A Tsunami of Confusion - Antisemitism and the Arab-Israeli conflict

Tony Klug

Recent actions by the Israeli military in Gaza and Lebanon, and the responses to them, have prompted renewed fears of antisemitism among Jewish communities around the globe. Sir Jonathan Sachs, the British chief rabbi, had already warned earlier this year of “a kind of tsunami of antisemitism” [1].  By contrast, his predecessor, Lord Jakobovits, had exclaimed only a few years earlier: “For the first time in over 2,000 years … there is not a single Jewish community anywhere in the world where Jews are officially persecuted because they are Jews.” [2]

In a way, it is not surprising that even such prominent figures within the Jewish world should see the matter so differently. The whole debate in recent years has been marred by contradiction, confusion and more than a little dogmatism. How do we distinguish alarmism from complacency, paranoia from denial, objective analysis from special pleading? In short, how are we supposed to make sense of it all?

There is little doubt that there has been a marked increase in open antipathy towards Jews in a number of countries around the world, [3]  most strikingly among Arabs and Muslims. [4]  If this trend continues much longer, the mood it reflects could become firmly entrenched within these societies. While deeply worrying, there is no mystery about what has triggered it. Equally, it is not a coincidence that there has been a simultaneous upsurge in anti-Muslim and anti-Arab sentiment among Jews. [5] However, the contemporary mutual animosity – with an emphasis on its contemporariness - has relatively little to do with Muslim or Jewish religious beliefs or cultural traditions, which go way back and have much in common, but is primarily a tragic offspring of the territorial clash in the Middle East.

This is not a new or even a particularly controversial idea. Chief Rabbi Sachs himself co-signed a Council of Christians and Jews statement in January 2004 that included this passage: “We share with so many others a deep longing for peace, justice and reconciliation in the Holy Land and we believe that achieving this would help to make it harder for antisemitism to flourish.” [6]

Yet some voices from within these same communities are quick to deny any link between Israeli policies and anti-Jewish feelings. Rather, current enmity towards both Jews and Israel from within the Arab and Muslim worlds - as elsewhere - is explained as a phase in Jew-hatred stretching back centuries. The journalist Melanie Phillips promotes such a theme in her book Londonistan, where she writes: “the fight against Israel is not fundamentally about land. It is about hatred of the Jews” who, she says, are viewed by Islam as “a cosmic evil”. [7]  From this, it follows that the way Israel conducts itself is at most a minor factor in the hostility directed towards it.

This is certainly a convenient argument for those who have a political or ideological interest in making it. But the burden of the evidence points in the opposite direction, as exemplified by the Israeli-Palestinian accords of the ‘Oslo years’ in the mid-1990s which changed the whole atmosphere and shot up Israel’s stock in the Arab world and globally to unprecedented heights. In the same period, according to leading Jewish research institutions, “a general lessening of antisemitic pressure was recorded”. [8]

As for the claim of historical ‘Jew-hatred’ in the Islamic world, its validity has been repudiated by no less an authority than the veteran historian Bernard Lewis, a Middle Eastern scholar of impeccable pro-Israel credentials. In a presentation in 1985, he distinguished three kinds of hostility to Jews: opposition to Zionism, ‘normal’ prejudice (what Reverend James Parkes has described as “the normal rough and tumble between peoples” [9] ), and “that special and peculiar hatred of Jews, which has its origins in the role assigned to Jews in certain Christian writings and beliefs…”. [10]  Using the term ‘antisemitism’ to refer to the third kind of hostility only, he remarked: “In this specialized sense, antisemitism did not exist in the traditional Islamic world”. Although he held that Jews “were never free from discrimination”, they were, he said, “only occasionally subject to persecution”.

He identified three factors that gave rise to a more recent “European-style anti-Semitism in the Islamic world”: the rise of the European empires, the breakdown and collapse of the old political structures, and Jewish resettlement in Palestine along with the creation of Israel and subsequent Israeli-Arab wars. While arguing that antisemitism played a part from the start of the Mandate period, “the real change began after the Sinai War of 1956 and was accelerated after the Six Day War of 1967”.

What distinguished the 1967 war from previous battles was that it concluded with Israeli military rule over occupied territories that contained over a million Palestinian Arab inhabitants, a number that has more than tripled since then. In a pamphlet published in the mid-1970s - a relatively calm period in the Palestinian territories - this writer addressed the question of what effect a prolonged Israeli occupation over the Palestinian people was likely to have on Arab attitudes towards Jews in general:

“While Israel continues to rule over the West Bank, there are bound to be ever more frequent and more intensive acts of resistance by a population that is suffering the consequences of economic difficulties in Israel, that is feeling encroached upon by a spreading pattern of Jewish colonization, and whose yearning for independence is no less than was that of the Palestinian Jews in the early months of 1948. As long as Israel continues to govern that territory, she will have little choice but to retaliate in an increasingly oppressive fashion - just to keep order. The charge of the ‘brutal occupier’ which has been spread by Arab propaganda over the recent years and which (with notable exceptions) has been mostly unfounded will eventually, through force of circumstances, come to resemble the truth. The moral appeal of Israel’s case will consequently suffer (alongside the fading memory of the Nazi holocaust) and this will further erode her level of international support, although probably not amongst organized opinion within the Jewish diaspora. This sharpening polarization is bound to contribute to an upsurge in overt antisemitism, of which there are already ominous indications.” [11] 

It may be seen, then, that the signals were there many years ago for anyone who cared to notice them. The causes are not difficult to identify and the current manifestations are hardly a great surprise. There is no need for convoluted alternative explanations, even less so when they take the form of self-serving, post facto, rationalizations.

Although, in the quoted passage above, the term ‘antisemitism’ was employed loosely, the importance of the distinction highlighted by Lewis between the centuries-old European Christian prejudice with its demonic conception of the Jew and the more recent antipathy sparked off by a bitter, contemporary political conflict is compelling. Using the word ‘antisemitism’ to cover antagonism to almost anything Jewish, including Israeli policies, Zionism as an ideology, or even the existence of Israel, and then rationalizing this modern tendency by slapping on the prefix ‘new’ is not just simplistic and muddling but carries a serious risk of debasing the coinage. [12] On the other hand, it is not as straightforward as this, for in certain circumstances the different phenomena may blend into and nourish each other (what Dr Brian Klug has termed ‘poisonous intercourse’). I shall return to this matter below.

The point I was intending to bring out in the quoted passage was, in sum, that if any country in the world behaves - as a matter of policy - towards a captive people in a way that persistently defies international human rights norms and denies it freedom, and that a visible international constituency appears consistently to defend that behaviour, that constituency is likely increasingly to attract the animosity of a broad coalition. This is only to be expected. [13] The animosity may have nothing to do with the ethnic, religious or other affiliation of the constituency (thus in this case it need not have an ‘antisemitic’ motivation) but it might have everything to do with the posture the constituency publicly adopts and with the unpopular cause it vigorously promotes. To pose the question in direct terms: are Jewish communities around the world entirely blameless bystanders or hapless victims or is there anything they could have done or still could do to reduce the animosity?

By way of illustration, consider the following hypothetical case. Imagine that, in the context of a fierce, long-standing dispute, the state of Armenia captured and occupied a chunk of neighbouring Turkish territory, built Armenian-only settlements and highways, allowed militant settlers to intimidate local inhabitants, imposed curfews and closures, erected myriad checkpoints, roadblocks and forbidding barriers, demolished Turkish homes, imprisoned a large segment of Turkish youth and periodically bombarded Turkish-inhabited towns.

Instead of dissociating themselves from such conduct, imagine that organized diaspora Armenian communities in countries around the world - still haunted by memories of past massacres of their kinfolk - elected to defend and justify it in a show of solidarity (while displaying little tolerance for the growing band of so-called dissenters – or ‘self-hating Armenians’ - within their ranks).

In these circumstances, would it be surprising if a certain anti-Armenian sentiment developed in a spread of countries, not only among those who felt a natural affinity with people of Turkish or Muslim origin but also among others committed to democratic principles, human rights and international law? Yet Armenian communities, feeling besieged, isolated and misunderstood, might well put the animosity down to a historical Muslim antipathy towards Christians and a latent anti-Armenianism on the part of not just the Turkish people but much of the rest of the world too (which is not to say there might not be some validity to this in this or a comparable case).

On their part, the Turks and their supporters may investigate their own or Armenian scriptures to see if they could uncover historical explanations for what may seem to them like the cruel and treacherous nature of their oppressors. In this - hypothetical case – the search would possibly lead nowhere. However, an equivalent investigation targeted at Jews in the case of the very non-hypothetical Arab-Israeli conflict would be certain to produce the sought-after results, if only because of the ancestral battles that once took place between the Jewish tribes of Medina and the contemporaneous followers of the Muslim prophet, Muhammad. And indeed, following the principle of ‘seek and ye shall find’, the Muslim and Arab researchers have been able in practice frequently to dig out some of what they were looking for. In the late 1970s, this writer explored the political and psychological processes at work:

“That the Jews nevertheless persisted in denying the legitimate claim of the Palestinians required an explanation. How was it that an entire population-set came to support an ‘unjust’ cause? Often, this question seemed to invite the conclusion that the people in question were characteristically malevolent - a fact that was bound to be revealed by an investigation into their history and their religious beliefs. This, then, frequently became the purpose behind such investigations, as the Arab and
Muslim worlds devoted ever-larger resources to the task of re-interpreting and often re-writing the history of the Jewish people and the religious tenets of Judaism ...
Ancient sources, including the Koran, were cited to ‘prove’ many of the contentions of the Muslim religious leaders. Yet, the highlighting of such ‘evidence’ - plainly having ‘been in existence’ for centuries - was a recent phenomenon, stemming from the onset of the contemporary conflict. Clearly, it was this that inspired the selective search for such passages that spoke ill of the Jews.” [14]] 

That the search was indeed selective is attested to by other parts of the Koran that preach making friends with the Jews, commonly referred to as the ‘people of the book’. Indeed, in a footnote to the above passage, it was observed that it was precisely these more genial portions that spiritual leaders in Egypt were urged by the authorities to stress to their congregants during the two weeks of the ‘Cairo conference’, following President Sadat’s peace-seeking visit to Jerusalem in November 1977. [15]  This goes to show how need is often the mother of selectivity.

In general, Muslim scriptures are not bountiful source material for Jewish perfidy. It is not just that the messages they give out are not consistent but also that Jews are not an especial preoccupation of Muslim literature or culture. This is where bona fide antisemitic ideas and literature eagerly step in. Imported into the Muslim and Arab worlds where once it was alien, the antisemitic ‘explanation’ is now increasingly embraced by disaffected people with mind-sets primed to be receptive to a simple, it’s-all-the-Jews-fault, answer to many problems. In short, what profoundly distinguishes - and renders especially perilous - the Jewish predicament from the hypothetical Armenian one is that, in the Jewish case, a potent, ready-made, fully formed, deleterious ideology is lurking in the wings, ready to pounce and fill the gaps. Thus, what starts out as a political ‘anti-Jewish sentiment’ may, in given circumstances, metamorphose into a full-blooded antisemitism (of the classical type). The longer the Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues, the more such toxic slippage is likely to be in evidence.

While helping to explain the cause of the phenomenon, none of this of course justifies the rise of antisemitism in the Arab and Muslim worlds, or anywhere else. As with all dogma based on supposedly innate traits, it is obnoxious in and of itself. It also poisons the conflict and is intensely dysfunctional to a solution. As an explanation, it is a dangerous impostor: by masquerading as an analysis, it obscures the need for a proper analysis. As a strategy, it is counterproductive: indeed it was the spread of antisemitism that played the decisive role in winning so many Jews to the Zionist cause in the first place. And as a tactic, it is highly divisive: confusing and alienating Jewish sympathizers of the Palestinian cause as well as many others who despise racism of all types. Moreover, stereotyping one party is liable to prompt equally pernicious and ignorant counter-stereotyping of other parties.

The charge of antisemitism against Palestinians and others who champion their cause is often made too readily and too flippantly. It lumps together real antisemites - who are still around aplenty in and out of the woodwork and having an increasingly good time - with genuine defenders of universal human rights and other groups, not least the authentic victims of oppressive Israeli policies and those who feel a natual affinity with them.

Equally, many Arabs, Muslims and their supporters too easily dismiss the accusation of antisemitism as just a device for defending shameful Israeli policies. While this is sometimes true, the accusation is sometimes true too. There is a vital need for both sides to shriek a little less loudly and reflect deeply on their respective roles in enabling the destructive ideology of antisemitism to permeate, aggravate and complicate the conflict. [16]  Some leading Palestinian figures have not only acknowledged the infiltration of antisemitism into Arab society but have been outspoken in their rejection of it. [17]

Perhaps the most outstanding example of the fulsome introduction of classic anti-Jewish notions into Palestinian politics – and at once an indication of the relative shallowness of its impact - is the Hamas Covenant. Here is an extract from Article 22:

“With their money, they took control of the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others. With their money they stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein. They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there. With their money they formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, the Lions and others in different parts of the world for the purpose of sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests. With their money they were able to control imperialistic countries and instigate them to colonize many countries in order to enable them to exploit their resources and spread corruption there.  You may speak as much as you want about regional and world wars. They were behind World War I, when they were able to destroy the Islamic Caliphate, making financial gains and controlling resources. They obtained the Balfour Declaration, formed the League of Nations through which they could rule the world. They were behind World War II, through which they made huge financial gains by trading in armaments, and paved the way for the establishment of their state. It was they who instigated the replacement of the League of Nations with the United Nations and the Security Council to enable them to rule the world through them. There is no war going on anywhere, without having their finger in it.” [18]

Although the token term ‘Zionist interests’ is casually thrown into this extraordinary rant, the historical events alluded to, from the French Revolution onward, leave no doubt that the object of this calumny is the Jews in general rather than the Zionists in particular. However, the very crudeness of the propaganda illustrates its imported, undigested, unmediated quality. It is as if, with minor adaptations, it had been transplanted wholesale from the notorious Tsarist-era forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, or from a Nazi song-sheet, direct into the heart of the Hamas Covenant without having passed through the minds of the mass of the organization’s Palestinian supporters. According to one informed commentator, the covenant “was written by one individual without broad consultation. [19]  This is not in any way to minimize its appallingly racist content, but rather to contrast the import of archetypal foreign antisemitism with the authentically indigenous sentiments of anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism and anti-Zionism, all of which arose from the historical experiences of the native Arab populations themselves.

These are important distinctions for, to the extent that Arab antisemitism is a by-product of a contemporary political conflict, it may start to dissolve as a natural consequence of the settlement of the wider problem. But time is of the essence. The longer the broader conflict continues, the deeper will be its poisonous legacy. There may unhappily come a time when antisemitism per se will indeed take root throughout the region. In that event, it would not only outlive the putative end of the Arab-Israeli conflict but enormously complicate its resolution in the first place.

These are matters of serious concern not just for Israelis and their government. They could affect the standing and safety of Jews everywhere. If only for their own protection, Jewish communities around the world have a strong interest in distancing themselves from Israel’s repressive practices and annexationist tendencies. Beyond this, they are sometimes in a position to influence Israeli policies and – in concert with other concerned groups – to help bridge the gaps between the antagonistic parties. To engage in such initiatives would entail jettisoning their more common instinct of unquestioningly following the Israeli government’s cue, whatever it may be.

It is not as if Israel’s governments have such an unimpeachable track record. Former Prime Minister Sharon’s withdrawal of Israeli settlers from Gaza was lauded within Israel and internationally as a great achievement, as if he had not been principally responsible for implanting them there in the first place in defiance of expert warnings and at huge wasted expense. And for years, many commentators warned that if Israeli leaders declined to deal constructively with the Fatah/PLO leadership, they would end up with Hamas. So this really should not have come as a surprise either. Now, if they fail to deal with Hamas, they could end up with the far more perilous Al Qaida. Meanwhile, growing chaos and deepening distress are stalking the Palestinian territories. With a little more humility and self-reflection and a little less hubris and self-deception, the current predicament may have been avoided.

The election of Hamas in January’s Palestinian parliamentary elections is a watershed. Whatever else may be said of it, it exposes the fallacies of official Israeli concepts and represents a resounding defeat for Israeli policies and strategy. Yet, the reflex reaction of the Israeli government, supported by several allied governments, is to boycott and isolate a Hamas-led government and demand that it abandon all of its principal positions overnight and replace them with the policies of the party it had just trounced in the polls. Just to spell this out is enough to see how ridiculous and unrealistic this stance is. The new situation provides fertile ground for mature, visionary – and greatly needed - leadership on the part of leaders of overseas Jewish communities.

What is required at this point is an independent approach to the very people that the Israeli government currently views as its foes. Israel is a state and, like other states, its geopolitical circumstances sometimes throw up enemies and sometimes allies. These are not fixed positions. Israel today has durable peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, countries with which it used to be at war. On the other hand, Iran was once Israel’s chief ally in the region, and may again be so in the future. For years, the PLO called for Israel’s destruction and Israelis were barred from having any contact with its members. Then, all of a sudden, it became Israel’s peace partner. An enemy today is not necessarily an enemy tomorrow, and an enemy of Israel is not necessarily an enemy of the Jewish people. It does not follow that because the Israeli state chooses to shun certain parties, or vice versa, that Jewish communities elsewhere should automatically fall in line. On the contrary, reaching out and engaging with such parties and their followers at times of flux may be precisely what would be of most, all-round, benefit. It is, of course, a two-way street, but there is nothing to lose by making the attempt and maybe such encounters would engender some positive waves. Now that would be a tsunami worth going for.

Dr Tony Klug is senior policy consultant at the UK-based Middle East Policy Initiative Forum, vice chair of the Arab-Jewish Forum and a co-founder of the Jewish Forum for Justice and Human Rights. He has been writing on the Middle East for over 30 years.

1.  BBC Radio 4 interview, 1 January 2006: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4573052.stm
See also ‘The new antisemitism’, Jonathan Sacks, Ha’aretz, 8 September 2002

2.  Speech at Kristallnacht commemoration ceremony, 9 November 1998. Quoted in Antony Lerman, ‘Sense on Antisemitism’, Prospect, August 2002, p.34: http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/pdffiles/5333.pdf

3.  For anti-Jewish incidents reported in the UK, see for example ‘Antisemitic Incidents Report 2004’, Community Security Trust:
http://www.thecst.org.uk/downloads/Incidents_report04.pdf
For reported incidents in 15 European countries, see ‘Manifestations of Antisemitism in the EU 2002 – 2003’, European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia: http://eumc.eu.int/eumc/material/pub/AS/AS-Main-report.pdf
For reports of manifestations in Arab lands, see ‘Antisemitism Worldwide 2003/4: Arab Countries’,
Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Anti-Semitism and Racism:
http://www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/asw2003-4/arab.htm
For a more global perspective, see ‘Report on Global Anti-Semitism, 1 July 2003 – 15 December 2004’, US Department of State:
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/40258.htm

4.  See http://www.memritv.org/Search.asp for a wide selection of mainly Arab television broadcasts that illustrate this disturbing development. MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, is often accused of having a pronounced pro-Israel bias, which may well be the case, but the broadcasts speak for themselves. For example, on 13 May 2005, Palestinian Authority TV broadcast the official Friday sermon of Sheik Ibrahim Mudeiris, a paid employee of the PA, that was devoted to illustrating his theme “You will find that the Jews were behind all the civil strife in this world … behind the suffering of the nations”:
http://www.memritv.org/search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=669
For a notable example of how the antisemitic notion of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy has infiltrated Muslim thinking, see the speech of the outgoing prime minister of Malaysia, Dr Mahathir Bin Mohamad at the Islamic Summit Conference, 16 October 2005, especially paragraph 51: http://www.bernama.com/oicsummit/speechr.php?id=35&cat=BI
See also the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s description of the Nazi Holocaust as “a myth”:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/12/14/iran.israel/

5.  In both the Jewish and Arab/Muslim cases, there are also counter-indications not to be ignored. See, for example, Alif-Aleph’s ‘A Mapping Report of Positive Contacts Between British Muslims and British Jews’, July 2005:
http://www.aauk.org/media/AAUK_MapDoc_Final.pdf
and ‘Challenging stereotypes’, Tony Klug, Pax Christi Newsletter November/December 2005, p.3: http://www.paxchristi.org.uk/JustPeace/jp251_Nov-Dec05.pdf

6.  http://www.ccj-hillingdon.org.uk/antisemitism.htm

7.  ‘Londonistan: How Britain is Creating a Terror State Within’, Melanie Phillips, Gibson Square, 2006. Quoted and reviewed by Jackie Ashley, The Guardian G2, 16 June 2006, pp.6-9:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/politicsphilosophyandsociety/story/0,,1798994,00.html

8.  ‘Antisemitism World Report 1996’(covering 1995), The Institute for Jewish Policy Research and the American Jewish Committee, p.xvii.

9.  ‘A History of the Jewish People’, James Parkes, Penguin Books, 1964

10.  ‘Antisemitism in the Arab and IslamicWorld’, Bernard Lewis, Proceedings of the Eighth International Seminar of the Study Circle on World Jewry, 29-31 December 1985, published by the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, Hebrew University, 1988

11.  ‘Middle East Impasse: the only way out’, Tony Klug, fabian research series 330, January 1977, p.14

12.  For illuminating discussions on the importance of maintaining the distinctions, see:
‘The Myth of the New Anti-Semitism’, Dr Brian Klug, The Nation, 2 February 2004:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040202/klug
‘Goodbye to All That?’ Tony Judt, The Nation, 3 January 2005: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050103/judt;
and Antony Lerman (footnote 3)

13.  There is an argument, however, about whether the levels of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish animosity stirred by this conflict bear any resemblance to those found in comparable situations. See, for example, Prof Shalom Lappin ‘The Rise of a New Anti-Semitism in the UK’, Engage Journal, Issue 1, January 2006:
http://www.engageonline.org.uk/journal/index.php?journal_id=5&article_id=15

14.  ‘The policies and practices of the Israeli occupation and their impact on the economic, social and political structures of the West Bank: June 1967 to October 1973’, A.L. Klug PhD thesis (unpublished), Department of Political Science, Faculty of Commerce and Social Science, University of Birmingham, 1979, p.29

15.  Members of the international press contingent in Egypt at the time, including this writer, were informed by the head of the Egyptian press office of this advice given to the mosques

16.  In two articles, Jonathan Freedland called on Muslims and Jews respectively to do precisely this. See ‘The sickness bequeathed by the west to the Muslim world’, The Guardian, 14 December 2005:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1666871,00.html
and ‘Urgent need to address roots of hate’, Jewish Chronicle, 30 December 2005:
http://www.jonathanfreedland.com/articles/archives/000175.html

17.  For an insightful Palestinian examination of the roots and effects of antisemitism, see ‘The minutiae of racism’, Azmi Bishara:
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/667/op2.htm
Bernard Lewis (footnote 11) refers to a (non-referenced) book published in 1970 by the PLO Research Centre in Beirut in which the writer “protested against the use of such tainted materials, which ‘are regarded with contempt by the civilized world,’ and which dishonour and discredit the Arab cause.”

18.  The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement, 18 August 1988:
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/hamas.htm

19.  ‘What lies beneath Hamas’s rhetoric: what the west needs to hear’, Gabrielle Rifkind, Oxford Research Group, March 2006:
http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/publications/briefings/hamas.htm