Tag: Islamism

Well, I’ve been back for more than a week, but reading Martin Gilbert’s latest tour de force, ‘In Ishmael’s House’ (published by Yale) whilst I was in Israel and watching the outbreak of the Egyptian popular uprising, which also occurred whilst I was there, has given me much food for thought.

So I thought I’d take the liberty of extending my Israel diary from the comfort of my home in England.

Firstly, for anyone who is interested in the experiences of Jews in Muslim lands from the beginnings of Islam in the 7th century right up to the present day must read this seminal book.

I must admit that I was pretty much ignorant of the history of Jews in Muslim lands with only a vague notion that there were good times and there were bad times.

This book confirmed that was the case. But it also confirmed that whatever the circumstances, however benign the Muslim ruler or government was, troubled times were never far away. Indeed, there are many similarities with the Jewish experience in Christian lands.

I was amazed that even comparatively recently, and certainly within the last 100 years, Jews have led comfortable, successful and influential lives in Egypt, Iraq, Turkey, Morocco and even Libya.

Jews have had positions of power and have been patriotic citizens of many Arab states across the Middle East.

Despite these sometimes protracted periods of affluence where Jews achieved a level of social standing, integration and honour far in excess of that experienced by their co-religionists in Europe, there was always an undercurrent of uncertainty and even fear.

This fear came from the dark corners of Islam where Jews were always the target of politicians and demagogues wanting a scapegoat or a common enemy to unite the people.

This undercurrent of Jew-hatred is ever-present in Islamic states as it has been in Christian ones. For decades, even centuries, it is suppressed and even legislated against, but the day always comes when Jews were murdered, dispossessed, dhimmified, oppressed, subject to medieval forms of treatment and humiliation, taxed, ghettoised, their civil liberties denied.

Reading the book has many moments of wonderful co-operation, mutual respect, neighbourliness, fraternity, friendship and decency. Such were the circumstances in much of the Arab world before 1947 on the eve of the declaration of the State of Israel.

But as soon as Israel came into being it released a backlash against the Jewish citizens of Arab countries which is rarely documented in the West and has been all but airbrushed out of Middle East history. Jews were expelled and their property and possessions taken from them or they chose to leave because of intolerable danger and random or orchestrated attacks. And when they left, it was usually with nothing or they had to sell off for a pittance.

This narrative is almost wholly absent from any discussion on Middle East history. When Jewish Arabs, as they often considered themselves, and many still do, arrived in Israel, where hundreds of thousands settled, they were absorbed, they did not remain refugees and never had that status for very long. They have never been compensated for their losses. After all, the vast majority never chose to leave their comfortable lives in Cairo or Damascus, Fez or Tripoli, Baghdad or Kabul.

It was Arab nationalism and  Islamic self-assertion and atavistic hatreds and prejudices which drove out the Jews. The Arab world has been made judenrein to a far greater extent than even Europe was during the Nazi period without, thankfully, the genocide.

A sad and little-known or acknowledged aspect of the modern form of Arab Islamic Jew-hatred has direct connections and dubious inspiration from the Nazi Jew-hatred. The role of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, in raising a Muslim SS Division, persuading Hitler not to allow Jews to escape to Palestine and even a suggestion from Gilbert that it was Husseini who may have given the idea of the Final Solution to Hitler, are all explored in this book.

How often do we hear that Palestinian dispossession as a result of a European problem with the Jews was an unjust solution to that problem, but we never hear how Islamic support of the Nazis in North Africa and Mesopotamia as well as Palestine was part of that Solution and actually assisted in driving Jews to the very land from which their Muslim opponents wanted them to leave.

Nevertheless, the Jewish civilisation and culture with all its glories and millennia-old history was swept away and all but obliterated within a few decades because the Jews dared to assert their independence and carve out a few thousand square kilometres in their ancient homeland.

The lesson from history is this: unless the Muslim states can, once and for all, disengage their religious narrative from hating or despising and certainly mistrusting Jews qua Jews, then peace and co-operation will never be possible.

It is this echo of the Nazi past that finds its modern extreme form in the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and Hizbullah as well as Al Qaeda and Iranian anti-Zionism. In its less overt forms it can be found on the Arab street and literature and the all too frequent presence of translations of Mein Kampf and the fraudulent and defamatory Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

There is an important linkage to all of this with regard to the current popular uprising in Egypt. Commentators are keen to point out the lack of anti-Western and anti-Israeli sloganising and banners in Tahrir Square and elsewhere. They do not show, however, an underlying anti-Zionist narrative that can spill over to bigotry and worse.

Many pro-Zionist websites are keen to find images of anti-Zionism and antisemitism from this uprising to support their fears of an Islamist, Muslim Brotherhood takeover. They tell us about interviews with elements in the crowd who tell us Mubarak was little more than a Zionist stooge, that it was the Jews who, in pr0pping up the dictator, were responsible for the Egyptians repression. These same websites tell us of those who want to attack Israel and destroy it, who want to ‘restore’ Palestine to the Palestinians, who still harbour a grudge because the Israelis/Jews defeated them in every war the Egyptians waged against them, occupied their country and humiliated their army.

It is hardly surprising that such views are held by so many in Egypt when, despite the ‘cold peace’ with Egypt for more than 30 years, despite co-operation in suppressing fundamentalists, border security, intelligence sharing, the Egyptian clergy, press and media have continued to pour out antisemitic vitriol poisoning the minds of the people whose Islamic culture has always allowed a space for Jew-hatred and suspicion. How often did we hear UK reporters say that all foreign press were suspected of being ‘Zionist’ agents.

Today came the welcome and stabilising news that the Egyptian army would respect existing treaties including the one with Israel.

History tells us we need more from this revolution. We must see a modern secular state that rejects Islamist narratives. We must see a proudly Muslim people with one of the greatest histories and cultures in the world realise that the democracy they crave already exists, however imperfectly, in Israel and that if they want true peace and prosperity they must continue to work with and improve relations with Israel, drop the antisemitic narrative and play an important role in spreading democracy to the entire region.

This will  have a far greater impact on peace and the prospects for Palestinians than cleaving to Islamist, undemocratic paradigms. The danger is not just the Muslim Brotherhood but a democratic state that, nevertheless, still hates Jews and Zionists and is prepared to do something about it.

We can only wait and hope.