Islamic antisemitism "as if it were there from the start"

An intense debate has raged in recent years over the nature of Islamic antisemitism. Leaving aside the vulgar apologias that deny its very existence, the debate is rather more nuanced than it first appears. It is not whether present day Islam is deeply infected with antisemitism but whether it is inherent in Islam.  Historian Marc R. Cohen is one of the leading proponents of the view that antisemitism was less severe in the Muslim than in the Christian world in the Middle Ages and that Islam is not theological or inherently antisemitic.

In a 2009 paper, Cohen made an astute observation. "Christian antisemitism has since become absorbed into the fabric of Islam as if it were there from the start, when it was never there from the start at all."

In a little larger context

The idea that modern Arab antisemitism comes from a medieval, irrational hatred of the Jews, similar to the antisemitism of Christianity, with its medieval origins, cannot be sustained. Understood as a religiously-based complex of irrational, mythical, and stereotypical beliefs about the diabolical, malevolent, and all-powerful Jew, infused in its modern, secular form with racism and belief in a Jewish conspiracy against mankind-- antisemitism is not an indigenous or inherent phenomenon in Islam. It was first encountered by Muslims at the time of the Ottoman expansion into Europe, which resulted in the absorption of large numbers of Greek Orthodox Christians. This Christian antisemitism became more firmly implanted in the Muslim Middle East in the nineteenth century as part of the discourse of nationalism. Seeking greater acceptance in a fledgling pan-Arab nation constituted by a majority of Muslims, Christians in the Arab world, aided, among other things, by European Christian missionaries, began to use western-style antisemitism to focus Arab/Muslim enmity away from themselves and onto a new and, to them, familiar enemy.

This Christian antisemitism has since become absorbed into the fabric of Islam as if it were there from the start, when it was never there from the start at all. The widely read Arabic translations of the late-nineteenth century Russian-Christian forgery, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," seems to many Muslims almost an Islamic text, echoing old themes in the Qur'ān and elsewhere of Jewish treachery toward Muhammad and his biblical prophetic predecessors. The "Protocols" seem all the more credible in the light of the political, economic and military success of Israel. Sadly, the pluralism and largely non-violent attitude towards the Jews that existed in early and classical Islam seems to have lost its public face. Equally sad, age-old Jewish empathy with Islamic society among Jews from Muslim lands, and memory of decent relations with Muslim neighbors in Muslim lands in relatively recent times, have similarly recede,

--Mark R. Cohen, "The 'Convivencia' of Jews and Muslims in the High Middle Ages"

Mark R. Cohen Princeton University

Personally, I don't find Cohen formulation of a radical distinction between Christian and Islamic antisemitism to be entirely convincing.  And, in this passage he paints entirely too benign a picture of the Islamic treatment of Jews.  Elsewhere Cohen comments
  

The interfaith utopia was to a certain extent a myth; it ignored, or left unmentioned, the legal inferiority of the Jews (and all non-Muslim “People of the Book”) and periodic outbursts of violence.

If antisemitism has been absorbed into Islam "as  if it were there from the start," that is an elementary fact of global politics that must be appreciated.

In midst of Gaza Conflict, Religious Dispatches Finds an Opportunity to Attack Sam Harris and Lie About Hamas

Atheist thinker Sam Harris has a new podcast with text and supplemental text, "Why I Don't Criticize Israel," in which he does in fact criticize Israel. To mention four specifics, he attacks the concept of a "Jewish" state, criticizes Jewish extremists (though underplays their significance and incorrectly assumes they are declining), calls for an end to funding of settlements, and says the Israelis have done things that amount to war crimes.

On the other hand, Harris correctly says that the Israelis have used restraint and then he says something true that was almost guaranteed to get him in trouble with certain people.

Here is the major point of Harris' article.

The discourse in the Muslim world about Jews is utterly shocking. Not only is there Holocaust denial—there’s Holocaust denial that then asserts that we will do it for real if given the chance. The only thing more obnoxious than denying the Holocaust is to say that it should have happened; it didn’t happen, but if we get the chance, we will accomplish it. There are children’s shows in the Palestinian territories and elsewhere that teach five-year-olds about the glories of martyrdom and about the necessity of killing Jews. 

As might be expected, the religious progressive site "Religious Dispatches" is up quickly with an attack on Harris. It's not RD's first attack on Harris.  Harris was denounced as an Homophobes (he responded here), attacked for criticizing the Quran, attacked for criticizing Obama's pick to head the National Institute of Health, and attacked him in an article urging Atheists to oppose Islamophobia, and naturally his book on morality was lambasted.

There's nothing some people like more than the opportunity to attack an atheist and promote a benign view of Islam. So it is not surprising that Religious Dispatches has an attack on Harris' views on the Gaza conflict.

Ussaid Siddiqui's article "In Gaza Siege, Atheist Author Sam Harris Finds Yet Another Opportunity to Disparage Islam " avoids confronting Harris's essential point with some intellectual flim-flam.

British Muslim activist Mehdi Hasan took a different tack recently when he wrote an honest and revealing article: "The sorry truth is that the virus of anti-Semitism has infected the British Muslim community".It's too bad Siddiqui didn't have the same intellectual courage to confront a real, urgent problem, instead of dishing up cheap Harris-bashing.

What we get instead is a confused and, at least in part, dishonest attack on Harris. Siddiqui writes that the Hamas Charter "allegedly" advocates the destruction of Israel and asserts, to refute Harris, "before the [2006] parliamentary elections, Hamas removed the call to destroy Israel from their charter." (emphasis added)

Siddiqui accuses Harris of "discount[ing]" this.  With good reason since it didn't happen.

The omission  was only in the Hamas electoral platform. Hamas has not altered, changed, or amended its charter.

Confusing the Hamas Charter and its election manifesto is a an elementary mistake that a competent journalist would not make and which a reputable website like Religious Dispatches should have caught.
 
The Hamas Charter is, in fact, one of the most hateful, antisemitic, and genocidal document around. To use "allegedly" as Siddiqui does is simple dishonet,

Chapter Seven of the Hamas Charter, for example, states "The Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realization of Allah's promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said: 'The day of judgment will not come until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jews will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say 'O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him."

And, Siddiqui would have us believe that there are no theological roots to Islamic antisemitism.

It should also be noted the Siddiqui writes that Christians make up nearly 20 percent of the Palestinian population. In fact, according to wikipedia, the figure is 6 percent.
  
A simple fact gone wrong, but perhaps not so simply.  Siddiqui doesn't want to confront the extremism of Hamas, so instead of discussing Harris' views and the present reality of Hamas and other Islamist groups, he presents a long digression about the non-golden and non-anti-golden age of Islamic tolerance.  Siddiqui imputes to Harris an essentialist view of Islamic hostility to Jews that Harris does not assert in this article.  Harris does not argue, at least in this podcast/article that Muslim anti-semitism goes back to the origins of Islam. The effort to refute views that Harris does not advance is really misplaced.

Just this week, Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan, refused to disavow his assertion that Jews kill Christian children to use their blood in matzah. It might be nice if religious progressives paid attention to Hamas's antisemitism instead of engaging in Sam Harris-bashing.