Hatred
Hatred is a basic human trait, we all hate something, rats, reptiles, and some other humans. When a tribal or religious hatred is inculcated from an early age, it is easy to dehumanize some humans and make their killing easier. Even then it is hard to carry out a massacre, Goebbels in his infamous (recorded) speech to SS guards at the concentration camps urged them to overcome their natural human emotions in order to carry out their (sacred) duty of ridding the world of Jews. To help them the SS also gave their killers plenty of alcohol to consume before actually performing the onerous mass killings.
The endemic hatred of Jews that is found in the Koran and has been practised throughout the history of Islam, has been documented by Andrew Bostom in his study, "The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism." Examples are, the Farhud, the name given to the pogrom against the Jews of Baghdad that took place on Shavuot, 1941 under the pro-German Iraqi regime, during which 135 Jewish men, women and children were massacred, as well as thousands injured, and many Jewish businesses ransacked and Jewish property stolen. Notwithstanding the fact that Jews had lived in Babylonia for a thousand years before the advent of Islam, this made no difference, and the Jews were forced to leave Iraq. Most of them, ca. 225,000 emigrated to Israel and the rest, ca. 40,000, were distributed throughout the West (America, Britain, France and Australia).
Similarly, after the 1967 war with Israel, Nasser expelled the Jewish population of Egypt, mostly from Alexandria, where Jews had lived since time immemorial. Also attacks and an expulsion of Jews occurred from Libya. Long before this time, onerous taxes levied against Jews as well as massacres and killings had reduced the Jewish population in the Islamic world from several millions at the time of Mohammed to less than one million throughout that vast expanse by the time of the founding of Israel.
There is no doubt that a visceral Muslim hatred of Jews and Israel motivates the vicious rhetoric of Pres. Ahmedinejad of Iran, and reflects a similar vein of endemic hatred inculcated by the religious mullahs within Iranian society. In its strength and themes this State-sponsored hatred is the closest thing to Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda that has been seen since WWII.
Liberals tend to discount hatred as a real phenomenon in international relations. They regard it as retro-gressive and hence likely to disappear with appropriate education and exposure to multicultural examples. I suppose that will be one theme of Pres. Obama's speech to the Muslim world due to be given from Cairo next week. In his meeting in Washington with Pres. Abbas of the PA this week, Obama equated his pressure on Israel to freeze all settlement activity in the "West Bank" (Judea and Samaria) as a concession to the Palestinians, with a concession by the PA to stop incitement against Israel. This has of course been asked for many times, without actual response. The PA official schoolbooks still incite hatred of Jews and the official sermons in Mosques still advocate killing of Jews and destruction of Israel. By comparison Israel has tried withdrawals from land, to establish the PA (how do you think it got there) and from Gaza, but this has only brought greater hostility. And incitement is intangible while a settlement freeze is a concrete act.
However, there is no such reciprocal teaching of hatred of Muslims in Israeli schools. We Jews are generally a tolerant bunch, teaching acceptance of the stranger, and we have ca. 20% of Arabs as a minority in Israel and apart from some individual cases of persecution, there are no general or official policies against them. For example, Arabs students freely attend all Israeli Universities, Arab towns and villages have their own school system teaching in Arabic, there is no restriction on Muslim worship (except at the Mosque in Jerusalem when security requires it) and Arabs freely move throughout Israeli society (this is surprising for those not familar with Israel) and can be seen every day in Netanya, working, shopping, eating in the restaurants and visiting the beach. Noone bothers them and in my experience noone ever has.
Some have labelled current attempts to stop anti-Israel incitement amongst Israeli Arabs as a form of "racism," but that is not so. These are political moves, to require Arabs to take an oath of office, similar to that in the US, to uphold the laws and respect the State, to stop the Arab representatives in the Knesset from misusing their parliamentary immunity for treasonous acts. And for regulations against public observance of the Nakba, the so-called catastrophe that befell the Palestinians when Israel was created. They are reasonable moves to stop anti-Israel incitement and hatred within Israel, although it appears that they will not be passed by the Knesset now due to concerns for the limitations of freedom of expression These moves are motivated not by hatred, on the contrary they are motivated against hatred.
The endemic hatred of Jews that is found in the Koran and has been practised throughout the history of Islam, has been documented by Andrew Bostom in his study, "The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism." Examples are, the Farhud, the name given to the pogrom against the Jews of Baghdad that took place on Shavuot, 1941 under the pro-German Iraqi regime, during which 135 Jewish men, women and children were massacred, as well as thousands injured, and many Jewish businesses ransacked and Jewish property stolen. Notwithstanding the fact that Jews had lived in Babylonia for a thousand years before the advent of Islam, this made no difference, and the Jews were forced to leave Iraq. Most of them, ca. 225,000 emigrated to Israel and the rest, ca. 40,000, were distributed throughout the West (America, Britain, France and Australia).
Similarly, after the 1967 war with Israel, Nasser expelled the Jewish population of Egypt, mostly from Alexandria, where Jews had lived since time immemorial. Also attacks and an expulsion of Jews occurred from Libya. Long before this time, onerous taxes levied against Jews as well as massacres and killings had reduced the Jewish population in the Islamic world from several millions at the time of Mohammed to less than one million throughout that vast expanse by the time of the founding of Israel.
There is no doubt that a visceral Muslim hatred of Jews and Israel motivates the vicious rhetoric of Pres. Ahmedinejad of Iran, and reflects a similar vein of endemic hatred inculcated by the religious mullahs within Iranian society. In its strength and themes this State-sponsored hatred is the closest thing to Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda that has been seen since WWII.
Liberals tend to discount hatred as a real phenomenon in international relations. They regard it as retro-gressive and hence likely to disappear with appropriate education and exposure to multicultural examples. I suppose that will be one theme of Pres. Obama's speech to the Muslim world due to be given from Cairo next week. In his meeting in Washington with Pres. Abbas of the PA this week, Obama equated his pressure on Israel to freeze all settlement activity in the "West Bank" (Judea and Samaria) as a concession to the Palestinians, with a concession by the PA to stop incitement against Israel. This has of course been asked for many times, without actual response. The PA official schoolbooks still incite hatred of Jews and the official sermons in Mosques still advocate killing of Jews and destruction of Israel. By comparison Israel has tried withdrawals from land, to establish the PA (how do you think it got there) and from Gaza, but this has only brought greater hostility. And incitement is intangible while a settlement freeze is a concrete act.
However, there is no such reciprocal teaching of hatred of Muslims in Israeli schools. We Jews are generally a tolerant bunch, teaching acceptance of the stranger, and we have ca. 20% of Arabs as a minority in Israel and apart from some individual cases of persecution, there are no general or official policies against them. For example, Arabs students freely attend all Israeli Universities, Arab towns and villages have their own school system teaching in Arabic, there is no restriction on Muslim worship (except at the Mosque in Jerusalem when security requires it) and Arabs freely move throughout Israeli society (this is surprising for those not familar with Israel) and can be seen every day in Netanya, working, shopping, eating in the restaurants and visiting the beach. Noone bothers them and in my experience noone ever has.
Some have labelled current attempts to stop anti-Israel incitement amongst Israeli Arabs as a form of "racism," but that is not so. These are political moves, to require Arabs to take an oath of office, similar to that in the US, to uphold the laws and respect the State, to stop the Arab representatives in the Knesset from misusing their parliamentary immunity for treasonous acts. And for regulations against public observance of the Nakba, the so-called catastrophe that befell the Palestinians when Israel was created. They are reasonable moves to stop anti-Israel incitement and hatred within Israel, although it appears that they will not be passed by the Knesset now due to concerns for the limitations of freedom of expression These moves are motivated not by hatred, on the contrary they are motivated against hatred.
posted by Jack Cohen at 8:30 AM
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