Journal for the Study of Antisemitism

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2009] DEFEAT, RAGE, AND JEW HATRED 121 they add that the return of the exiles to Zion and the establishment of the State of Israel are preconditions for the second coming of Christ. Save for pro-Israel Evangelicals, there was not much theological support for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, although some Christians did support the creation of the State of Israel for humanitarian reasons, especially in the years immediately after World War II. The Vatican and the State of Israel finally entered into diplomatic relations in 1993. The State of Israel had demonstrated its durability and it was the political authority in a region of historical importance to the Church. As it had accommodated itself to a wide array of regimes, not all to its liking, so the Church finally accommodated itself to diplomatic relations with Israel, but the theological rejection of a sovereign Jewish state never ceased. In reality, there should be little reason for surprise at the growing chorus of anti-Israel hostility. Latent attitudes and emotions can often surface after relatively long periods of dormancy. One does not have to be a doctrinaire Freudian to see the “return of the repressed” at work in the so-called “new anti-Semitism,” especially in relation to the State of Israel and its conflicts. I would like to suggest that what had been repressed for decades was the darker side of Christian ambivalence toward Jews and Judaism that resulted from knowledge of and horror concerning the Holocaust. Undoubtedly, that is an important reason for the fostering of Holocaust denial by the government of Iran and Islamist writers and thinkers, which also threatens a new Holocaust. Holocaust denial facilitates the reawakening of that dark side by alleging that the historical reality was a devilish Jewish hoax to extort political and financial support for Israel and other Jewish causes from unduly guilt-ridden Christian nations. Implicit in the claim that Israel’s response to Hamas in Gaza was disproportionate, if the criticism is serious, is the expectation that the Israeli government will act as if Hamas were a rational political actor whose Covenant does not mean what it plainly says when it declares that the destruction of Israel and its people is a fundamental objective of the “Palestine Resistance Movement.” Unfortunately, after Auschwitz, it is difficult to see how such an explicitly stated threat can be dismissed, at least by those Jews who are at all aware of their own history, especially when it is endlessly repeated by the Muslim “street” and by some of Islam’s most prominent religious leaders. We need not offer a complete catalogue. A representative sample will have to suffice. We take as examples of clerical concord with the Muslim “street,” Sheikh Amin Al-Ansari, an Egyptian Sunni Islamist, and the better known Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi. On January 26, 2009, the day before International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Al-Rahma (Mercy) TV, the Egyptian Sunni Islamist channel, broadcast its own version of the Holocaust featuring
122 JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF ANTISEMITISM [ VOL. 1:95 Al-Ansari. 87 Unlike Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Al-Ansari makes no attempt to deny the Holocaust. On the contrary, he glorifies it as Allah’s “way of wreaking vengeance” on the Jews and offers graphic film images of the most inhuman Nazi cruelty as the behavior Allah expects from pious Muslims. In Al-Ansari’s narrative, the Germans are the innocent victims and the Jews the evil oppressors. After cursorily examining alleged Jewish wickedness throughout history, Al-Ansari offers his justification for the Holocaust: “The corruption spread by the Jews was very great. Very great. It got to the point that the rulers themselves had no solution but to annihilate them.” Some very gruesome clips of death-camp scenes are exhibited as Al-Ansari comments: “Let us watch how oppressors are killed by the people they oppressed.“ Skeleton-like Jews are shown awaiting their turn to be burned to death. There are also horrific scenes of Jews being tortured, after which Al-Ansari addresses the TV audience: “The [Jews] are oppressors. They are being deported.” When a film clip shows mounds of Jewish corpses being bulldozed into mass graves, Al-Ansari exults: “Ibn Mas’oud was right when he said: ‘All the oppressors are killed by those they oppress.’” Close-ups of dead bodies are shown. Al-Ansari tells his viewers: “These are bodies, these are dead people, these are skulls. These are the bodies of the Jews being loaded like animals. Watch this tractor clearing away the corpses of the Jews, and these are the refugees awaiting their turn to be killed.” As a Muslim religious leader, he expresses his pious wish: “This is what we hope will happen, but, Allah willing, at the hand of the Muslims.” Al-Ansari’s Holocaust propaganda actually exceeds in viciousness anything Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Propaganda Minister, ever contrived. The Nazis were careful to hide their extermination program from public view. By contrast, Al-Ansari and Al-Rahma TV offer for public viewing some of the worst examples of the Nazi extermination program and torture as models of Allah’s vengeance, along with the prayer that Muslims be permitted to repeat and complete the Nazi performance. This is both an expression of and an incitement to hatred, rage, and genocide as a holy act. Unfortunately, the average Muslim does not possess the kind of knowledge 87. “To Mark ‘Holocaust Holiday,’ Egyptian Cleric Amin Al-Ansari Revises History, And Comments On Footage of Prisoners Being Tortured in Dachau, Mauthausen, and Belsen, Saying: ‘This Is What We Hope Will Happen But, Allah Willing, at the Hand of the Muslims,’” MEMRI, Special Dispatch No. 2215, January 27, 2009. Video clips with subtitles are available at the website http://www. memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/3051.htm. On International Holocaust Memorial Day, see “General Assembly Designates International; Holocaust Remembrance Day,” UN News Centre, November 1, 2005, http://www.un.org/apps/news/story. asp?NewsID=16431&Cr=holocaust&Cr1.
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ESSAYS What Really Happened in Mumb
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When Doing Right Is Wrong—Israel
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