It was always about Jew-hate; don't let the Islamists claim otherwise ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Monday, November 17, 2025

It was always about Jew-hate; don't let the Islamists claim otherwise

Sometimes the random forces of Internet searches combine in unusual ways.

As I browsed through recent Arabic articles with the keyword "Jews", I saw an article in the Palestinian Al Ray site from November 2009 pop up - I'm not quite sure why - describing how then-Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh insists that Arabs and Muslims are not antisemitic as he met with Neturei Karta "rabbis."

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said: "Arabs and Muslims do not hate Jews, and their problem is with the occupation stemming from the Zionist vision and the displacement of all Palestinians."

This came during a meeting that brought together Haniyeh at the new Cabinet headquarters in Gaza with members of the Lifeline 2 convoy , which includes four Jewish rabbis.

Haniyeh continued, saying: "But with such honorable rabbis who have expressed their rejection of the siege, aggression, and crimes, we have no choice but to respect these trends and appreciate this culture."

Another article showed up in my search, an except from the memoirs of the also-late Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf Qaradawi, that was released yesterday on his website, describing Islamist hate for Jews since the 1940s:

Throughout my secondary school years, the Palestinian cause was a vital and pressing issue for us. The Islamists were more invested in it than the nationalists; many nationalists didn't fully grasp the danger the Zionist project posed to the region. ...

We organized demonstrations for it, chanted slogans, delivered fiery speeches, composed revolutionary poems, and stirred up students and the masses to chant for Palestine. We seized the opportunity of the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration and other occasions to revive the cause .

The Islamists were the ones who were fully aware of the Jewish danger, its ambitions and goals in the Arab and Islamic region. At the forefront of these Islamists who were aware of this danger and its dimensions was Sheikh Hassan al-Banna,...

The year 1948 came and the pot was boiling over, and the training camps were receiving young men for a few days. Many of us were eager to fight against the Jews, but the decision of the “Guidance Bureau” in Cairo was that high school students should not participate in the jihad, and that university students and other members of the public should be sufficient .

No distinction there between "Zionists" and "Jews." They were the same enemy.

It is interesting to note that Qaradawi himself described being indoctrinated in this antisemitism - it started when he was in school, it was strengthened by chants and slogans, and propaganda prevailed over facts (he claims that no Muslims sold land to Jews in Palestine.) But these methods were not originally Islamist - they came directly from Nazi Germany.

The Nazis planted agents in Egypt in the 1930s to oppose the British there and they funded and trained the nascent Muslim Brotherhood, which led to its explosive growth. And antisemitism was a key component of their indoctrination. An influential pamphlet, Islam and Jews, published in 1937, has been linked to the Nazi-collaborating Mufti of Jerusalem and was spread widely in the Islamic world. The Mufti was antisemitic before the Nazis, but he partnered with the Nazis in their shared goal of the eradication of Jews and he was instrumental in the links between the Nazis and the Muslim Brotherhood, which included Nazi propaganda methods. When Qaradawi describes organized demonstrations, slogans, fiery speeches and revolutionary poems this was largely a Nazi playbook to use Islam to counter the British - and to use antisemitism as the lever to promote Muslims as helpless victims of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy.

Islamist antisemitism is a fact and it has become an important part of Islamist theology.