The Big Lie About Anti-Semitism

This article was originally posted on Grizzly Groundswell


In the midst of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the great propaganda tool that Israel's enemies use-especially in the West- is that their opposition to Israel is based not on anti-Semitism (Jew hatred), but simply anti-Zionism. Let's look at Israel's most immediate enemies, Hamas in Gaza, Fatah in the West Bank, and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Hamas, which wrestled control of Gaza from Fatah, is clear about its goals-the total eradication of Israel. The Hamas charter states that negotiation is useless. It quotes fromn the Koran. It quotes from the hadith that "the last hour will not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims will kill them."
(article 7-Hamas Charter). Hamas' goal is an Islamic republic in Palestine under shariah law. Hamas' Al Aqsa TV describes Jews as "apes" and "pigs", (How often have we heard that one?)as well as "enemies of God".(Wistrich, Robert, A Lethal Obsession, Random House, 2010) p 762.

"My message to the loathed Jews is that there is no god but Allah...."We are a nation that drinks blood, and we know that there is no blood better than the blood of the Jews."

-Videotaped words of Hamas suicide bomber (February 2006)
-Robert Wistrich, A Lethal Obsession, p 757

The list of statements by Hamas leaders that refer specifically to Jews goes on and on.

On the West Bank, Fatah, the successors to Yassir Arafat, now led by so-called moderate Mahmoud Abbas, enjoy the favor of the US Government as an entity willing to "negotiate" with Israel. This organization, which lost favor in Gaza due to its rampant corruption still floods PA TV with all kinds of anti-Jewish fare. Abbas produced a doctoral dissertation in Moscow in 1983 that claimed that the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust was greatly inflated. (The other side: The secret relationship between Nazism and the Zionist movement-Wistrich, p 652).

In Lebanon, Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has called the Holocaust a myth. He was quoted in September 2001, he was quoted as calling Jews in general,
"Allah's most cowardly and greedy caricatures." (Wistrich, p 769)

Meanwhile, Hezbollah's spiritual leader, Sheikh Muhammad Husayn Fadallah, said in 1988: "The Jews want to be a world superpower. This racist circle of Jews wants to take vengeance on the whole world for their history of persecution and humiliation. In this light, the Jews will work on the basis that Jewish interests are above all world interests." (Wistrich, p 766)

It goes on and on.

Why is it that in Middle Eastern countries like Egypt, mainstream publications portray Jews in old stereotypical images reminiscent of Julius Streicher's Der Stuermer, the infamous Nazi periodical? Why is it that two of the most popular best-sellers year after year in the Middle East are "Mein Kampf" and the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", the latter a proven forgery produced in Czarist Russia to portray a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world.

Why is it that after 1948, virtually all Jewish communities (some 600-700,000 people) in Arab nations were forced to leave, mostly leaving their homes and possessions behind?

Why is it that Holocaust denial is so rampant in the Arab world?

"But we have nothing against Jews. It's only the Zionists."

That's the line that is necessary to push in the West, especially the United States.

Unfortunately, there are so many in the West-including a surprising number of Jews- who believe that if only there were no Israel- anti-Semitism would go away.

In my view, they are tragically naive. It's not about the land so much as it is about the religion. It doesn't take a ton of research to see through the lies.