian-occupied West Bank, states explicitly: "Any man
will be a Jordanian subject if he is not Jewish."5
The Arab countries see to it that even young schoolchildren are taught
to hate Jews. The Syrian Minister of Education wrote in 1968: "The
hatred which we indoctrinate into the minds of our children from their
birth is sacred."6
After the Six-Day War in 1967, the Israelis found public school
textbooks that had been used to educate Arab children in the West Bank.
They were replete with racist and hateful portrayals of Jews:
"The Jews are scattered to the ends of the earth, where they live exiled
and despised, since by their nature they are vile, greedy and enemies of
mankind, by their nature they were tempted to steal a land as asylum for
their disgrace."7
"Analyze the following sentences:
1. The merchant himself traveled to the African continent.
2. We shall expel all the Jews from the Arab countries."8
"The Jews of our time are the descendants of the Jews who harmed the
Prophet Muhammad. They betrayed him, they broke the treaty with him and
joined sides with his enemies to fight him..."9
"The Jews in Europe were persecuted and despised because of their
corruption, meanness and treachery."10
A 1977 Jordanian teachers' manual for first-graders used on the West
Bank instructs educators to "implant in the soul of the pupil the rule
of Islam that if the enemies occupy even one inch of the Islamic lands,
jihad (holy war) becomes imperative for every Muslim." It also says the
Jews plotted to assassinate Muhammad when he was a child. Another
Jordanian text, a 1982 social studies book, claims Israel ordered the
massacre of Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila during the Lebanon war,
but does not mention the Christian Arabs who were the perpetrators.11
“We have found books with passages that are so anti-Semitic, that if
they were published in Europe, their publishers would be brought up on
anti-racism charges.”
— French lawyer and European Parliament member Francois Zimeray
commenting on Palestinian, Syrian and Egyptian texts
Jerusalem Post, (October 16, 2001).
According to a study of Syrian textbooks, "the Syrian educational system
expands hatred of Israel and Zionism to anti-Semitism directed at all
Jews. That anti-Semitism evokes ancient Islamic motifs to describe the
unchangeable and treacherous nature of the Jews. Its inevitable
conclusion is that all Jews must be annihilated."12 To cite one example,
an eleventh grade textbook claims that Jews hated Muslims and were
driven by envy to incite hostility against them:
The Jews spare no effort to deceive us, deny our Prophet, incite against
us, and distort the holy scriptures.
The Jews cooperate with the Polytheist and the infidels against the
Muslims because they know Islam reveals their crafty ways and abject
characteristics.13
An Arabic translation of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf has been distributed
in East Jerusalem and territories controlled by the Palestinian
Authority (PA) and became a bestseller.14
Occasionally, Arab anti-Semitism surfaces at the United Nations. In
March 1991, for example, a Syrian delegate to the UN Human Rights
Commission read a statement recommending that commission members read "a
valuable book" called The Matzoh of Zion, written by Syrian Defense
Minister Mustafa Tlas. The book justifies ritual murder charges brought
against the Jews in the Damascus blood libel of 1840.15 (The phrase
"blood libel" refers to accusations that Jews kill Christian children to
use their blood for the ritual of making matzoh at Passover.)
King Faisal of Saudi Arabia uttered a similar slander in a 1972
interview:
Israel has had malicious intentions since ancient times. Its objective
is the destruction of all other religions....They regard the other
religions as lower than their own and other peoples as inferior to their
level. And on the subject of vengeance — they have a certain day on
which they mix the blood of non-Jews into their bread and eat it. It
happened that two years ago, while I was in Paris on a visit, that the
police discovered five murdered children. Their blood had been drained,
and it turned out that some Jews had murdered them in order to take
their blood and mix it with the bread that they eat on this day. This
shows you what is the extent of their hatred and malice toward
non-Jewish peoples.16
On November 11, 1999, during a Gaza appearance with First Lady Hillary
Rodham Clinton, Suha Arafat, wife of Palestinian Authority Chairman
Yasser Arafat stated: "Our people have been subjected to the daily and
extensive use of poisonous gas by the Israeli forces, which has led to
an increase in cancer cases among women and children." Similar specious
allegations have been made by other Palestinian officials.17
The Arab/Muslim press, which is almost exclusively controlled by the
governments in each Middle Eastern nation, regularly publish
anti-Semitic articles and cartoons. Today, it remains common to find
anti-Semitic publications in Egypt. For example, the establishment Al-Ahram
newspaper published an article giving the "historical" background of the
blood libel tradition while accusing Israel of using the blood of
Palestinian children to bake matzohs up to the present time.18
Anti-Semitic articles also regularly appear in the press in Jordan and
Syria. Many of the attacks deal with denial of the Holocaust, its
"exploitation" by Zionism, and a comparison of Zionism and Israel to
Nazism.
Egyptian Daily Al-Ahram, (May 23, 1998)
In November 2001, a satirical skit aired on the second most popular
television station in the Arab world, which depicted a character meant
to be Ariel Sharon drinking the blood of Arab children as a
grotesque-looking Orthodox Jew looked on. Abu Dhabi Television also
aired a skit in which Dracula appears to take a bite out of Sharon, but
dies because Sharon's blood is polluted. Protests that these shows were
anti-Semitic were ignored by the network.19
The Palestinian Authority's media have also contained inflammatory and
anti-Semitic material. A Friday sermon in the Zayed bin Sultan Aal
Nahyan mosque in Gaza calling for the murder of Jews and Americans was
broadcast live on the official Palestinian Authority television:
Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country.
Fight them, wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them.
Wherever you are, kill those Jews and those Americans who are like them
and those who stand by them they are all in one trench, against the
Arabs and the Muslims because they established Israel here, in the
beating heart of the Arab world, in Palestine.... 20
Even Palestinian crossword puzzles are used to delegitimize Israel and
attack Jews, providing clues, for example, suggesting the Jewish trait
is "treachery."21
“Syrian President Bashar Assad on Saturday [May 5] offered a vivid, if
vile, demonstration of why he and his government are unworthy of respect
or good relations with the United States or any other democratic
country. Greeting Pope John Paul II in Damascus, Mr. Assad launched an
attack on Jews that may rank as the most ignorant and crude speech
delivered before the pope in his two decades of travel around the world.
Comparing the suffering of the Palestinians to that of Jesus Christ, Mr.
Assad said that the Jews ‘tried to kill the principles of all religions
with the same mentality in which they betrayed Jesus Christ and the same
way they tried to betray and kill the Prophet Muhammad.’ With that
libel, the Syrian president stained both his country and the pope....”
— Washington Post editorial, (May 8, 2001)
MYTH
“Jews who lived in Islamic countries were well-treated by the Arabs.”
FACT
While Jewish communities in Islamic countries fared better overall than
those in Christian lands in Europe, Jews were no strangers to
persecution and humiliation among the Arabs. As Princeton University
historian Bernard Lewis has written: "The Golden Age of equal rights was
a myth, and belief in it was a result, more than a cause, of Jewish
sympathy for Islam."22
Muhammad, the founder of Islam, traveled to Medina in 622 A.D. to
attract followers to his new faith. When the Jews of Medina refused to
recognize Muhammad as their Prophet, two of the major Jewish tribes were
expelled. In 627, Muhammad's followers killed between 600 and 900 of the
men, and divided the surviving Jewish women and children amongst
themselves.23
The Muslim attitude toward Jews is reflected in various verses
throughout the Koran, the holy book of the Islamic faith. "They [the
Children of Israel] were consigned to humiliation and wretchedness. They
brought the wrath of God upon themselves, and this because they used to
deny God's signs and kill His Prophets unjustly and because they
disobeyed and were transgressors" (Sura 2:61). According to the Koran,
the Jews try to introduce corruption (5:64), have always been
disobedient (5:78), and are enemies of Allah, the Prophet and the angels
(2:97-98).
Jews were generally viewed with contempt by their Muslim neighbors;
peaceful coexistence between the two groups involved the subordination
and degradation of the Jews. In the ninth century, Baghdad's Caliph al-Mutawakkil
designated a yellow badge for Jews, setting a precedent that would be
followed centuries later in Nazi Germany.24
At various times, Jews in Muslim lands lived in relative peace and
thrived culturally and economically. The position of the Jews was never
secure, however, and changes in the political or social climate would
often lead to persecution, violence and death.
When Jews were perceived as having achieved too comfortable a position
in Islamic society, anti-Semitism would surface, often with devastating
results. On December 30, 1066, Joseph HaNagid, the Jewish vizier of
Granada, Spain, was crucified by an Arab mob that proceeded to raze the
Jewish quarter of the city and slaughter its 5,000 inhabitants. The riot
was incited by Muslim preachers who had angrily objected to what they
saw as inordinate Jewish political power.
Similarly, in 1465, Arab mobs in Fez slaughtered thousands of Jews,
leaving only 11 alive, after a Jewish deputy vizier treated a Muslim
woman in "an offensive manner." The killings touched off a wave of
similar massacres throughout Morocco.25
Other mass murders of Jews in Arab lands occurred in Morocco in the 8th
century, where whole communities were wiped out by the Muslim ruler
Idris I; North Africa in the 12th century, where the Almohads either
forcibly converted or decimated several communities; Libya in 1785,
where Ali Burzi Pasha murdered hundreds of Jews; Algiers, where Jews
were massacred in 1805, 1815 and 1830; and Marrakesh, Morocco, where
more than 300 Jews were murdered between 1864 and 1880.26
Decrees ordering the destruction of synagogues were enacted in Egypt and
Syria (1014, 1293-4, 1301-2), Iraq (854-859, 1344) and Yemen (1676).
Despite the Koran's prohibition, Jews were forced to convert to Islam or
face death in Yemen (1165 and 1678), Morocco (1275, 1465 and 1790-92)
and Baghdad (1333 and 1344).27
The situation of Jews in Arab lands reached a low point in the 19th
century. Jews in most of North Africa (including Algeria, Tunisia,
Egypt, Libya and Morocco) were forced to live in ghettos. In Morocco,
which contained the largest Jewish community in the Islamic Diaspora,
Jews were made to walk barefoot or wear shoes of straw when outside the
ghetto. Even Muslim children participated in the degradation of Jews, by
throwing stones at them or harassing them in other ways. The frequency
of anti-Jewish violence increased, and many Jews were executed on
charges of apostasy. Ritual murder accusations against the Jews became
commonplace in the Ottoman Empire.28
As distinguished Orientalist G.E. von Grunebaum has written:
It would not be difficult to put together the names of a very sizeable
number Jewish subjects or citizens of the Islamic area who have attained
to high rank, to power, to great financial influence, to significant and
recognized intellectual attainment; and the same could be done for
Christians. But it would again not be difficult to compile a lengthy
list of persecutions, arbitrary confiscations, attempted forced
conversions, or pogroms.29
The danger for Jews became even greater as a showdown approached in the
UN. The Syrian delegate, Faris el-Khouri, warned: "Unless the Palestine
problem is settled, we shall have difficulty in protecting and
safeguarding the Jews in the Arab world."30
More than a thousand Jews were killed in anti-Jewish rioting during the
1940's in Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Syria and Yemen.31 This helped trigger the
mass exodus of Jews from Arab countries.
MYTH
“As 'People of the Book,' Jews and Christians are protected under
Islamic law.”
FACT
This argument is rooted in the traditional concept of the "dhimma"
("writ of protection"), which was extended by Muslim conquerors to
Christians and Jews in exchange for their subordination to the Muslims.
Yet, as French authority Jacques Ellul has observed: "One must ask:
'protected against whom?' When this 'stranger' lives in Islamic
countries, the answer can only be: against the Muslims themselves."32
Peoples subjected to Muslim rule usually had a choice between death and
conversion, but Jews and Christians, who adhered to the Scriptures, were
usually allowed, as dhimmis (protected persons), to practice their
faith. This "protection" did little, however, to insure that Jews and
Christians were treated well by the Muslims. On the contrary, an
integral aspect of the dhimma was that, being an infidel, he had to
acknowledge openly the superiority of the true believer — the Muslim.
In the early years of the Islamic conquest, the "tribute" (or jizya),
paid as a yearly poll tax, symbolized the subordination of the dhimmi.33
Later, the inferior status of Jews and Christians was reinforced through
a series of regulations that governed the behavior of the dhimmi.
Dhimmis, on pain of death, were forbidden to mock or criticize the
Koran, Islam or Muhammad, to proselytize among Muslims, or to touch a
Muslim woman (though a Muslim man could take a non-Muslim as a wife).
Dhimmis were excluded from public office and armed service, and were
forbidden to bear arms. They were not allowed to ride horses or camels,
to build synagogues or churches taller than mosques, to construct houses
higher than those of Muslims or to drink wine in public. They were
forced to wear distinctive clothing and were not allowed to pray or
mourn in loud voices — as that might offend the Muslims. The dhimmi also
had to show public deference toward Muslims; for example, always
yielding them the center of the road. The dhimmi was not allowed to give
evidence in court against a Muslim, and his oath was unacceptable in an
Islamic court. To defend himself, the dhimmi would have to purchase
Muslim witnesses at great expense. This left the dhimmi with little
legal recourse when harmed by a Muslim.34
By the twentieth century, the status of the dhimmi in Muslim lands had
not significantly improved. H.E.W. Young, British Vice Consul in Mosul,
wrote in 1909:
The attitude of the Muslims toward the Christians and the Jews is that
of a master towards slaves, whom he treats with a certain lordly
tolerance so long as they keep their place. Any sign of pretension to
equality is promptly repressed.35
MYTH
“Muslim schools in the United States teach tolerance of Judaism and
other faiths, and promote coexistence with Israel.”
FACT
While it is well-known that many Muslim schools in Arab and Islamic
countries indoctrinate students with hatred of Jews and Israel, it was
only recently revealed that similar teachings are prevalent in the
United States. Islamic schools in Virginia, for example, have maps of
the Middle East in their classrooms that are missing Israel. On one map,
Israel was blackened out and replaced with "Palestine." An 11th grade
textbook teaches that one sign of the Day of Judgment will be that
Muslims will fight and kill Jews, who will hide behind trees that say,
"Oh Muslim, Oh servant of God, here is a Jew hiding behind me. Come here
and kill him."36
The attacks are not only against Jews, but also Christians. Students are
taught, for example that the Day of Judgment won't come until Jesus
Christ returns to Earth, breaks the cross, and converts everyone to
Islam.
The private schools are legally allowed to teach whatever they want as
long as they meet state requirements.
A Los Angeles Muslim foundation insinuated similar hateful views into
the public schools. The Omar Ibn Khattab Foundation donated 300 copies
of a translation of the Koran that contained footnotes describing Jews
as “arrogant” and “people without faith.”37 After discovering the
anti-Semitic passages, the books were removed.
THE SITUATION TODAY
* The Jews of Algeria
* The Jews of Egypt
* The Jews of Iran
o Jews Arrested In Iran As Spies
* The Jews of Iraq
* The Jews of Lebanon
* The Jews of Libya
* The Jews of Morocco
* The Jews of Syria
* The Jews of Tunisia
* The Jews of Yemen
Notes
1Vamberto Morais, A Short History of Anti-Semitism, (NY: W.W Norton and
Co., 1976), p. 11; Bernard Lewis, Semites & Anti-Semites, (NY: WW Norton
& Co., 1986), p. 81.
2Oxford English Dictionary; Webster's Third International Dictionary.
3Official British document, Foreign Office File No. 371/20822 E
7201/22/31; Elie Kedourie, Islam in the Modern World, (London: Mansell,
1980), pp. 69-72.
4Howard Sachar, A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our
Time, (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), p. 196.
5Jordanian Nationality Law, Official Gazette, No. 1171, Article 3(3) of
Law No. 6, 1954, (February 16, 1954), p. 105.
6From a letter sent to M. Rene Mheu, Director General of UNESCO, and
reproduced in Al-Thawra, (May 3, 1968).
7The Religious Ordinances Reader, (Syrian Ministry of Education,
1963-1964), p. 138.
8Basic Syntax and Spelling, Syrian Ministry of Education, 1963.
9Religious Teaching, Egyptian Ministry of Education, 1966.
10Modern World History, Jordanian Ministry of Education, 1966, p. 150.
11David K. Shipler, Arab and Jew, (NY: Times Books, 1986), pp. 167, 170,
203.
12Meyrav Wurmser, The Schools of Ba'athism: A Study of Syrian
Schoolbooks, (Washington, D.C.: Middle East Media and Research Institute
(MEMRI), 2000), p. xiii.
13Wurmser, p. 51.
14Middle East Media and Research Institute (MEMRI); Parade, (June 23,
2002), p. 13.
15Jewish Telegraphic Agency, (March 4, 1991).
16Al-Mussawar, (August 4, 1972).
17Middle East Media and Research Institute (MEMRI),
18 Al-Ahram (October 28, 2000)
19Jerusalem Post (November 19, 2001)
20Palestinian Authority television, (October 14, 2000)
22 Palestinian Media Watch, http://www.pmw.org/ (March 15, 2000)
22Bernard Lewis, "The Pro-Islamic Jews," Judaism, (Fall 1968), p. 401.
23Bat Ye'or,The Dhimmi, (NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press,
1985), pp. 43-44.
24Bat Ye'or, pp. 185-86, 191, 194.
25Norman Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands, (PA: The Jewish Publication
Society of America, 1979), p. 84; Maurice Roumani, The Case of the Jews
from Arab Countries: A Neglected Issue, (Tel Aviv: World Organization of
Jews from Arab Countries, 1977), pp. 26-27; Bat Ye'or, p. 72; Bernard
Lewis, The Jews of Islam, (NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984) p. 158.
26Stillman, pp. 59, 284.
27Roumani, pp. 26-27.
28G.E. Von Grunebaum, "Eastern Jewry Under Islam," Viator, (1971), p.
369.
29New York Times, February 19, 1947).
30Roumani, pp. 30-31; Norman Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern
Times, (NY: Jewish Publication Society, 1991), pp. 119-122.
31Bat Ye'or, p. 61.
32Bat Yeor, p. 30
33Louis Gardet, La Cite Musulmane: Vie sociale et politique, (Paris:
Etudes musulmanes,1954), p. 348.
34Bat Ye'or, pp. 56-57.
35Middle Eastern Studies, (1971), p. 232.
36Washington Post, (February 25, 2002).
37Esquire, (February 2003).
From:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mf15.html
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