"You
know very well that the Zionists control everything"
- On the close affinity between Muslim anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism
Mårten Barck
Introduction
"Israel behind the attacks"
"The Protocols of the Elders of Zion"
The Protocols in the Arab world
Conclusion
Literature
News and commentary
Links
"Why do they hate us?" has been a question that a lot of articles have tried to answer since the terror attacks against America. Some have seen the atrocities as understandable given the foreign policies of the U.S.. The extreme form of this anti-American analysis can be summed up in the slogan "The Real Terrorist Works in the White House", aired by anti-war protesters. In it's more balanced versions this critique of U.S. foreign policies views the support of Israel, sanctions against Iraq and backing of despotic regimes in the Middle East as some of the reasons for resentment. This way of analysing the "root causes" of the terror attacks searches for answers in the current geopolitical situation in general and U.S. policies in particular.
On the other hand, quite a few commentators have pointed out the pathological dimension of anti-American sentiments in the Muslim world. Viewed from this perspective the hatred is so irrational it cannot be explained in rational political terms, but must rather be seen as a religious-ideological "myth". Kanan Mikaya summed up this position in The Observer:
"Arabs and Muslims need today to face up to the fact that their resentment at America has long since become unmoored from any rational underpinnings it might once have had; like the anti-Semitism of the interwar years, it is today steeped in deeply embedded conspiratorial patterns of thought rooted in profound ignorance of how a society and a polity like the United States, much less Israel, functions. ... Today, it has become a murderous brew of passions fuelled by paranoia and frustration. ... To argue, as many Arabs and Muslims are doing today (and not a few liberal Western voices), that 'Americans should ask themselves why they are so hated in the world' is to make such a concession; it is to provide a justification, however unwittingly, for this kind of warped mindset."
However, there's one aspect of this form of anti-Americanism which often is overlooked and deserves to be pointed out, as it is essential for an understanding of the virulent nature of the hatred and how it came to be a rationalization for massmurder. To grasp the depth of this anti-Americanism we must see it at least in part as an extension of the pathological anti-Semitism prevalent in the Arab world and more specifically as compatible with the myth of a Jewish world-conspiracy. In this essay I will concentrate on this belief as expressed in Arab media and other articles.
"It is an article of faith in many Muslim countries that Israel was behind the attack on the World Trade Center, with many citing as their evidence a "news report" that 4,000 Israelis called in sick from their jobs at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11.", writes Bryan Curtis in his article "4,000 Jews, 1 Lie - Tracking an Internet hoax". This lie is debunked not only in Curtis' article, but on Urban Legends Reference Pages: Rumors of War and CSICOP Hoax Watch as well. It seems however to be taken for granted by many Muslims. According to a gallup poll made in Pakistan "48 percent of Pakistanis believe Israel carried out the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon near Washington". This excerpt from an interview with the Taliban diplomat Sohail Shaheen, who acts as a spokesman in Pakistan, shows that he believes the attacks were a part of a Jewish conspiracy:
"He wonders aloud about the "Yahudhi" conspiracy, the Jewish conspiracy, that underlies the doubts of many Muslims about bin Laden's guilt. In Urdu, he says he prays to find the aslee mujrim, the culprit behind the Sept. 11 transformation of reality. He rattles off as fact a rumor that has taken strong hold over here: That 4,000 Jews didn't report to work at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11." ("At home with the Taliban" (Asra Q. Nomani, Salon.com, 2001/10/10))
The Syrian defense minister Mustafa Tlass also blames the attacks on Israel:
"At a meeting in Damascus last week with a delegation from the British Royal College of Defense Studies, Tlass said the Mossad planned the ramming of two hijacked airliners into the WTC's towers as part of a Jewish conspiracy. He also told the British visitors that the Mossad had given thousands of Jewish employees of the WTC advance warning not to go to work that day." ("Syrian defense minister blames WTC, Pentagon attacks on Israel" (Arieh O'Sullivan, The Jerusalem Post, 2001/10/19))
Even more telling is an interview with one of the leading Muslim leaders in the United States, translated by MEMRI. In the interview the Egyptian Sheikh Muhammad Al-Gamei'a, the Al-Azhar University representative in the U.S. and Imam of the Islamic Cultural Center and Mosque of New York City, talks extensively about the Jewish conspiracy.
"…it became clear to me that they knew very well that the Jews were behind these ugly acts, while we, the Arabs, were innocent, and that someone from among their people was disseminating corruption in the land. … When I asked them whether they had the courage to talk about it openly, they said: 'We can't.' I asked why, and they said: 'You know very well that the Zionists control everything and that they also control political decision-making, the big media organizations, and the financial and economic institutions. Anyone daring to say a word is considered an anti-Semite.'"
"You see these people (i.e. the Jews) all the time, everywhere, disseminating corruption, heresy, homosexuality, alcoholism, and drugs. [Because of them] there are strip clubs, homosexuals, and lesbians everywhere. They do this to impose their hegemony and colonialism on the world. … Now, they are riding on the back of the world powers. These people always seek out the superpower of the generation and develop coexistence with it. Before this, they rode on the back of England and on the back of the French empire. After that, they rode on the back of Germany. But Hitler annihilated them because they betrayed him and violated their contract with him."
"How would you feel as an American? Of course you'd want revenge. This is what the Jews plotted and planned. They used the Arabs to carry it out."
"All the signs indicate that the Jews have the most to gain from an explosion like that. … First of all, it was found that the automatic pilot was neutralized a few minutes before the flight, and the automatic pilot cannot be neutralized if you don't have command of the control tower. Second, the black boxes were found to contain no information; you cannot erase the information from these boxes if you do not plan it ahead of time on the plane. Third, America has the most powerful intelligence apparatuses, the FBI and the CIA… How did [the perpetrators] manage to infiltrate America without their knowledge? Fourth, Jews control decision-making in the airports and in the sensitive centers in the White House and the Pentagon."
"On the news in the U.S. it was said that four thousand Jews did not come to work at the World Trade Center on the day of the incident, and that the police arrested a group of Jews rejoicing in the streets at the time of the incident… This news item was hushed up immediately after it was broadcast… The Jews who control the media acted to hush it up so that the American people would not know. If it became known to the American people, they would have done to the Jews what Hitler did!…"
In the interview Al-Gamei'a gives expression to almost all aspects of the underlying myth of a Jewish world-conspiracy. "The Jews" control everything; "political decision-making, the big media organizations, and the financial and economic institutions". They "ride on the back" of the current superpower, i.e. the United States. They "control decision-making…in the sensitive centers in the White House and the Pentagon". They disseminate "corruption, heresy, homosexuality, alcoholism, and drugs" and they do this in order to "impose their hegemony and colonialism on the world".
This is of course a very powerful and dangerous myth. The widespread belief in it in the contemporary Muslim world can only be compared to the anti-Semitism in Europe in the 1930's, which, as Norman Cohn has pointed out, was the "warrant for genocide" rationalizing the Holocaust. More specifically, it makes it possible to understand the terror attacks against the America. If "the Jews" are believed to control almost all aspects of the American society they are in control of the only superpower in the world. From this perspective it's natural for a "true believer" to see America as the main problem, or the "head of the snake" as bin Laden puts it.
It also makes it easy to see how difficult it is for America to win the "propaganda war". If you believe in the Jewish world-conspiracy it means that the American government, military and media per definition are controlled by "the Zionists". Therefore, a believer can't trust their versions of who the perpetrators were or what the motives behind the war against terror are.
The "twinning" of America and Israel in this anti-Semitic worldview has been pointed out by Robert S. Wistrich, among others:
"Since the Islamic Revolution in Iran of 1979 (a pivotal event in 20th century history), both have been demonized and targeted as the source of all evil in the world and the greatest single danger to the Muslim umma (nation). ... Like most of the Western establishment, many Jews (and even some Israelis) are equally reluctant to grasp how profoundly anti-Semitic the Muslim radicals - and indeed the bulk of the Muslim world (by no means only the Arabs) - have become as a result of more than two decades of relentless intoxication by their medias, by their own intellectuals and religious as well as political leaderships. ... Was it an accident that New York was the prime target of the terrorists - being not only the financial center of the Western world, but also the largest Jewish city on the planet? Is it by chance that Osama bin Laden and the myriad groups that support him see their struggle as one against the "Crusaders" (meaning the capitalist, Christian West) and the "Zionists" (meaning international Jewry)?"
To best way to understand the mindset behind this conspiracy theory is to examine one of the most influential books of the last century, namely "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion".
"The Protocols of the Elders of Zion"
In his book "Warrant for Genocide", Norman Cohn describes "the myth of the Jewish world-conspiracy":
"At it's heart lies the belief the Jews - all Jews everywhere - form a conspiratorial body set on ruining and then dominating the rest of mankind. … According to this myth there exists a secret Jewish government which, through a world-wide network of camouflaged agencies and organizations, controls political parties and governments, the press and public opinion, banks and economic developments. The secret government is supposed to be doing this in pursuance of an age-old plan and with the single aim of achieving Jewish dominion over the entire world: and it is also supposed to be perilously near to achieving this aim." (Cohn (16, 22f))
The most infamous version of the myth is found in the pamphlet "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion", which according to Henry Rollin probably is the most widely distributed book in the world after the Bible. It claims to disclose the international Jewish conspiracy for world-domination, but is in fact a Tsarist secret-police forgery, which was published for the first time in 1905. "The Protocols" was used by the reactionary White Armies in the civil war following the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 to incite widespread slaughters of Jews. It's enormous impact in Germany between 1919 and 1923 proved to be even more fateful. In a conversation with Hermann Rauschning Hitler gave his view of it:
"I have read the Protocols of the Elders of Zion - it simply appaled me. The stealthiness of the enemy, and his ubiquity! I saw at once that we must copy it - in our own way of course…it is in truth the critical battle for the fate of the world." (Wistrich (90))
The Protocols in the Arab world
The impact of the nazi-version of pathological anti-Semitism in general and the Protocols in particular in the Arab world have been profound. The Grand Mufti sided with Hitler during World War II, Anwar Sadat congratulated Hitler "from the bottom of my heart" and President Nasser was a firm believer in the Protocols:
"It proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that three hundred Zionists, each of whom knows all the others, govern the fate of the European Continent and that they elect their successors from their entourage." (Wistrich (177))
Imam Khomeini also saw "Zionism as an enemy of humanity":
"At the same time, "Zionism" is presented by these sources not merely as a threat to Muslims but to all existing human societies. Its spirit has utterly demoralized the West, creating vice and immorality wherever it penetrates. According to the Khomeinists, whenever "the masses realize that their beliefs are being disregarded by their government, they can be sure that theirs is a Zionist government'. Following the advice of the Elders, the ruling "Zionists" in the West has allegedly encouraged trivialization, the dissemination of mindless luxuries, the disregard of tradition and faith; they have legalized prostitution, homosexual and lesbian demonstrations, and mass pornography, and brought about the death of "spiritual personality"." (Wistrich (181))
Anti-Semitism in Arab media is of course not limited to the myth of Jewish world conspiracy, but Holocaust denial, blood libels and comparisons between Zionism and Nazism fall outside the scope of this essay. However, the Protocols and the ideas in it are still very popular in Arab media. In their analysis of anti-Semitism in Egyptian media, the Anti-Defamation League points out that "Israel is often portrayed as the frontline of an international Jewish conspiracy. … There are several common themes… an international cabal of Jews seeking domination of the Middle East and the world; Jews controlling the American government. … Accusations of Jewish-Israeli domination of the United States are also constant. … One of the most enduring motifs of Egyptian anti-Semitism is that of a dark and unrelenting Jewish-Zionist conspiracy to infiltrate and destroy its neighbors in the region and take over the world". In the foreword to the Egyptian edition of Shimon Peres' book, "The New Middle East", one finds the following comment on the Protocols:
"When the Protocols of the Elders of Zion were discovered about 200 years ago by a French woman and disseminated in mans' languages, including Arabic, the international Zionist establishment tried its best to deny the plot. They even claimed that it was fabricated and sought to acquire all the copies on the market in order to prevent them from being read. And now, it is precisely Shimon Peres who brings the cutting proof of their validity. His book confirms in so clear a way that it cannot be denied that the Protocols were true indeed. Peres's book is yet another step in the execution of these dangerous plots." (ADL, Anti-Semitism in the Egyptian Media (1997), Conspiracy Theories)
Under the heading "Jews as World Dominators" ADL cites the following examples from 1998-99:
"In the framework of the cooperation between the Jewish Lobby and Israel on the one hand and the mechanisms of decision making in Washington, the United States judaized the American Foreign Ministry which has been a balancing factor in leading the American politics." (Al-Akhbar, May 9, 1999 "The Judaization of the American Foreign Ministry")
"A compilation of the "investigative" work of four reporters on Jewish control of the world states that Jews have become the political decision-makers and control the media in most capitals of the world (Washington, Paris, London, Berlin, Athens, Ankara) and says that the main apparatus for the Jews to control the world is the international Jewish lobby which works for Israel." (Al-Ahram Al-Arabi, September 26, 1998 (A summary of the article also appeared in Al-Ahram International Edition))
"There is a great Jewish plot to gain control of the world." (Al-Ahram, May 13, 1998 (article by Salama Ahmed Salama quoting Dr. Abed Wahab Masiri)In the official Palestinian Administrations newspaper, Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda, one finds, for example, these comments:
"Washington's decisions are not made in the White House, which is busy cleaning up its bed- rooms, but in the offices of Netanyahu, who is feverishly trying to recruit America and its allies to serve the hated agenda of the Torah." (From an article in the official PA newspaper, Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda, March 25, 1998)
"... 'Netanyahu's Plan' completely matches the foundations of the greater Zionist plan which is organized according to specific stages that were determined when the Protocols of the Elders of Zion were composed and when Herzl along with Wiezmann traveled around the world in order to determine the appropriate location for the implementation of this conspiracy." (Article in the official PA newspaper, Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda, November 30, 1997)
"We must act on the international level in the framework of a detailed information plan which will expose the Zionist-Colonist plot and its goals, which destroy not only our people but the entire world." (PA Agriculture Minister Abdel Jawad Saleh in an interview with the official PA newspaper, Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda, November 6, 1997)
"U.S. Ambassador-Designate to Israel Edward Walker 'underwent extensive hearings in the Congress or, that is, in the 'Council of the Elders of Zion,' in order to win his post.'" (Article by Hafez al-Barghouti, Editor, in the official PA newspaper, Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda, October 30, 1997)
"It is important to conduct the conflict according to the foundations which both are leaning on... particularly the Jews... such as the Torah, the Talmud and the Protocols [of the Elders of Zion]... All signs unequivocally prove that the conflict between the Jews and the Muslims is an eternal on-going conflict, even if it stops for short intervals...This conflict resembles the conflict between man and Satan... This is the fate of the Muslim nation, and beyond that the fate of all the nations of the world, to be tormented by this nation [the Jews]. The fate of the Palestinian people is to struggle against the Jews on behalf of the Arab peoples, the Islamic peoples and the peoples of the entire world." (Article from the official PA newspaper, Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda, summarizing the work of a Palestinian researcher, September 1, 1997)
The last example is taken from Shimon Samuels report from the UN World Conference Against Racism 2001, "On the road from Durban racism and terror converge" (Haaretz, 2001/10/10):
"So-called distinctions drawn between "anti-Zionism" and "anti-Semitism" were forever effaced when "Third World" demonstrators on Friday afternoon forced the closure of the Jewish Center, while distributing "The Protocols of Zion" chanting "Hitler didn't finish the job." ... The United States and Israel drew a red line, by their departure, for Europeans, Canadians and Australians to belatedly enter the breach and fend off Islamo-Arab extremism in the final documents. But the atmosphere had been poisoned and deep, almost geological, hate-lines exposed."
(Syrian Daily Al-Thawra, June 14, 1998)
The depth of hatred needed to rationalize the terror attacks against America can hardly be explained by U.S. foreign policies alone. To understand the underlying "ideology" I think it is important to analyze the conjunction of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism in the Arab world. Bernard Lewis notes in his 1987 book, "Semites and Anti-Semites" in regard to the anti-Semitic press in Arab countries:
"The demonization of Jews goes further than it had ever done in Western literature, with the exception of Germany during the period of Nazi rule. In most Western countries, anti-Semitic divagations on Jewish history, religion, and literature are more than offset by a great body of genuine scholarship.… In modern Arabic writing there are few such countervailing elements."
Abraham H. Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League, has put forth the following warning, which is a fitting end to this essay:
"Arab anti-Semitism, if allowed to flourish, could become one of the most destructive forces unleashed in this new century. History has shown us where anti-Semitism can lead. Combating it right now must not be the task only of Israel and organizations like the Anti-Defamation League. For the sake of peace and a sane world, responsible governments everywhere must start to speak up."
Mårten Barck
[Posted 2001/10/21]
Literature
Cohn, Norman "Warrant for Genocide" (London 1967)
Wistrich, Robert "Hitler's Apocalypse: Jews and the Nazi Legacy" (London 1985)News and commentary
"Syrian defense minister blames WTC, Pentagon attacks on Israel" (Arieh O'Sullivan, The Jerusalem Post, 2001/10/19)
"It is a clash of civilizations" (Robert S. Wistrich, The Jerusalem Post, 2001/10/19)
"Shifting Sympathies" (Newsweek, 2001/10/18)
"The American attack against Afghanistan is terrorism…" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch No. 288, 2001/10/17)
"Half of Pakistanis believe Israel behind US terrorist attacks" (hindustantimes.com, 2001/10/14)
"On the road from Durban racism and terror converge" (Shimon Samuels, Haaretz, 2001/10/10)
"At home with the Taliban" (Asra Q. Nomani, Salon.com, 2001/10/10)
"4,000 Jews, 1 Lie - Tracking an Internet hoax" (Bryan Curtis, Slate, 2001/10/05)Links
Antisemitism
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