JOURNALfor the STUDYof ANTISEMITISM

Arab Spring Sprung
Fiamma Nirenstein*
There is something that prevents us from understanding where the
waves of the greatest revolutions since anti-communism will lead. It is a
damn stupid bias that has different colors, incoherent and bombastic tones,
and feeds on Nazi lies, refined pacifist ideologies, or simply cliches. There
is a strategy—to bash Israel and focus on the Palestinians.
Not the freedom of people, or their well-being, or their progress
toward modernity. No—Israel must be “wiped off the map.” From Saddam
to Qaddafi, from Assad to Ahmadinejad, this invention has been the best
weapon. And now, here we go again. Using Israel as an excuse is again the
weapon of consensus that can disrupt any process of modernization. The
Muslim Brotherhood, in fact, has presented again its official candidacy in
Egypt when Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi suggested to a million people in Tahrir
Square the conquest of Jerusalem. Shouts of joy, to which no one in the
West raised an eyebrow. Amr Mussa, the Arab League’s historic Pharaoh
and the main candidate for the country presidency, has immediately understood
the lesson, which wasn’t difficult for him given his record of anti-
Israel hatred. He opened his campaign by saying that his relationship with
Israel is not that of Mubarak, and that the Jewish lobby is conspiring to
prevent him from entering his desired role.
From Yemen comes another typical conspiracy theory: President Ali
Abdullah Saleh has accused Israel and the United States of fueling the
revolt against his regime. The crowds regurgitate the antisemitic venom—
during the protests, leaders were violently accused of collusion with Israel.
Mubarak was portrayed with stars of David and American flags on his forehead.
In Bengasi and Tripoli, crowds shouted “Jew” at Qaddafi(!)—the Libyan
dictator who asked “all Arab warriors” to destroy Israel will be
displeased.
The theory goes like this: Anti-Israelism, with lively antisemitic hues
(see www.memri.org, which translates documents from all the Arab world),
was the main flag behind which Arab suffering has been hiding. Remember
the Nasser trade-off—I will starve you, I will use you, I will support crowds
of courtiers who will rob you of your money and police who will block
your ideas—and in return I promise to restore the power of the Arab and
Muslim world destroyed by Western conspiracy.
The first stage is not one of freedom and justice, but to expel—from
Arab and Muslim Ummah, our community, our land—the Jews, sons of
dogs and pigs, and restore justice for our Palestinian brothers. Many propa-
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