Kuntzel questions myth of ‘antisemitic backlash’ in the Arab world
It is commonly assumed – in fact it has become dogma in academic and political circles – that antisemitism in Arab countries was a backlash to the creation of Israel. Now in his new book Nazis, Islamic antisemitism and the Middle East, the German political scientist Matthias Kuntzel produces new evidence that the 1948 war against Israel was a consequence of widespread Nazi propaganda in the Arab world. For the first time, the 1937 pamphlet Islam and Judaism constructed a link between Muhammed’s confrontation with the Jews of Medina and the conflict in Palestine. This, coupled with six years of poisonous anti-Jewish Nazi radio propaganda beamed to the Arab world, and the rising influence of the Nazi-inspired Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, created a continuity between the Nazi war against the Jews and the Arab war against Israel. See his article in Fathom: Mattthias KuntzelThe United States: An example of how to not combat antisemitism - opinion
Why then is the role of Nazi propaganda and Nazi policies largely ignored in debates on the roots of antisemitism in the Middle East? A plausible hypothesis is that this pattern of omission reflects a desire to protect a proposition that is accepted as dogma in many academic circles: the idea that Israel, i.e. Jews, bears sole responsibility not only for the war in 1948, but also the antisemitism in the region. Claims such as ‘The spread of antisemitism in the Arab-Islamic world is the consequence of the Palestine conflict’ are widespread.
From this paradigm, numerous Middle East experts derive mitigating circumstances for Arab antisemitism. ‘Is the fantasy-based hatred of the Jews that was and still is typical of European racists … the equivalent of the hatred felt by Arabs enraged by the occupation and/or destruction of Arab lands?’, is the rhetorical question of the British-Lebanese anti-Zionist Gilbert Achcar. ‘Arab antisemitism, in contrast to European anti-Semitism, is at least based on a real problem, namely the marginalization of the Palestinians,’ insists German Islam researcher Jochen Müller.
This paradigm, which distinguishes between a Nazi-like European antisemitism and an ‘at least’ understandable hatred of Jews in the Middle East, hides the Nazi influence on the image of Jews held by many Muslims in the Middle East. And it has political consequences: the basic assumption that antisemitism in the Arab-Islamic world is merely a response to Israel and can therefore be downplayed as a kind of local custom is one of the foundations of German and European Middle East policy and may be one of the reasons why the latter refuses to decisively combat the Jew-hatred of, for example, Hezbollah and the Iranian regime.
It is, however, necessary to understand how strongly modern Middle East history is shaped by the aftermath of National Socialism. Only then will we be able to properly understand and adequately counter the antisemitism in this region and its echo among Muslims in Europe and address the political realities of the Middle East realistically and effectively.
BREAKING DOWN the report points to several underlying flaws.Russia’s remaining Jews must leave
First, as British columnist Melanie Phillip pointed out several years ago, even when condemning antisemitism, politicians and intellectuals feel the compunction to condemn “Islamophobia” and “all forms of racism” at the same time and in the same sentence.
This politically correct refusal to acknowledge the uniqueness of antisemitism (and the overwhelming preponderance of antisemitism, above and beyond all other hatreds including anti-Muslim hatred) demonstrates precisely that Jew-hatred. “People can’t stand the uniqueness of antisemitism because they can’t stand the uniqueness of the Jewish people,” says Phillip.
Second, the issue of antisemitism manifesting as mere anti-Zionism remains a flash point. As Prof. Eugene Kontorovich pointed out in rigorously erudite testimony given last week to the subcommittee on global health, global human rights, and international organization of the US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, referencing the Nexus document is an outrage. That document justifies double standards against Israel, while purveying the illusion that antisemitism is only such when it presents as pure unreasoned Jew-hatred or as stereotypes and “tropes.”
But this is demonstrably not true. Accusations leveled against Israel often resemble those made by antisemites throughout history. Kontorovich: “Instead of the Jews being accused of killing Gentile children, Israel is accused of deliberately killing Palestinian children; instead of Jews being accused of causing plague among Gentiles, Israel is accused of causing disease among Palestinians.
“And the accusation of ‘apartheid’ is a modern blood libel – an absurd ‘Big Lie,’ but inciteful in ways that cannot be rectified by mere refutation. Just as the classic blood libel resonated with the theological preoccupations of earlier ages, today’s claims resonate with the ethnic justice concerns of our times. That in our times several members of Congress can level such libels against the Jewish State without facing sanctions from their party demonstrates how dangerous ‘polite’ antisemitism is.”
The writer Peter Savodnik delves even deeper into this: “The American left has stumbled into the bottomless rage of identity politics,” he says. “They have embraced the new racial-gender taxonomy, which reimagines thousands of years of Jewish history into a wokified diorama. Today, the Arab-Israeli conflict can only be seen through this flattening prism, with Israel playing the role of the white, colonial settler and the Palestinian that of the settler’s dark-skinned, indigenous victim.”
“By squeezing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into the Procrustean Bed of left-wing identitarianism, the new progressives have alienated the Jew, who for the most part remains attached to the Jewish State, from the American body politic. By transforming the Jewish State into a force for evil, they have forced the Jew to defend that attachment. They have created a space separating the Jew from America, and, in that space, they have legitimized violence against the Jew for defending the indefensible: Israel’s supposed apartheid, colonialism, white supremacy, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.”
IN SHORT, by dancing around this core issue, namely that Israel is the focal point for much contemporary antisemitism from the Left and its intersectional allies, the Biden administration’s strategy is far less than it seems.
Third, because of the above problematics, one must wonder whether government-led programs help or hinder the fight against antisemitism. US presidential historian Tevi Troy details (in an enlightening essay in National Affairs magazine) Bush W., Trump, and Biden administration initiatives in this regard, reaching the conclusion that caution is warranted. These initiatives tend to create unwanted and unintended consequences.
“Sometimes an organization designed to address the problem ends up exacerbating it. The UN Human Rights Council, in which human rights abusers routinely condemn democratic nations, is a paradigmatic example of his phenomenon.”
The Biden administration strategy relies heavily on existing government-enabled diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives to address root causes and promote anti-hate education. This is a worrisome development given that some DEI offices are more likely to house antisemitism than to combat it. A Heritage Foundation study of the social media patterns of 800 campus DEI officers found that they tended to reflect a level of hostility toward Israel that went far beyond policy disagreement and often descended into antisemitism.
Enter (of course!) the Jews. Prior to the advent of the Nazis in Germany, Russia had the entirely justified reputation as the most antisemitic country on earth, subjecting its segregated Jewish population to gruesome pogroms and vile, demonizing propaganda. The hatred ran so deep that it even impacted Imperial Russia’s relations with the United States, when, in 1911, President William H. Taft abrogated a long-standing friendship treaty after the Russians announced that American citizens belonging to the Jewish faith were banned from entering their country.
A painful collapse of Putin’s regime could yet revive and unleash these historic forces. In the last week, the two Jewish clerics carrying the title of “Chief Rabbi of Ukraine” (the fruit of an unresolved 2005 intra-communal dispute) have warned that “pogroms” and violence could yet be the lot of Russia’s remaining Jews, urging them to get out as soon as possible.
The message of both rabbis to their Russian brethren was simply this: Whichever way this situation plays out, it’s going to be very bad for you. “I didn’t have a platform for this, I just tried to tell them through social networks: get out of there, because it might be too late,” Rabbi Moshe Azman reflected on his efforts to reach the Jews of Russia in an interview with a Ukrainian outlet. Separately, Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich opined that Putin’s much-vaunted philosemitism may be a phantom. “Putin has been president or prime minister in Russia for 23 years. Over the years, he expelled 16 rabbis from Russia,” Rabbi Bleich observed in his interview. “As Putin says that he loves Jews so much, I have a question: If you love Jews, why have this attitude towards rabbis and towards the community? Why is there often such antisemitism from the Russian authorities?”
In Israel, the discussion about whether to ferry Russia’s remaining Jews to their ancient homeland has picked up steam following Prigozhin’s abortive mutiny. Last week, Israel’s Channel 13 reported on a leaked document that discussed the possibility of a “large wave of immigration from Russia,” along with the need to “prepare for it while guaranteeing the proper functioning of Jewish and Israeli institutions in Russia.”
Meanwhile, in Israel’s parliament, opposition Knesset member Oded Forer, chairman of its Absorption and Diaspora Affairs committee, called on the Jewish Agency, which is confronting a legal effort by the Russian authorities to shutter its operations in their country, “to prepare an array of dedicated airplanes” to bring Russian Jews to Israel “before it’s too late.”
The coming weeks and months will be a test of the Israeli government’s commitment in this regard. It should be mindful of Israel’s rich history of advocating for and rescuing beleaguered Jewish communities in Yemen, Ethiopia, and, of course, the Soviet Union. Because the time for the Jews to leave Russia is finally upon us.
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