On 3 August 2009,
the Vidal Sassoon International Center
for the Study of Antisemitism organized a special session at the 15th
World Congress of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem on the topic “Contemporary Antisemitism:
The European and Muslim Legacies.” The participants in this colloquium were
Professor Robert Wistrich, the Head of the Center, Prof. Irwin Cotler from
McGill University (currently a Canadian M.P.); Prof. Jeffrey Herf, a historian
from the University of Maryland and author of a forthcoming book on Nazi Propaganda
in the Middle East; and Prof. Menahem Milson of the Hebrew University and
MEMRI, who presented visual material on “Antisemitism in Arab and Iranian
Media”
After the session
the German research and journalist, Mathias Schuetz interviewed Prof. Wistrich,
who had initiated the conference, about the topic of this lecture, namely the
relationship and interaction between European and Muslim traditions of
antisemitism, past and present.
Mathias Schuetz:
The panel at the
conference was called “Contemporary anti-Semitism. European and Muslim
Legacies”. I’m wondering if it makes sense, or if one is supposed to make a
difference between European and, of course, National Socialist anti-Semitism on
the one hand, and Muslim anti-Semitism on the other hand. When you look at the
ideologies and their violent purpose, isn’t anti-Semitism rather a universal
syndrome which has to be understood without geographical or ideological
adjectives?
Robert S. Wistrich:
Frankly, I do not
see any contradiction between accepting that anti-Semitism is both a particular
and a universal phenomenon (there are some exceptions like China and India). There is no doubt, that as
with other ideologies and movements, anti-Semitism takes different forms in
various places and at different times. It is not exactly the same phenomenon in
every time and place, though, one can also see continuities that connect
the multiple strands of anti-Semitism throughout history. Even in an age of
globalization like today, it would be a great mistake to imagine that all
cultures are the same, that they all have the same mental structures, that they
have identical codes or customs. I think any historian worth his salt would
recognize that if you do not take account of the particularities, that if you
do not familiarize yourself with (or at least attempt to understand) a given
culture from within, you will not penetrate very far into its specific
characteristics. So, I think the point is that we have to find ways to balance
the distinctive features with the near universality of a phenomenon like
anti-Semitism, just as you would do if you examine other modern ideologies like
fascism or communism. You cannot simply ignore how it evolves in a particular
place. Communism in China or
Vietnam is not the same
thing as it is in Cuba or France yet it
was and remains an international phenomenon.
It is the same with
anti-Semitism. I think, therefore, it entirely legitimate to explore European
as opposed to Muslim legacies and then to look at the interactions between them
and how one influences the other. That approach presupposes that there are
clearly distinctive elements. The basis of Muslim anti-Semitism, its starting
point, is quite different from European anti-Semitism, but there is still
convergence. I believe that is one of the things which emerged in the
presentations at our conference in Jerusalem.
No less important is that we exploded the myth that Islam itself is free of
anti-Jewish elements.
M.S.: Yet there seems
to be almost a consensus when it comes to Muslim anti-Semitism, especially in Germany and Europe,
that there is no social or theological basis for anti-Semitism within the
Muslim world, and that it is an export product of 19th century
European colonialism.
R.S.W.: There may
be such a “consensus”; you would know better than me whether this is true in Germany. But
from my point of view it is a very serious mistake to assume that. It may be politically
correct to argue that this is the case, but as I already tried to suggest, this
is highly misleading. Look at the indigenous Muslim sources, beginning with the
Qur’an itself and what it reveals. That text reflects for instance the
antagonistic relationship between Muhammad and Jewish tribes of his time, the
fact that he waged a war against them in which they were eliminated.
Think of those passages in the Qur’an, and there are really quite a few of them
where there is a marked hostility expressed towards the Jews, as enemies of the
Prophet and of Allah and of Islam itself, references which claim that the Jews
had intrigued and conspired against Islam, and that they were its worst
enemies. This is an entirely indigenous Islamic product. It did not come from
outside, and it is right there at the dawn of Islam. At the birth of this new
monotheistic faith there is a strong antagonism, embodied in the Qur’an, which
has had, of course, tremendous influence on Islamic civilization, especially
today, in the context of militant and political Islam. But there is also the
Hadith, all the sayings contributed to the Prophet, the Sunna, and anti-Jewish
elements that I would say entered into the traditions and the folklore of Islam
over centuries. If you read Andrew G. Bostom’s anthology The Legacy of
Islamic Anti-Semitism, this is unmistakably clear. In my own forthcoming
book A Lethal Obsession. Antisemitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad,
I have analysed the consequences of this legacy more comprehensively than has
ever been done before.
The demonization of
the Jews may be less visible in Islam that it was in Christianity from the time
of the Church fathers. Early Islam lacks, for example, the harsh polemic literature of adversus Judaeus. There was a whole effort
that was carried through from the 3rd and 4th centuries
of the Christian era in Europe which aimed to
completely negate Judaism. You did not have something exactly parallel
in Islam, and that is why, until the 20th century, Islam seems to be
somewhat more tolerant, compared to the medieval Christian literature with its
sermons, diabolical myths and folklore. But this “toleration” had very strict
limits. It is not really tolerance in a sense we understand it today, it is
something quite different. Basically it says, as long as you Jews (and
Christians) recognize the superiority and the dominance of Islam, we will
tolerate you within certain discriminatory rules that are legally fixed. In my
view, the ahl al-dhimma, the pact that “protected” Jews and Christians
under Islam is, paradoxically, one of the explanations for why anti-Semitism
was initially more restrained in Muslim lands. The pact offered some protection
but it defined the Jewish status as subordinate, humiliated, inferior.
Ideological anti-Semitism was not therefore necessary as long as Jewish and
Christian subordination was so clearly guaranteed in Muslim law. This
humiliation of non-Muslim minorities ended with European rule. The beginning of
equality for the minorities came, ironically, as a result of Western
colonialism, European penetration and the emancipation from religious dogmas,
with more liberal ways of thinking and western ideas. Cultural and racist
anti-Semitism emerged as a vain effort by traditionalists, nationalists and
Islamists to try and restore a lost Muslim hegemony. This is one of the reasons
why it has been so eagerly embraced in the Muslim world during the modern era.
In many ways it reflects Muslim inferiority feelings and a deep resentment
towards the West. The Jews are, moreover, seen as advancing at the very same
historic moment that the Muslims are regressing in terms of their status. It is
also no accident that in the 19th century, particularly in the
declining Ottoman Empire, the European blood
libels (which were first adopted by Christian minorities) began to penetrate
the Muslim Middle East. The more uncertain, defensive and insecure that Muslims
would become in their own cultural identity, the more susceptible they seem to
be to European-style anti-Semitic myths.
M.S.: So after
all, would you say that this was a creation of the West, an importation of
anti-Semitism, or a local awakening?
R.S.W.: It was in
part an importation, but there were reasons why this transplant succeeded where
others did not. You have to look at why this particular “product” of
Western culture appealed to certain Muslims, especially Arabs. Even in
societies which were relatively moderate like Tunisia, a society in which
conditions were more favorable for Jews and for successful westernization, the
final result in the end was the same. In virtually all Arab lands the Jewish
minority either fled or was obliged to leave after 1945. This was not only the
result of the Palestine
conflict but also a consequence of the internal dynamics of Arab societies, of
the rise of an exclusivist Arab nationalism and an intolerant Muslim
fundamentalism.
M.S.: So one
could say that the worst images of anti-Semitism, the blood libel and the
Protocols of the Elders of Zion,
were imported but not the basic idea which stands behind these images?
R.S.W.: Absolutely.
The Protocols were a Russian invention imported from the West to the
Arab world but there are foundations in Muslim sources which explain why there
has been such receptivity to these European anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
Jews already have a negative image in early Islam of being treacherous and
manipulative, of working deviously behind the scenes to subvert and to
undermine the new creed. Islam, like Christianity, is essentially a dogmatic
creed, with rigid articles of faith. Judaism, while also rigid, lacked the
power or the desire to impose its core beliefs by force on others. In that
sense it was more “tolerant” of the “other” though not in a modern liberal
sense of the term. Islam seems to me, however, a special case within the
monotheistic family, especially in its contemporary militant form. It negates
both Judaism and Christianity while misleadingly claiming that it respects
them. In reality, it incorporates them, and they are ultimately expected
to dissolve, because everything that is good in Judaism and Christianity has
already been taken over and appropriated by Islam! All of the Hebrew
patriarchs, the Biblical prophets and kings are ipso facto “Muslim”. They are believers,
therefore they are Muslim... Any true believer is a Muslim by definition. So Abraham
(Ibrahim) is a Muslim, the first one. Moses (Musa) is also a Muslim, a model
believer– a major figure in the Qur’an. David (Daoud) and Solomon (Suleiman)
are Prophets of Islam. Is this tolerance? No, it is spiritual annexation!
What makes it dangerous is that mainstream Islam then accuses Jews and
Christians of falsifying their own Holy Scriptures in order to justify the
supremacy, finality and infallibility of the “perfect revelation” to Muhammad.
Christianity also
did something similar against Judaism but in a different way. It recognized the
Old Testament and then said that the New Testament Gospels had come to fulfill
the Old Testament. But it did not negate the Old Testament and it did not say
that Abraham, Moses or the Prophets of Israel were Christians. It asserted that
the Hebrew Bible predicted and prophesied the coming of Jesus, the “Christian”
Messiah. But it does not claim that Hebrew Prophets such as Isaiah were ever
Christians. Islam, however, regards the Hebrew prophets and Jesus as Muslims.
In the Shi’i version of Islam today, especially in Iran, where they have a more
apocalyptic reading of Islam, there is the belief that in the Last Judgment
Jesus will return, but he will return as a Muslim, alongside the Mahdi (the
Islamic Messiah) to redeem the world. This is evidently what Ahmadinejad and
others firmly believe and this scenario will probably be linked with a massacre
of Jewish “infidels” (referred to these days as evil Zionists).
M.S.: You named
the Qur’an as one of the sources of Islamic anti-Semitism. How great would you
say is the influence of this source, not only on Radical Islam, but also on the
“Muslim street” and in the Islamic Diaspora?
R.S.W.: I think it
has a very big influence today, more than ever before. In part this is because
contemporary technologies greatly facilitate its spread. But it’s not just
that. It is the fact that though there are such high rates of illiteracy in the
Islamic world, the Qur’an is known almost to everyone. Its reading is
essentially a recitation, the recital of the Qur’an. You know, here on Mount Scopus
or in Jerusalem
more generally I can hear the sound of the Muezzin every evening. The impact of
the Qur’an comes partly from the power of this recitation. The Qur’an read in
Arabic (or rather recited) has a rather hypnotic effect. It is less conducive
to critical thought, at least in its current manifestations. The more
fundamentalist and monolithic the interpretations of the sacred text, the more
hatred appears to be generated toward non-Muslims. So what happens is that the
anti-Semitic poison is tremendously inflated and highlighted in fundamentalist
Islamist readings of classic texts.
Imagine what used
to happen in the Christian world, for instance among Catholics before Vatican
II. There was a certain reading of the New Testament, in which the Jews were
literally sons of devils. Nobody could really contradict that, because it
became the standardized way to see the role of the Jews in the death of Christ.
Now, 40 years later there has been a positive effort to educate Christians into
new ways of thinking about how they should relate to anti-Jewish stereotypes.
But there is nothing like that today in the Islamic world. What you have is the
macabre domination of jihadist ideology and relatively little contradiction to
that until very recently. But in the last few years there has been the start of
a sobering-up. After all the jihadis have been killing Muslims in large
numbers! So of course there is concern, even in a country like Saudi Arabia,
which has such a great responsibility for spreading its very toxic anti-Semitic
version of Wahhabi Islam around the world. And now they, too, are worried, because
they feel endangered, both by the Shi’i Iranian threat and by Radical Islam in
general, the Frankenstein monster which they helped to create. It is
very late in the day to do something about that. Even now they do not stop the
vicious anti-Western and anti-Jewish sermons coming out of Saudi mosques. When
it comes to the Jews, the Saudis are hardly moderate, even though they are
sometimes depicted as a voice of “moderation”. So on this anti-Semitic issue,
whether it is Jews or Christians (but especially Jews) the Saudis bear a heavy
guilt.
The voices who do
speak out among Muslims, represent a small minority, and they tend to be more secular.
This is a problem because the room for secularism in the Islamic world today (outside
of Turkey)
is still not very great. Nevertheless there is some criticism internally, of
the radical anti-Semitic demagogy that has emerged in recent years. The
critique tends to come from more enlightened Arabs and non-Arab Muslims in the
West who are alarmed because they understand that anti-Semitism is a weapon of
religious fanatics who seek to limit their freedom to think differently and express
themselves. Or it comes from Muslim women crushed and enraged by a repressive
creed and codex that condemns them to servitude. But the dissenters are
isolated politically. It’s true, however, that in Egypt, there is something of a backlash
against extremism because of the growing fear of the Muslim Brotherhood. The
official Egyptian position towards Hamas is also quite cool (if not hostile)
and this is why there is a cautious political rapprochement with Israel on
certain issues. But even that is ambivalent as you know. On the other hand, the
scale of what is permitted in terms of anti-Semitic publications in a society
like Egypt
is very considerable and frankly shocking. If it happened in Europe
today all hell would break loose.
M.S.: At the
conference you said, that anti-Semitism is winning back its traditional
standing in Europe, partly through the Muslims’
Diaspora. Would you say, that the islamization or reislamization of Muslim
societies and, of course, of the Muslim Diaspora, can only be thought of as
being combined with the rise of anti-Semitism?
R.S.W.: Unfortunately,
I think all those trends towards Islamization are fundamentally anti-Western whether
in the Middle East or the Diaspora and usually
contain an anti-Semitic element. The fundamentalists who follow Sayyid Qutb,
for example, are almost invariably anti-Western and anti-Semitic.
Anti-Western means being opposed to pluralism, to liberal thinking, to
democracy as a charade and a threat to Islam. The capitalist West (and Communism
before it) were always linked by antisemites to the influence of Judaism, of
Jews and Zionism. There is not much distinction in contemporary Muslim ideologies
between al-yahud (the Jews) and the “Zionist conspiracy”. For the
Islamists the two are basically identical. The Fatah used to claim it opposed
only “Zionism” but Hamas does not make any distinction between Zionists and
Jews. Hizbullah sees no distinction either. Iran pretends that it only
denounces Zionism and protects its Jews. Demonizing Israel, however, always leads to
anti-Semitism in the end. Today, the semi-secular Fatah calls on Arabs to fight
the “Judaization” of Jerusalem.
They abhor the “Judaizing” of Al-Quds– their “holy city”. Worse still,
Arafat, Abu Mazen and other Fatah leaders always denied any historic connection
between the Jews and Jerusalem,
which is, of course, an outrageous falsification.
M.S.: So this
distinction between Jews and Zionism…
R.S.W.: It is pure rationalization.
For the Arab masses it means little and the Arab intellectuals have relentlessly
contributed to anti-Jewish incitement by their slanderous vilification of Israel and
Zionism.
M.S.: Of course you know Adolf
Hitler‘s sentence: “Indem ich mich des Juden erwehre, erfülle ich das Werk
des Herrn.” This is not perhaps a good
programmatic description for National Socialist ideology, but it sounds like a
good description of Radical Islamic ideology. Could one describe Radical Islam
as an executor of the National Socialist Testament?
R.S.W.: I did that myself
25 years ago! I wrote a book translated into German as Der antisemitische
Wahn, which, when you look at it retrospectively was really prophetic. At
the time, some “experts” tried to dismiss it, but they proved to be wrong. In
the English original, my book was entitled Hitler’s Apocalypse. That was
in the early days, back in 1984! I think that things are far more extreme now
than I would have imagined then. Yet I did foresee a lot of things that were
going to happen and pointed clearly to the totalitarian anti-Semitism of the
Islamic revival.
Today we can more clearly
perceive that the groundwork for radical Islam, was already being laid in the
1930s and 40s. Jeffrey Herf has done a very good job in explaining the impact
of Nazi propaganda in the Middle East, and how
sophisticated it was in terms of its appeal to Islamic tradition. The Nazis
adjusted their propaganda; they used the Arabist knowledge of German
orientalists as well as the presence of Arab exiles in Berlin,
who knew exactly which idioms to employ in their radio broadcasts to the Middle East, because of course they were talking in their
own Arabic language. Some Arab propagandists in Berlin like Haj Amin al-Husseini were
genocidal anti-Semites who openly approved of murdering the Jews. But, the question
we also have to ask, and I did ask it in my new book is why the wider Arab
society and its political culture has proved so receptive, so ready and willing
to absorb the worst features of European anti-Semitism. There must have been some
core elements in their own political culture and way of thinking which led them
to be so enthusiastic about Nazi anti-Semitism. Even if Nazi propaganda was unusually
cunning it could not have worked unless the Arab consumers found something
attractive in their message. No doubt, part of the explanation is political. The
Arab world from the 1930s to the 1950s was fighting against British and French
imperialism, and they were looking for an ally that would help them to liberate
the Arabs from the Western yoke. Obviously one would have to be very naive to
ignore this factor. Hitler in that context, could look like a potential
Liberator. But there were also elective affinities. The kind of people
who founded the Ba’athist Movements in Syria and Iraq in the early 1940s or the
Egyptian nationalists, like the young Nasser and Sadat who would carry out the
Egyptian revolution in 1952 certainly looked up to Nazi Germany. The German
National rebirth, including its anti-Jewish ideology, really appealed to them. The
Third Reich represented militarism, glory, obedience, national unity, a
messianic political faith and the removal of the Jews.
Of course there was
also the struggle going on in Palestine,
and to some extent the internal domestic situation in Arab societies, which
were still under Western colonial domination. The Jewish minorities were
regarded from an Islamic or Nationalist standpoint as being alien. For
the Muslim majority they were “agents” of the colonial West. In the last resort
the Jews would have to leave. That is what happened after 1945. With the rise
of pan-Arabism and pan-Islamism the future of the Jews in Arab lands was
doomed. Look, for instance, at Iraq,
already in June 1941. There was a devastating farhud (pogrom) in Baghdad, driven forward by
a Nazi-like Iraqi Arab anti-Semitism. A decade later the Jews of Iraq were
ruthlessly expropriated and expelled from the country. They had been citizens
of Iraq
and lived there for 2500 years, much longer than the Muslims. They were Arabic
speaking, integrated and prosperous. But there was an anti-Semitic war against
them, alongside the economic, cultural, and political war. Undoubtedly, there
was also a marked pro-Nazi propaganda. But the core influence came from Iraqi
nationalism, as well as the insidious presence of the Mufti of Jerusalem and
Palestinian exiles in Iraq
who incited to mob to attack Jews and seize their property.
M.S.: The final
effect was the same…
R.S.W.: The final effect was to turn Iraq into a judenrein (Jew-free)
society. That is exactly what happened in 1950-1. Indeed from 1945 to 1970 the
entire Arab world was ethnically cleansed of nearly a million Sephardic
or “Oriental” Jews. Nobody bothers to deal with that crucial fact. It has been
shamelessly flushed down the memory hole. Israel owes its existence, in part,
to that exodus yet remains strangely passive in evoking this dark half-buried
past which testifies to the visceral reality of Muslim anti-Semitism. The
Middle East conflict is not only about Palestinian refugees from Israel but it is equally about Jewish refugees
from the Arab lands and, of course, the survivors of the Nazi Holocaust in Europe.
This interview was
conducted with Prof. Robert Wistrich at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem by
Mathias Schuetz on August 11, 2009.