Muslim antisemitism: Dangerous but modern

For months, millions of Israelis have repeatedly taken shelter in protected areas following missile launches from Yemen by the Houthis. Yet, unlike the instinctive responses toward Iran, Hezbollah, or Hamas – feelings of fear, anger, and at times hostility – the campaign against Yemen mostly provokes bewilderment. Time and again, Israelis ask themselves: What do the Houthis want from us? What do we have to do with them? What have we done to them? Israel is hundreds of kilometers away from them. It is doubtful anyone there even knows what a checkpoint is, or the difference between Ariel and Kiryat Arba. So why are they firing? The answer is written right in the militia’s official logo: “God is the Greatest, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse be upon the Jews, Victory to Islam.” This is unmistakable antisemitism – open, explicit, and without masks.

The same antisemitism can be found in the Iranian regime, which has carried the banner of Israel’s destruction since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. For example, in his writings and speeches, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic, described Jews as the originators of “anti-Islamic propaganda,” as those seeking to corrupt the Quran and dominate the world, and as partners in a global conspiracy with the West against Islam. He drew a tight link between Judaism, Zionism, and Western imperialism, portraying the State of Israel as the most blatant and dangerous embodiment of that conspiracy. His successor, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, continues this deep hostility, repeatedly calling Israel a “cancerous tumor,” predicting it would “disappear within 25 years,” and stressing that “there is no solution to the Palestinian issue except the elimination of Israel.”

This virulent and explicit antisemitism, far more open than most contemporary antisemitic expressions in the West, can also be found in Islamist organizations such as ISIS, al-Qaeda, and of course Hamas. The founding charter of Hamas is filled with antisemitic statements, some taken directly from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the fabricated text that deeply influenced many 20th-century antisemites, including Hitler.

For instance, Article 22 of the Hamas Covenant from 1988 states that Jews were behind both World Wars and that “there is no war going on anywhere without their finger in it.” Few statements could be more blatantly antisemitic. Israeli society must ask itself why such a horrifying document, published in the late 1980s, was not more widely known. Had its content been taken seriously, Israelis might have been less surprised by the October 7 massacre.

Yet even while recognizing the severity of this phenomenon, several clarifications must be made. First, not all Arabs and Muslims, whether in Israel, the Middle East, or Europe, hate Jews. It is no coincidence that Israel has already signed peace treaties with six Arab and Muslim countries, and there is active discussion of additional agreements. Second, not all hostility toward Israel, especially among Palestinians, stems from antisemitism. Sometimes it does, as we saw clearly and horrifically with Hamas, but often it arises from the political, historical, or national conflict itself. This is still a dangerous phenomenon, which Israel has every right to resist, but it is not necessarily antisemitic, and recognizing that distinction is crucial.

And there is another important point: Contrary to common perception, antisemitism in the Arab and Muslim world is neither inherent nor ancient, but rather a relatively modern phenomenon. Extensive research by leading scholars of Islam and the Middle East, among them the late Bernard Lewis, Emmanuel Sivan, and Esther Webman, shows clearly that this phenomenon took shape only in the late 19th century. It did not originate with Muhammad or with the Quran.

It is true that the Quran and Hadith contain negative statements about Jews (such as describing them as “apes and pigs”), but in practice, until the late 19th century, these verses were only rarely invoked against Jews. One could say they remained in the “attic” of Islamic theology, sacred because of their source, yet seldom mentioned. Jews also faced legal discrimination in the Muslim world for centuries. Like Christians, they were classified as “dhimmis” – protected non-Muslims – entitled to protection from the authorities so long as they maintained loyalty, paid the jizya tax, and acknowledged their subordinate status. This was clearly religious discrimination, but it did not generally involve systematic persecution. Pogroms, mass expulsions, and forced conversions were relatively rare, especially compared to Christian Europe. When Jews were expelled from Catholic Spain in 1492, many found refuge in the Muslim Ottoman Empire. They expressed gratitude for this and remembered it for centuries.

So when and why did the relative tolerance of Muslims toward Jews come to an end? And when and under what circumstances did antisemitism in the Arab and Muslim world begin to rise? The answer lies in the late 19th century, when several processes occurred at once.

For centuries, Muslims tolerated non-Muslims so long as they accepted their lower status. But in the 19th century, Christians and then Jews began to “lift their heads”, according to the Islamic perception, Christians first, then Jews, especially with the rise of Zionism. This was perceived as a challenge to the traditional Muslim order, at a time when the power and prestige of the Ottoman Empire – the last Muslim caliphate – were steadily declining until it dissolved completely after World War I.

At that stage, Muslims had no answer to the scientific, economic, and technological superiority of the West, and feelings of inferiority grew. It is worth remembering: this was a culture that had been an empire almost from its inception. All this led certain Muslim religious leaders to argue that the only answer to the crisis of the Muslim world was a return to religion. Thus was born Islamism, or political Islam, in Egypt in 1928 with the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the ideological parent movement of Hamas.

Antisemitic expressions were visible from the outset in Islamism, an ideology that sees Islam not merely as a religion but as a complete political system encompassing law, economics, and society. They grew more prominent within Islamism in particular, and the Muslim world more generally, after events perceived as humiliations for the Arab world, especially the establishment of the State of Israel and the Six-Day War, when Israel, in the heart of the Middle East, became a daily reminder of the Muslim world’s failures.

Islamists developed new approaches toward Jews by reinterpreting the historical relationship between Islam and Judaism. On one hand, they claimed that Islam and Judaism had been in constant conflict since the 7th century, a claim that is historically inaccurate (though adopted by some critics of Islam as well). On the other hand, Islamism brought those antisemitic Quranic verses out of the theological attic, combining them with imported European and even Nazi antisemitic ideas. These were brought to the Middle East by figures like Jerusalem’s Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, who did not devise the “Final Solution” but did spend time in Berlin during its execution, broadcasting virulent antisemitic propaganda to the Middle East. The result was a new and dangerous form of antisemitism, in which calls for killing Jews became almost mainstream.

In sum, antisemitism in the Arab and Muslim world is a dangerous but modern phenomenon. It is not eternal, not ancient, and not an inevitable fate. Precisely for that reason, it can and must be confronted, accurately and responsibly. Countries with which Israel has made peace have not only ceased to threaten it but have also opened their doors to Israeli visitors. Such a distinction is not only a matter of fairness toward a vast, complex, and diverse Muslim world, but also a way to avoid falling into the trap of despair – the feeling that “the whole world is against us” –and, just as importantly, to preserve a measure of hope.