By Suzanne
Fields
Washington Times
Just as the Nazis forged a militant fanatical hatred of Jews, Islamic
fanatics have forged a modern theory of hatred, illustrated by similar Nazi-like
depictions of Jews.
In "Peace: The Arabian Caricature: A Study of Anti-Semitic
Imagery," Arieh Stav, director of the Ariel Center for Policy Research in
Tel Aviv, documents the vicious anti-Semitic cartoons that proliferate in the
Arab world with public and official endorsement. Historically, these caricatures
are not unique to the Arab world, but what this book makes clear is that in the
Middle East today they are commonplace, generating stereotypes of evil, fusing
anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism.
In the present crisis, the portrait of the Jew in the Middle East emerges as
an ugly and perverse mix of theological, moral, racial, social and political
negatives. If you think these images are pushed only by the usual suspects, such
as Syria and Iraq, think again. They proliferate across the spectrum of our
so-called allies in the coalition, including Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and
Kuwait. These caricatures are all the more powerful because they're graphically
dramatic and symbolic in countries where many people cannot read.
Jews were forced to wear a yellow patch with a six-pointed star in
"sophisticated" Europe, identifying them as vermin that had to be
exterminated. In the Middle East, the Jews of Israel are caricatured as snakes
and cockroaches, to be similarly annihilated.
Eastern European Jews were frequently described in metaphors of disease, to
be eliminated lest they infect the larger society. Jews in the Middle East are
described as a cancer in the body of the Arab world, a malignant tumor that must
be surgically removed.
Stav's book, written two years ago, illustrates how popular cartoons generate
violent attitudes toward Israel in general and Jews in particular. Just as in
Germany, where Jews over the years sometimes earned reprieve from prejudice,
Jews have enjoyed occasional protection from Muslim rulers in the past. But it's
naive to think that anti-Semitism isn't a driving force of modern Islamist
terrorism.
One of the stubborn rumors that circulated among Muslims immediately after
Sept. 11 (and among certain other Israel-bashers) was that the airplane attacks
were initiated by Mossad, the Israeli secret service. The rumor was accompanied
by the kind of lie that lent both specificity and credibility, that 4,000 Jews
who worked in the World Trade Center were warned not to show up for work, and
escaped the catastrophe.
The rumor was quickly squelched in this country when many of the dead and
missing were identified as Jews. But the rumor has the legs of "unshakable
truth" for Muslims in the streets of Cairo, Jerusalem, Riyadh, even London.
More than half a century ago, anti-Semitism was indelibly imbedded in the
psyche of the Third Reich, which led inexorably to the Holocaust. But in recent
years, the Germans have worked tirelessly to document that terrible past and its
government has spoken out boldly about the threat of terrorism carried out in
the name of Islam.
When Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder returned home after surveying the
destruction of the terrorists, he suggested that Germany is now prepared to
enter a new phase in its post-World War II history, to send its army abroad
"in defense of freedom and human rights." This is not likely to thrill
millions of Europeans, but it shows where German sentiment lies.
He expressed the "unreserved solidarity" of his government behind
the United States. He has endured criticism from the Green Party's pacifist wing
and part of his coalition.
Many of the Greens, however, including Joschka Fischer, the German foreign
secretary, remain mindful not only of the free world's vulnerability to the
terrorists if they are not stopped, but of the terrible treatment women,
children and minorities suffer daily at the hands of the Taliban.
These Germans have learned from their country's history and rediscovered a
conscious awareness that both words and deeds are needed to fight evil. They
remind us all that this is no time to be a passive bystander.