Muslims Must Reject Anti-Semitism
By Nayyer Ali MD
Anti-Semitism, which is the term used to describe racism and prejudice directed against Jews, has been around for centuries in Europe. During the earliest phase of the First Crusade in 1094, as Frankish troops mobilized and moved through Germany in their eventual trek to Palestine, Jewish communities were attacked and slaughtered.
Jews were expelled at various times from Christian Spain and England, and everywhere in Europe were confined to ghettos and prevented from owning land or engaging in a variety of trades. Only in the 19th century were Jews allowed to integrate into the countries they lived in as Enlightenment values began to percolate through European society. But despite integration to a high degree, a backlash developed in the late 19th century. In France, a Jewish army captain was convicted on trumped up charges of treason in the infamous Dreyfuss Affair. In Russia, attacks on Jewish communities known as “pogroms” convinced many Russian Jews to move to the US. In Germany a virulent form of anti-Semitism began to gestate that would fully flower under the Nazis who would go on to kill half of Europe’s Jews in the Holocaust.
The treatment of Jews in Muslim lands has been quite different. Jews in the Muslim world were allowed to participate in commerce and trade, and were not confined to ghettos. Some Jews reached prominent roles in society. Jews were not indiscriminately killed, and generally had greater religious freedom in Muslim lands. This is not to say that they had full social equality with Muslims. Their status was not the same as a typical citizen of a modern liberal secular state, but in its place and time it was certainly better than Europe.
Jews, however, came to be seen in a much more negative light throughout the Muslim world after the Palestinian Nakba and the creation of Israel. Now Jews were the perpetrators of a massive injustice, the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians and the creation of a colonial settler state in the heart of the Middle East. As a result, the status of Jews all over the Muslim world deteriorated, which had the perverse effect of strengthening Israel as Jews from Muslim lands emigrated to Israel. Large Jewish populations from Iran, Iraq, Egypt, and Yemen moved en masse to Israel in the 1950’s. Small Jewish communities remain in Morocco and Tunisia, but for the most part, the Arabic-speaking Jew has vanished.
With the ongoing Israeli occupation of the Palestinians and their seemingly eternal subjugation, Muslim sentiment toward Israel has remained overwhelmingly negative. This has had two effects. The first is totally legitimate critiques of Israel’s policies and actions, and conversely support for the Palestinian cause. The second, however, has been the rise of Muslim anti-Semitism. This has taken many forms.
During the Second Intifada there was a deplorable celebration of suicide bombing of civilians in Israel, not just by Palestinians living under occupation, but by some Muslims around the world. There are some Muslims that traffic in vile stereotypes of Jews, and there has even been a resurrection of an old forgery that is passed around as proof of Jews grasping designs on the world. This forgery is “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, which was created by the Russian Secret Police under the Czar to smear Russia’s Jews. In Europe, there has been a rise of anti-Semitic incidents in the last decade. However, now they are often carried out not by right wing extremists, but rather by Muslims of North African origin, particularly in France.
Obviously, it is a lunatic fringe that is doing most of these things, but Muslims must stand against the entire notion of collective guilt that justifies the thinking behind these acts. Israel’s behavior is abominable and should be vigorously condemned and opposed. Justice must be achieved for the Palestinians. But Muslims should not veer into prejudice and racism. Jews, like everyone else, are not inherently good or bad, nor do they bear responsibility for the actions of Israel. In fact, some of Israel’s toughest critics are Jews, and there are Israeli Jews who are against the occupation and want the Palestinians to have their own state.
Younger Jews in the US are deeply troubled by Israel’s violations of Palestinian human rights, and they are not as attached to Israel as their parents were. Muslim anti-Semitism poisons the ground and prevents Muslims and Jews that share a desire for justice for the Palestinians from working together. It is possible to be against Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians and not be anti-Semitic. In fact, it is Israel itself that wants the two to be seen as conjoined. There is no better way to delegitimize the Palestinian cause than to label it as mere anti-Semitism. For decades Israel painted Yasser Arafat, the leader of the PLO, as essentially an Arab Hitler bent on a second Holocaust. Palestinian terrorism played right into that, until finally the PLO realized it was a grave error and gave it up.
The highest ethical value expressed in the Qur’an is the commandment to “do justice, even if it be against yourself”. It is easy to pursue justice when you are the one to gain from it. But it is much harder to do so when you are not. Justice demands the end of the occupation of Palestine and the creation of a real Palestinian state. But it is wrong to pursue that fair end with foul means. Muslims have no choice but to use just methods if they wish to fulfil the Qur’an’s commands. Terrorism against civilians cannot be the way to freedom for the Palestinians, and anti-Semitism cannot be the path that Muslims around the world tread on in support of the Palestinian cause.
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