Before WWII, classical anti-Semitism had a range of beliefs that led the Germans and other Europeans during the war to murder millions of Jews under appalling conditions. What was it that the anti-Semites believed that was so terrible about the Jews:
Jack Cohen – Anti-Semitism and the Aims of Islamism
Before WWII, classical anti-Semitism had a range of beliefs that led the Germans and other Europeans during the war to murder millions of Jews under appalling conditions. What was it that the anti-Semites believed that was so terrible about the Jews:
1. The Jews were plotting to take over the world: this was a canard that was enhanced by the publication of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” that was a forgery produced by a Russian official before WWI and that gradually gained popularity. It is still widely believed. The irony was of course that there was no such plot, it was a complete lie. But, it was the enemies of the Jews, the Nazis, then the Communists and now the Islamists, who make no secret of their intention of destroying Western civilization and replacing it with their own political and religious culture. They do want to take over the world.
2. The Jews control the media: Another nonsensical belief, since Israel gets such a bad press in the Western media, which is supposed to be free, let alone the Arab and other media. In fact, during the regimes of the Nazis and the Communists their media was obnoxiously controlled against Jews and now with the influence of Islam, the media is again strongly biased. The oil lobby in the US spends much more than AIPAC, and they use it to influence the media against Israel and the Jews. You have only to read the columns of Al Ahram in Egypt and watch Al Jazeera to see how Jews and Israel are constantly maligned.
3. Jews control international finance: The fact is that the Saudis make billions from their oil sales, yet it is the Jews who are accused of controlling the financial system. Arab oil money has been used to finance terrorism and certainly to support an international network of Muslim schools that teach the extreme form of Salafi Islam. It is Muslim money that undermines the West while Jewish money was and is emphatically part of developing the strength of the Western financial system.
4. Jews have too much influence in the professions: It was true that Jews were over-represented relative to their numbers as leaders of the professions of science, medicine and banking, etc. But, these greatly helped the development of the host countries. Spain and Germany in their time were dominant partly because of the Jewish contribution to their “golden age” and German science, respectively (note that Hitler referred to German science as “Jewish science”). But, when they expelled and/or murdered their Jewish populations these countries went into a decline from which they will never recover. This is the only topic in which the Muslims/Arabs cannot compete with the Jews.
The irony is that all the bad things attributed to the Jews that resulted in their being killed in great numbers, and that were untrue, are now being actually planned by the Islamic extremists. I would warn the Muslims pouring into Europe, that although the Europeans are currently very liberal, largely as a reaction to their former extreme murderous hatred, they can turn on you, just as they turned on the Jews.
Jack Cohen – Anti-Semitism and the Aims of Islamism
Not against Islam
Jack Cohen – Anti-Semitism and the Aims of Islamism
Presidents Obama of the USA and Rivlin of Israel when meeting in the White House were both at pains to emphasize that they are not against Islam as such, but only against Islamic terrorism, that does not truly represent Islam in their opinions. Of course, they are right to say this and they have to say this. But, the problem is that the Muslims carrying out the terrorism and the many other Muslims who support them do not believe this. Most Muslims are convinced that the West is definitively anti-Muslim, that the West is still basically Christian and is against Islam, and that all the anti-Mohammed cartoons and suspicion of Muslims are due to this visceral anti-Muslim animus. They are convinced that the West is on a course to destroy Islam. This is what you think when you are brought up to belevie, as Muslims are, that the world is divided between the world of Islam (Dar al Islam) and the rest, the world of war (Dar al Harb). Certainly there are many Muslims weho live int eh West and have been educated in the concepts of democracy and tolerance of minorities, but the vast majority of Muslims don’t understand these concepts.
This is why it is necessary for the West to say the right thing, but do everything it can to protect itself against the majority of Muslim believers. For example, a Berlin court convicted a visiting Danish Imam Sheikh Abu Bilal Ismail of delivering a sermon calling for the murder of all Zionist Jews. He said “it is necessary to destroy the Zionist Jews, to count them and to kill them to the very last one, don’t spare a single one of them, make them suffer terribly.” Just an ordinary sermon in an ordinary mosque. Times have changed and it is now illegal to call for the murder of Jews in a German Mosque. Perhaps the Imam did not realize this.
So we come to Donald Trump’s call to ban the entry of all Muslims into the United States. This is going too far. This is lumping the innocent int with the guilty, this is what the Islamists want, to give their fellow co-religionists an excuse to take their side. What needs to be done, is what Israel is doing, that is profiling. Looking at groups that are likely to be dangerous as a group, and checking them out very seriously. Forget about the old men and women and the kids and checking every third person. You must focus on those Muslim men and women who are extremely religious, or who are converts, or who travel a lot, or who who have visited Syria, or who are transferring lots of money, and so on. This is elementary common sense.
The problem is that from their point of view this is a war of civilizations, but from our secular point of view we cannot openly admit this. So we must do the best we can. The security services in the US and France need to internalize this message.
Born in London, UK, lived in suburban Washington DC area for 30 years, moved to Israel in 1996. He has a web site: Jack’s Blog
Jack Cohen – Anti-Semitism and the Aims of Islamism
