23 Comments
User's avatar
Cynthia Lazar's avatar

This is such a good essay. No disaster can be blamed on one person or event, but there are a few candidates responsible for the catastrophe of antisemitic Arabization of Islam. Haj Amin Al Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem and pal of Hitler and early leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, broadcast Nazi propaganda throughout the Arab world during World War II. Yuri Andropov, the paranoid Jew hating head of the KGB, exported thousands of professionals to the Arab world with pamphlets of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Propaganda is effective .

The writings of the Muslim Brotherhood, by Qtub are in Arabic, but were translated by supreme leader Khameini into Persian. Khomeini tried to import the intense Jew hatred of the Muslim Brotherhood into Iran, but it didn’t take in quite the same way. Without the decades of propaganda, the ground was not as fertile. Only the leadership adheres. Wherever the Muslim Brotherhood goes, they bring chaos, violence, and hatred. They (specially founder Hassan al Banna) are source of Jihad, becoming popularized as a violent rather than spiritual struggle.

We need to rid the West of the Muslim Brotherhood if we do not want to go down the same path. That’s why it was devastating to see Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney celebrate Eid at the Muslim brotherhood linked Muslim Association of Canada.

Expand full comment
Ben Dor A.'s avatar

Where Muslims failed in the ME, they have succeeded in penetrating and influencing Western society, education, politics and media.

Expand full comment
Nathan Brown's avatar

The ‘liberal west’ needs to be careful what it wishes for .. it may already be too late in a number of countries.

Expand full comment
paul yudt's avatar

One of the best explanations I have read. Thank you 🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱

Expand full comment
Dana Ramos's avatar

so so so true. Too bad most of the Western world doesn't understand this and still think it's about land.

Expand full comment
Noah's avatar

I agree with many of the commentators that this is the most succinct and cogent explanation of Arab/Muslim attitudes towards Jews and Israel. I encourage the author to publish it widely, on social media and in pamphlets dropped onto college campuses.

Expand full comment
Richard Friedman's avatar

A very interesting analysis dividing the Muslim world into two parts, Arab and nonArab, identifying the Arab as the source of the problem and largely sanitizing the other. But Jews are tolerated only and considered second class at best in both parts. So Islam remains a problem for Jews, no matter whether it is practiced by an Arab or not.

Expand full comment
james rose's avatar

I'm literally sitting here trying to think of what to write. This is perhaps the best essay I've ever read about Israel and the Middle East, politics, history. I consume a lot of information. Just outstanding writing, Nachum.

Expand full comment
Suzy's avatar

Thaaaank youuu! I’ve been waiting for someone to unpack the cultural history behind the Jew-hatred. To borrow the only term relevant to this story from the American paradigm: Arabs cannot tolerate “uppity” Jews. Now if only we, in the West, could pry the simplistic binary lens of “colonizer-oppressed” off of the willingly useful idiots, there would be hope.

Expand full comment
Nathan Brown's avatar

@Nachum, and Future of Jewish, always a good read.

I believe Eritrea, a Muslim country has no interest in the palestinians, but I stand to be corrected.

Expand full comment
Diane Steiner's avatar

Excellent explanation of the Arabization of Islam and its relationship to the Jewish state. What is concerning to me is the Arabization of Islam in the Western countries, Europe, Australia, Canada, and it is beginning to take hold in the US. Specifically, the cozy relationship Qatar is now nurturing with the US. Its tentacles stretching out further and further, getting involved with our Defense department. I hope you will address this issue which I'm sure will be insightful, informative, and mind opening.

Expand full comment
David Mandel's avatar

This is a post worth reading twice and bookmarking. For those who know about the fox and the hedgehog, you will recognize that Nachum, here, is much more the latter than the former. The parts that don't fit as neatly, such as Asian Muslim antizionism or Persian antizionism after the revolution are cleverly explained by the very thesis they seem to oppose. It would be interesting to see perhaps in a debate or through written commentary, how well the thesis fares when it is exposed to sly foxes. At any rate, a thought provoking read.

Expand full comment
David Mandel's avatar

Also I should clarify that I am not making a dispositional attribution about the author (who I don't know). I'm only claiming that his treatment of counterexamples is hedgehog-like (again, referring to Isaiah Berlin's usage of the term) in this situation.

Expand full comment
Gilda Joffe's avatar

An excellent summary- and to compliment it I suggest this amazing summary on the Muslim Brotherhood. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PlPMcXEzZ3w

Expand full comment
Christopher's avatar

Thank you for explaining things. I live in NZ and we have many Indonesian Muslims but they are not the ones that appear at the weekly hate marches.

Expand full comment
Anneliese Gordon's avatar

This is one of the most interesting essays I’ve ever read. I will need to reread it every day until I memorise the facts and arguments.

Also, it might bring me a little closer to reconciling my feelings regarding my son and his Berber (but French and atheist) girlfriend. However her pro Palestinian standpoint, irks me somewhat. To say the least. But thank you. X

Expand full comment
ryan's avatar

One point when you when you write of Arabizing Islam: from my readings,,,,a lot due to Bernard Lewis.....Arab identity as understood contemporaneously....and Turkic as well...are 20th century inventions, ideologies. Jews lived in Muslim lands that had been colonized by the Arabs from Arabia....people were Ottoman citizens, after......The Lebanese Christians were influenced by pan Slavism and pan Germanism and came up with a way to make themselves part of the majority not the dhimmi minority. Attaturk came up with Turkish to replace Ottoman identity and save Asia Minor for Turkic speakers. Jews were influenced by European nationalism as well....so Zionism is in essence pan Judaic..... you add the religious dimension to the newly created "Arab nation" and you come up with the seething hostility to Israel that is now Iranian, Erdogan Turkic, and even Arab....and most virulently expressed on college campuses by the professors who teach their legions of students this ideology of hating Jews.

Expand full comment
blackdog1955's avatar

Arab or Muslim? To which philosophy will the security forces patrolling Gaza adhere?

Expand full comment