At the moment this post is mostly just a list of links. I hope to come back later and provide a brief overview of each of the linked-to items. They all pertain to the subject indicated by the title of this post: “The deep roots of antisemitism in the Islamic world.” The main point is to show that the blind hatred for Israel that pervades modern day Islam did not spring forth, fully formed, when the state of Israel came into existence as a result of the Israeli War of Independence from 1947 to 1949.

In fact, the war of 47-49 was the result of antisemitism, not its cause. The war began when the United Nations proposed to partition Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state. A two-state solution. The Arab state proposed in 1947 would have had twice as much land as the Gaza Strip and the West Bank combined. Why did this proposal lead to war? Because the Arabs of Palestine, joined by the entire Arab world, completely rejected the idea of having a Jewish state in Palestine.

The Arab rejection of the 1947 partition plan was really not terribly surprising, considering the fact that they had also rejected the partition plan proposed by the British in 1937, which would have given the Arabs even more land (and the Jews even less).

Why were the Arabs so adamantly opposed to a Jewish state in their midst? Arabs and Jews had lived side-by-side for centuries throughout the Middle East and North Africa. But Jews had always held a subordinate position. Now the Jews were seeking the very same thing that the Arabs sought – self determination. But to the (overwhelmingly Muslim) Arabs the idea of Jews having the same rights as Arabs was intolerable. This is the essence of antisemitism, and this essence had been there all along.

In Ishmael’s House: A History of Jews In Muslim Lands  by Martin Gilbert
https://www.martingilbert.com/book/in-ishmaels-house-a-history-of-jews-in-muslim-lands/

The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise Muslims, Christians, and Jews under Islamic Rule in Medieval Spain by Darío Fernández-Morera
https://isi.org/intercollegiate-review/the-myth-of-the-andalusian-paradise/

Convivencia and the “Ornament of the World” by Kenneth Baxter Wolf
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1042&context=pomona_fac_pub

Convivencia in Medieval Spain: A Brief History of an Idea by Kenneth Baxter Wolf
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/pomona_fac_pub/23/

Nazis, Islamic Antisemitism and the Middle East: The 1948 Arab War against Israel and the Aftershocks of World War II by Matthias Küntzel
http://www.matthiaskuentzel.de/contents/nazis-islamic-antisemitism-and-the-middle-east/

Genocidal Antisemitism: A Core Ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood by Markos Zografos
https://isgap.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/GenocidalAntisemitism-Markos-Zografos.pdf

Antisemitism in the Middle East: Unpacking the Root Causes and Implications for Regional Stability

  • Evin Ismail, Senior Lecturer in Political Science at the Swedish Defence University
  • Matthias Küntzel, Political Scientist and Historian
  • Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor, Founder & CEO of CyberWell
  • Vered Andre’ev, Head of Research at CyberWell

https://extremism.gwu.edu/antisemitism-middle-east