Writing in the Saudi Arabian Arab News, billed as ?Saudi Arabia?s first English daily?, guest columnist Fawaz Turki gives rare voice to a forthright condemnation of anti-Semitism in the Arab world. The article?s conclusion expresses the author?s position most succinctly: ?To say that anti-Jewish sentiment in the Arab media is, well, Gosh, a function of Arab anger at Israel, no more, does not cut it. Anti-Semitism is a morally bankrupt practice. What is needed is for us to declare it so.?
As with much of the debate in the Arab press regarding anti-Semitism, the impetus for the Arab News article was the flurry of criticism and debate regarding the Egyptian television series ?Horseman Without a Horse?, which promotes the conspiracy theories of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Calling the Protocols ?a vituperative document from late 19th century Russia long since shown to be a fake,? Turki quotes the series? producer and lead actor as having told the press that ?his soap opera is a mere ?political comedy? and, heck, ?only 1 percent of the show is based on The Protocols.?? The columnist forcefully responds, ?Oh, puleeze! That?s 1 percent too many.?
Defining anti-Semitism as ?a posture that traditionally identifies Jews as power-hungry, conniving, aggressive and dishonest, with these negative traits seen not as a response to past victimization or discrimination, but traits that are inherent in the Jewish people?s character, a product of an innate malevolence toward others, especially non-Jews,? the columnist writes, ?It would be egregious for any individual, at any time, in any place, for any reason, to embrace such notions; and for a society to use them collectively as a conceptual baseline from which to analyze, in this case, Jewish-Arab relations, is a stain on that society.?
Defending the call against anti-Semitism, the Saudi columnist writes, ?For now, I submit only one reason as to why we cannot and should not sanction the promotion of racism in our culture ? be it anti-Semitism or any other ? and seducing the viewing public in our part of the world to get a cheap thrill out of demonizing a whole race of people: Our faith. Especially as we observe it during the blessed month of Ramadan, when compassion, and charities of the imagination and the human spirit define our state of mind.? Islam, according to this writer?s view, ?set out... to build a commonwealth made up of white, black and brown peoples, of Africans, Indians and Orientals, a multicultural, multiracial, multilinguistic and multinational polity where, predating the American Declaration of Independence by several centuries, all men were considered to be created equal.? In fact, endemic anti-Semitism, the Saudi author writes, ?would represent a new phenomenon in Arab culture. Anti-Semitism was never practiced in the Islamic commonwealth, for the simple reason that neither the basic tenets of Islam nor the nature of Arab society were ever anti-Semitic. (Note how the Arab world, throughout its history, never produced a body of anti-Semitic literature of its own, as Europe had done, and when those lost souls in it saw fit to wax anti-Semitic, they borrowed that from outside. Nothing along the fantastical lines of The Protocols was ever composed by Arabs.) That is so because the racial theory is not only alien to the Arab and Islamic sensibility, it is diametrically opposed to it.... Beyond that, we are told to tell others, ?You have your religion, and I have mine.??
Acknowledging, ?We have a problem with the Israelis. There is no question about that. And we are entitled to fight them in order to gain our human rights to dignity and freedom, and fight them, if need be, till the end of time, till the sun dies,? the Arab News opinion piece warns, ?But we are not fighting them because they are Jews. Would we not have fought them with the same tenacity had they been, say, Dutch Catholic??
As with much of the debate in the Arab press regarding anti-Semitism, the impetus for the Arab News article was the flurry of criticism and debate regarding the Egyptian television series ?Horseman Without a Horse?, which promotes the conspiracy theories of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Calling the Protocols ?a vituperative document from late 19th century Russia long since shown to be a fake,? Turki quotes the series? producer and lead actor as having told the press that ?his soap opera is a mere ?political comedy? and, heck, ?only 1 percent of the show is based on The Protocols.?? The columnist forcefully responds, ?Oh, puleeze! That?s 1 percent too many.?
Defining anti-Semitism as ?a posture that traditionally identifies Jews as power-hungry, conniving, aggressive and dishonest, with these negative traits seen not as a response to past victimization or discrimination, but traits that are inherent in the Jewish people?s character, a product of an innate malevolence toward others, especially non-Jews,? the columnist writes, ?It would be egregious for any individual, at any time, in any place, for any reason, to embrace such notions; and for a society to use them collectively as a conceptual baseline from which to analyze, in this case, Jewish-Arab relations, is a stain on that society.?
Defending the call against anti-Semitism, the Saudi columnist writes, ?For now, I submit only one reason as to why we cannot and should not sanction the promotion of racism in our culture ? be it anti-Semitism or any other ? and seducing the viewing public in our part of the world to get a cheap thrill out of demonizing a whole race of people: Our faith. Especially as we observe it during the blessed month of Ramadan, when compassion, and charities of the imagination and the human spirit define our state of mind.? Islam, according to this writer?s view, ?set out... to build a commonwealth made up of white, black and brown peoples, of Africans, Indians and Orientals, a multicultural, multiracial, multilinguistic and multinational polity where, predating the American Declaration of Independence by several centuries, all men were considered to be created equal.? In fact, endemic anti-Semitism, the Saudi author writes, ?would represent a new phenomenon in Arab culture. Anti-Semitism was never practiced in the Islamic commonwealth, for the simple reason that neither the basic tenets of Islam nor the nature of Arab society were ever anti-Semitic. (Note how the Arab world, throughout its history, never produced a body of anti-Semitic literature of its own, as Europe had done, and when those lost souls in it saw fit to wax anti-Semitic, they borrowed that from outside. Nothing along the fantastical lines of The Protocols was ever composed by Arabs.) That is so because the racial theory is not only alien to the Arab and Islamic sensibility, it is diametrically opposed to it.... Beyond that, we are told to tell others, ?You have your religion, and I have mine.??
Acknowledging, ?We have a problem with the Israelis. There is no question about that. And we are entitled to fight them in order to gain our human rights to dignity and freedom, and fight them, if need be, till the end of time, till the sun dies,? the Arab News opinion piece warns, ?But we are not fighting them because they are Jews. Would we not have fought them with the same tenacity had they been, say, Dutch Catholic??