Arab and Islamic
Anti-Semitism
Raphael Israeli
Policy Paper No. 104, 2000
Summary
A mistaken perception has prevailed in public opinion which posited
that as the peace process is unfolding and the Arabs get to know
Israel and Jews more closely, the anti-Jewish, anti-Zionist and anti-
Israel stereotypes that were rampant in Arab thinking, and
consequently in their media and publications, might recede before
they disappear.
In fact, experience since Sadat's "Peace Initiative" of 1977 and up
until the present negotiations with the Palestinians and the Syrians
has shown, that those hateful stereotypes far from shrinking, on the
contrary, have been expanded and elaborated, drawing on "first-hand knowledge" to confirm and solidify the conventional derogatory
attitudes that had taken root in Arab and Islamic thinking vis-à-vis
the Jews.
Already in Sadat's times, when the Camp David negotiations showed
signs of difficulties, Prime Minister Begin was likened in the
Egyptian press to a "Shylock". Today, Tishrin, the mouthpiece of the
Syrian regime, denies the Sho'ah and accuses Israel of "Nazi
conduct" at the same time that it seeks to obtain far-reaching Israeli
withdrawal from the Golan Heights.
"Schindler's List", a movie which had nothing to do with Israel and
Zionism, has been banned in the entire Arab world, because it
"proves" the veracity of the Sho'ah, at a time when Arab countries,
including those at peace with Israel, hail as heroes, deniers of the
Holocaust such as Garaudy of France. Anti-Semitic broadsides are
rife in the Egyptian as well as the press of all the rest of the Arabs,
which lend prominence to the Blood Libel, The Protocols of the
Elders of Zion and other classical, European-originating, trappings
of anti-Semitism.
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