Examples of anti-Semitism in the Arab and Muslim world
   
 
Saudi Arabia
 

Anti-Semitic publications in Saudi Arabia take their inspiration from both radical Islam and classic Christian-European anti-Semitism. In such publications (including textbooks) the Jews are almost always portrait as enemies of Islam. Accordingly, they have negative characteristics which are transmitted genetically from one generation to the next and, by conquering Islamic lands, they made themselves unworthy of [Allah's] protection, and it is therefore permissible to kill them. In the wake of American pressure resulting from the current war on terror, during the last year the Saudis have, to a certain degree, moderated their anti-Semitic propaganda.
Articles in newspapers

Ritual murder

The following are excerpts from an article by Dr. 'Umymah Ahmed al-Jalahima which was published in a Saudi daily newspaper identified with the Saudi royal family ( Al-Riyadh Internet edition, March 10, 2002):

 

“During the Purim festival [while every Jew/ess in required to dress up in fancy dress and a special cookie known traditionally as "Haman Tashen" [Haman's Ear] is baked, and made traditionally with poppy seed, to commemorate this festival] the Jews bake a cookie whose ingredients are neither expensive nor hard to come by, but one special ingredient cannot be found in local and international markets, and unfortunately it has no substitutes and cannot be omitted. The ingredient in question is human blood . In other words, [the Jews] cannot perform their holiday ceremonies without bloodletting … That fact has been proved throughout human history, and it was the main reason for the oppression of the Jews in Europe and Asia .”

“The festival [Purim] begins on the 13 th day of March with a fast in memory of the Jewess Esther. The following day the Jews wear masks and costumes, drink large quantities of wine, commit adultery and behave wildly. The blood used in baking the cookie must come from a non-Jewish youth, that is, Christian or Muslim, and their religious scholars knead it into the dough. As for the Passover [Matza; i.e., unleavened bread], the blood [needed for its preparation] must come from a Christian child younger than 10 years of age .”

To return to the issue of bloodletting: the victim is put into a barrel which has been made to measure for him, into which very sharp needles are then fitted. The needles pierce the skin of the body in the barrel . The aim is to have the blood run out very slowly to torture the victim. The torture delights the bloodthirsty Jews watching the act with a love and joy which are difficult to understand . After the barbaric deed has been performed the Jews take the blood, which has been collected in a vessel, and bring it to a religious Jewish scholar who uses it to prepare the dough for the cookie [i.e., the Matza] . There is another way to get the blood, namely by slaughtering the victim or by cutting his arteries in several places . Humanity is revolted by the very sight of the Jews' cookie, to say nothing or the way it is made or of eating it.”
 

[ Note : The second installment of the article, which appeared on March 12, 2002 describes the Book of Esther as it relates to the Jewish custom of using human blood: how Queen Esther was responsible for the hanging of Haman and his 10 sons, and how she ordered 750,000 enemies of the Jews to be executed. “Thus the holy Torah teaches the Jews to be happy on that day, and their happiness is incomplete if they do not eat bread made with human blood .”

Reactions to the article (taken from the MEMRI Website) :
 

Turki Al-Sudairi, the editor of the daily newspaper Al-Riyadh , said: “I examined the article and I found it unfit for publication because it was not based on scientific or historical fact, and was incompatible with the rituals of all known religions, including Hinduism and Buddhism… the information included in the article is no different from the nonsense one always finds in yellow journalism, whose reliability is questionable ” (Al-Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, March 19, 2002).

Othman Mahmud al-Sini, who writes a column for Al-Wattan : “When 'Umaymah al-Jalahima wrote about the danger of Zion and the blood the Jews must have to make their baked goods for the Purim festival, the Western press rose against her. Richard Boucher , American State Department spokesperson, announced that it had no basis in fact and only served to inflame emotions and that anti-Semitism was still a problem in the news media which enjoyed government protection… He made no reference to Christian literature dealing with the bloody Purim festival although the relation between Jews and blood is ancient and was even noted in [famous Shakespearian play] The Merchant of Venice , in which the Jew Shylock wants a pound of flesh from the play's [main] hero to pay the debt owed him [this motif will be mentioned again in the sections dealing the Gulf States and Jordan]. In my opinion, the many stories dealing with the [Jewish] festive pf Purim are useless. Whether the story is true or false is not our business the current crimes of the Jews do not require assistance from historical stories, which may or may not be true …” (Al-Wattan, Saudi Arabia, April 1, 2002).

The murder of non-Jews for ritual purposes and the corruption of Israeli society : excerpts from an article by Dr. Muhammad bin Saad al-Shwier, who writes a daily column for Al-Jezeera and was advisor to the late Saudi Arabian Mufti Sheikh ‘Abdallah bin Baz, and is the editor-in-chief of Islamic Research, a periodical published by the Association of Saudi Arabian Muslim Religious Scholars. The article appeared in the Saudi Arabian daily Al-Jezeera on September 6, 2002 (taken from the MEMRI Internet site):
 

“The Jews have been known for their treachery and faithlessness since the earliest days of [ancient] history. Because they hate everyone and desire revenge against the entire human race, their guiding principle is that "the ends justify the means" . They feel themselves entitled to the property of anyone who is not Jewish and call them [all non-Jewish] Gentiles.”

“Because they are weak, their hatred appears in the form of the schemes they devise, the traps they set and the intrigues they plot . When their usual means cannot be used they find strange ways to harm other people and nations, especially Christians and Muslims.”

“Christian Europe demonstrated its hatred toward them when it became clear that their [the Jews'] rabbis used [dirty] tricks to hunt down people who were alone [and tempted] them to enter the houses in which the Jews performed their [religious] rituals. Then they would take those people's blood to make baked goods as part of their festival rites … When many such incidents occurred, the security forces [of the Arab and Muslim countries] followed [them] until they caught the [Jewish] rabbis red-handed .”

In the book The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the Teachings of the Talmud by Shawqi ‘Abd al-Nasser, the 24 th Protocol appears presenting the goals the Jews aspire to by means of their [dirty] tricks, false alliances and treachery. The free world - especially the West and the United States, where the intentions of the Jews have been revealed - must pay attention to them. The Jews gnaw at society like a worm burrowing into wood and gnawing at it until it has been eaten away although nothing can be seen from the outside. [The West and the United States] must [therefore] awaken and support the Muslims against [the Jews] before it is too late .”

 
 
Accusation against the Jews for having biased American policy as a result of
protests against the aforementioned article by Dr. Jalahima
A column in the daily paper Al-Wattan by Eid Falih al-Ghamidi accused the Jews of biasing American policy: “Every day the lie of democracy is exposed in the land of the cowboys (i.e., the United States). Every day we become more and more convinced that everything in the United States is biased in favor of the Jews. The latest scandal was the amazing, loathsome message from the American government broadcast by the Voice of America last week which called for the Saudi Arabian government and the governments of other Arab states to strongly and effectively intervene to stop the media attacks which in American opinion encourage hatred against the Jews… It never occurred to [the American government] that every minute of the day the Jewish rabbis disseminate their evil and hatred for all Arabs . The United States never interested itself in the overt call of the Jews not only for the world to hate the Arabs but to kill them as well !” (Al-Wattan, Saudi Arabia, March 29, 2002).

 

Cartoons
 

The symbol of the “Jewish snake” in various contexts


Al-Wattan, October 3, 2002 [in the form of the Israeli anti-Terror fence]



Al-Wattan, September 23, 2003 [in the form of a snake receiving a V.I.P welcome, most probably into the Arab world, as a result of the peace process in the Middle East]
 

Al-Wattan, September 3, 2003 [in the form of a snake making a hole in the door of Iraq thus paving the way for the American army]

The Jews control American policy


The lobbying Zionist represented as Satan Al-Riyadh, August 9, 2003


Al-Riyadh, August 13, 2003


Al-Riyadh, August 22, 2003

The "classic" Jewish Stereotype


Detachment/Disengagement – [from] the Palestinian problem
(Al-Youm,
Saudi Arabia, January 10, 2004)
 

The rights of the Palestinian people – the right to self-determination (Al-Youm, Saudi Arabia, January 9, 2004)

The Jewish-Nazi motif


The two sides of the coin (Al-Youm, Saudi Arabia, August 8, 2003)
 
Books
Radical religious Islam and anti-Semitism: In a book published in Egypt, a Saudi Arabian lecturer, an “educator” who wrote Islamic books for adults and youth, hurls vicious anti-Semitic epithets at the Jews and preaches to Muslim youth to set out on a jihad [holy war] against the West and its values.


So That The Youth Will Know


Author : ‘Abdallah Nasih 'Alwan
Publisher : Dar al-Salaam, Cairo
Date of publication
: 1998 (Second edition)

So That The Youth Will Know , supposedly an educational book for young Muslims, reflects the radical worldview of the Muslim Brotherhood and uses crude anti-Semitic language in reference to the Jews . Emphasis is put on the various elements of jihad, including glorifying the value of the death of a martyr for the sake of Allah, which the author elevates to the rank of “to be or not to be” for what he perceives as [the ultimate mission of] the true Islam. The book, which was a bestseller in Egypt, clearly reflects the ideology advocated by bin Laden and his supporters .
The following are excerpts from the book:
 

“It is the duty of Muslims to make the entire world [!] subservient to the rule of Allah , and to fight every despotic ruler presenting an obstacle to [spreading] the message of Islam to the nations of the world…” (p. 98). “When the Islamic state becomes a reality and Muslims have a religious ruler [Imam] to unite them, it will be the duty of the Muslim nation to make the world subservient to the rule of Allah . Then militant jihad will be carried out within ‘the house of war' ( Dar al-Harb )” (p. 100).

“No nation, in the past or in modern times, has hoisted the flag of deceit, evil and treachery as have the Jews . Throughout history and throughout the world, no member of the human race has acted with such evil and corruption and created such conflicts among nations as have the Jews” (pp. 23-24).

“One of the things you must be aware of is the schemes devised by the Zionists, Freemasons, Crusaders and Communists , all of whose goal is to corrupt Islamic societies with wine and sex and by releasing restraints on the baser instincts” (p. 136). “In The Protocols of the Elders of Zion it is written: ‘We must act to undermine morality everywhere, and then it will be easier for us to take control' [of the word]” (p. 137).
“In their Protocols the Jews proclaimed that they were making every effort to corrupt human conscience by casting doubt upon morality and religious beliefs, and that they take under their wing any person who is diabolical and an abomination, who on one occasion calls for the destruction of religious faith and on another for the destruction of virtue” (p. 137).

“The Jews have advanced so far down the path of corrupting humanity that they have devised a method and begun to apply it. They do it by means of the communications media, publishing houses, the theatre, movies and radio, aided by the treacherous collaborators whose pens they have bought . Their baseness and deceit have made it possible for them to corrupt entire nations . Their wiles and slyness have made it possible for them to control the university departments of psychology and social science in Europe, the United States and most of the Middle Eastern countries” (p. 139).

It is particularly important to note that So That The Youth Will Know was a best-seller (having gone through at least 9 printings!) in Egypt before 9/11 . It should also be remembered that it was written by an academic scholar, “an educator,” who wrote other books dealing with Islamic topics (such as raising children in Islam) for both adults and young people. His other books also combine radical Islamic views with anti-Semitism, for example, Islam and the Palestinian Viewpoint , published by Dar al-Salaam in 2001. Finally, despite the fact that the book is directed against “infidel” Arab régimes, and by implication the Egyptian as well, the Egyptian government never prevented the books from being widely reprinted and sold!


Education

Anti-Semitism in the Saudi Arabian educational system: an excerpt from an op-ed (Hebrew) article by senior Israeli journalist and commentator on Arab and Islamic Affairs, Tzvi Bar-el, in the respected Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz, February 16, 2002, entitled “We won't stop educating toward the defeat of the Jews ”
“…and there is one issue that is being talked about a lot in the streets of Riyadh and has become the focus of the disagreement between the American government and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia invested millions of dollars in establishing religious schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan and other Muslim countries. According to Hamid Gul, former director-general of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (and currently strategic adviser to Pakistan's radical Islamic parties), Saudi Arabia allotted $10 billion, far more than the Iranians, to financing religious activity in Islamic countries. The budget was the result of a compromise between the radical Muslim groups in Saudi Arabia and the royal family, which felt that responding positively to their demand would buy the kingdom internal peace and quiet".

“However, the American government now demands that the educational system, especially within Saudi Arabia, change its curriculum to remove anti-Western and anti-Jewish propaganda from the textbooks and stop advocating attacks against those two targets. Textbooks geared to elementary school students in Saudi Arabia contain interpretations for well-known sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, at the end of which are questions, for example, “Who will defeat the Jews?” or a question for class discussion, “Will the Jews and Christians ever recognize Islam and why?” In another exercise the students are required to name 4 factors which will assure the victory of Muslims over their enemies. In textbooks of Qur'anic interpretations there are detailed explanations as to why the Banu Nadir Jewish tribe was exiled by the Prophet Muhammad: “It was because God is merciful that they were only exiled. Otherwise it would have been necessary to punish them with torture and death because they acted against the will of God.”

In Saudi Arabia the American demands have caused a great turmoil. Muhammad Rashid, the Minister of Education, rejects the idea that Saudi Arabia will change its curriculum, and according to the Saudi daily Al-Jazeera, it is the American curriculum which encourages terrorism. The issue has become part of public discourse in Saudi Arabia and in our assessment, in all likelihood will not ease the tense relationship existing between the United States and Saudi Arabia [since the events of 9/11].
 
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