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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Hi everybody. Welcome to a new episode of Ask Aviv Anything. This is going to be a really fascinating one. I'm very grateful to Professor Mayor Litvak for joining us to talk about a burning question, a powerful and profound question, the history of antisemitism in Islam, within Islam, especially in the modern age, with modern political movements within Islam. Professor Litvak is a professor at the Department of Middle Eastern History and Director of the Alian center for Iranian Studies at Tel Aviv University. And he is one of the foremost scholars, certainly in Israel and beyond, on modern Shia Islam and on Islamist movements and especially Islamist anti Semitism in the world, with many publications in both fields. And we're going to talk about antisemitism in that world from the origins of the Muslim Jewish encounter all the way into the modern age. Before we do that, I want to share with you that this episode is sponsored by an individual who asked to remain anonymous, but asked me to share this message. I was invited to hear a former IDF officer blinded in a Hamas tunnel speak about the Israel Guide Dog Center. I wish to highlight this incredible organization. It is far more than a place for adorable puppies. It's a lifeline for people across Israel. As the country's only internationally accredited dog guide dog and service organization, it is transforming the lives of Israelis every day by providing guide dogs that restore independence and safety for the blind and visually impaired, PTSD service dogs that bring stability and healing to IDF veterans, and emotional support dogs that offer comfort to children with special needs and families coping with trauma. Thank you so much to that sponsor and I urge you and encourage you to visit the Israel Guide Dog center and contribute to the very important work that they do. I personally know soldiers who were wounded in the last three years of war, whether it's in Lebanon or Gaza. And this is just it's a wonderful thing to contribute to and thank you to that sponsor. I'd also love to invite everyone to join our Patreon and subscribe to our substack. If you're interested in asking the questions that guide the topics we choose to talk about, including the questions we'll be addressing today, that's where you do it. Those are communities that are discussing rich, interesting questions, challenging us, congratulating us for episodes they love and challenging episodes they disagree with. We read the comments, we respond to the comments, we learn from those comments and you get to take part in monthly live streams where I answer your questions live. Join us at www.patreon.com askhavivanything or khavivgur.substack.com those links are all going to be in the show. Notes Meir, how are you?
- [03:01]
B
Fine as far as can be these days.
- [03:03]
A
I want to start our story at the beginning and we'll lay this out. We'll go piece by piece right up to the present day. How did early Islam really, you know, the origins, the first, the parts of the earliest days of Islam we don't even know much about because the Quran is a collection set down a little bit after the life of Muhammad. How did early Islam view Jews? What in the Quran, in the Hadith, in the experience of Muhammad's conflict with the Jewish tribes in Arabia became the foundation for later anti Jewish attitudes in the Muslim world.
- [03:41]
B
Well when the Prophet Muhammad reached Medina from Mecca he encountered three Jewish tribes in Medina. Apparently at the beginning he tried to attract them to his mission. He saw himself as one more link in his long historical chains of divine prophets. And he wanted to appeal to the Jews to accept his mission thereby. Therefore for instance he adopted or accommodated certain Jewish practices. For instance he initiated that the first direction of prayer would be toward Jerusalem. He founded the day of fasting to be equivalent to Yom Kippur that he sat on the Yom Kippur, the Jews of Medina rejected him. That is they don't recognize him as a prophet because according to Jewish belief prophecy had ended with the destruction of the temple. So this led to I would say alienation and anger by the Prophet Muhammad against the Jews. This was one issue. The other issue was that apparently at least one Jewish tribe controlled the local market in Medina. The Prophet had to sustain his followers and there was apparently an economic competition between the Prophet and the Jewish tribes. So what we had is instead of cooperation we had now animosity, compete, rivalry or rivalry and animosity. And then the Prophet turned against the Jewish tribes. He fought them one by one. He defeated all three Jewish tribes. The first two were, you can say expelled. The third tribe, Banu Qurayza which was the largest Jewish tribe. Not only were they defeated but the Prophet then decided to slaughter all the Jewish men and all the Jewish men and children were sold to slavery. Then another point was that the Prophet defeated or conquered the oasis of Khaipa which was inhabited by Jews and again turned these Jews into, you can say, subservient to Muslims. So what we see under the Prophet Muhammad are two features in the Quran. Early passage of the Quran the Prophet speaks about the children of Israel. And of course the Prophet adopts Jewish prophets. Moses, Abraham, David and Solomon, who are regarded as Muslim prophets. But then with this growing more negative attitude toward the Jews, as the conflict with the Jews evolves and now the Quran becomes more hostile to Jews. Let me say that there are apparently more anti Jewish passages in the Quran than against Christians. The perception in the Quran against Jews and Christians and Jews is Christians are mistaken, okay? What in Islamic terms called Al Daliyin. They simply took the wrong path. Jews are worse. Jews have God's wrath upon them because they in a way turned against, distorted God's real scriptures, they distorted God's real messages and therefore they were destined to be punished by God and because they rejected the Prophet Muhammad. So the attitude toward the Jews in the Quran is more hostile than it is toward Christians and it is more negative. After the death of the Prophet, when the Muslims dominated Arabia, second caliph Omar first of all expelled all the Jews from the Arabian Peninsula, decided the Jews could not live in the urban peninsula because Regia is again the land of the two, you know, what's called the Haramey, that is the two holy sanctities of Islam. So Jews cannot live in this land. At the same time, Omar, when he is the builder of the Arab Empire, decided the rule toward non Muslims, that is Christians and Jews. Basically they were given security for their life and property. They were allowed to practice their religions freely. Except on those issues, let's say that would provoke Muslims. It is certain limitations, but that seemed to be provoking Muslims. But otherwise they could worship their religions freely. But there were various discriminatory measures against Jews and Christians. They had to pay a special tax called jizya poll tax. There were originally various limitations. For instance, they could not build new synagogues. At some point they had to walk with the special cloth to mark them and could not ride horses, et cetera. This is called the rules of the dima, I.e. of the people who are under Islamic protection. They enjoy protection, but they suffer restrictions and certain discriminations. So what you can say is that under Muslim rule, shortly after the, I mean after the Prophet, is that Jews enjoy tolerance. Not equality, but tolerance. Don't ask on the position of Muslim superiority. The benevolent Muslims allow the non Muslims to live according to the religion with some discrimination. We do not see under Islamic rule in these centuries active persecutions of Jews. The same way we saw for instance in Europe 7th century very much. I would say until the 18th century,
- [09:10]
A
early 90s all the way. So that's those hundreds of years.
- [09:13]
B
Yes, hundreds of years. Well, there were some exceptions. You know, there was a radical Islamic movement in Morocco. Al Murabitun, or Muahidun, that persecuted Jews.
- [09:25]
A
Okay, that was my next question. I wanted to ask you about that. Let me lay out the question. I am a Jewish philosophy student at Hebrew University, and we learned the life of Rambam, the greatest of rabbis. And Rambam's story is the story of the son of one of the great rabbis of Muslim Spain. And the Mohidun rise in Morocco. They take Spain, and most of the Jews are fleeing. They're forced. There's, you know, forced conversion to Islam. Many Jews flee north to Christian lands, to Provence. And the Maimon family, Rambam's father, goes into the lands of Islam, possibly to take care of the Jews there who were living under intense, intense discrimination and violence and brutality. There's some possibility that one professor argued that Rambam actually was forcibly studied in a madrasa, as you know, to pretend to convert to Islam in his youth, and then finally arrives in the lands of. In the Kingdom of Saladin in Cairo, in Saladin's empire there, there is much more tolerance. And so he is allowed to return to being a Jew, essentially. And so that is a story that for me, characterizes. Just because he's the most famous rabbi in the history of the Jewish bookshelf. That is the story that characterizes an incredibly tenuous fragility where, yeah, Saladin was absolutely. That story of tolerance you're describing, not just for Jews, but the mohedun of Morocco and Spain were the opposite. What is it actually? What is it to be an ordinary Jew in those years? Is Rambam representative?
- [11:06]
B
In some ways, yes. Some ways not. I would say, by and large, again, there was certainly discrimination against Jews, although we have to say that discrimination varied between countries and periods. Some rulers were more intense on preserving the laws of discrimination. Some cared less. Some care. Some could be bribed to relax discrimination. To give an example, okay, the dhimmi rules prohibit Jews from building new synagogues. But of course, synagogues were built throughout history under Muslim rule. That is, some rulers were insisted on maintaining this rule. Some ignored them. Okay, the same thing with the dress. There were periods when Jews were supposed to have some, let's say, markalir, in other words, not. We see, by the way, that some Muslims complain that Jews don't preserve these laws. Now, to give an example, the 14th century Muslim scholar Ibn Taymiyya, a very rigid, hardline scholar, very prolific, who lived in Damascus. He fled from Baghdad, from the Mongols. He settled in Damascus. Very important scholar. He complains about the frivolity of Muslim women. And he found the reason, he said Muslim women are frivolous because they go to the public bath house where they meet Jewish women, they talk, they become friends. And then we see the bad influence of Jewish women over these Muslim women. Now you can take it in two ways. Ibn Tanya certainly doesn't like Jews, okay? For him, of course, Jews are at fault. Ibn also say that implicitly, he acknowledges not only coexistence, but maybe friendship between Jews and Muslims. Okay? So you could see both sides. Now, there were tolerance. Yes. Was there certain, you can say implicit tension or pressure on Jews to convert all the time because converts received benefits. Not only did convert, could converts fully integrate in Islamic society? And by the way, some converts reached the highest positions as viziers. Now, in Islam, the moment person converted, he was a full fledged Muslim. No one cared about his ancestry, ancestors. Now, if person converted, he would get the entire inheritance of his parents, excluding his siblings who remained Jewish. So there was always some tension and again, there was some discrimination. But you can also see, for instance, to give an example, because Muslim law is a little bit more liberal than Jewish law regarding laws of inheritance for women. We had a situation in the Middle Ages where Jewish women preferred to go to a Muslim court. Also under the Ottomans, prefer to go to a Muslim court in order to get some part of the inheritance than to go to a rabbinical court. So much so that we have Jewish rabbis urging other rabbis, no, be much more generous to women so they will not go to the Muslim court. Now, the fact that these women believe that the Muslim code was a refuge is an indicator that again, not all this was a very mixed picture with some positive but also negative elements. Now, the Muahchidun in many ways are the exception, okay? They are the worst of the worst. On the other hand, to describe the Muslim Jewish relations as a golden age of harmony and brotherhood where they're all singing together with love. This is nonsense, okay? We know today this is not the true story. The worst, by the way, I would say the Muahedun and also in Iran. Iran is a Shiite country, not a Sunni country. Shi, Iran, from the 16th century until the 19th century was the least tolerant Muslim country in the world against all Jews.
- [14:48]
A
Can you describe that? Give us details.
- [14:50]
B
In Iran, because of the unique elements of Shiism, they insisted, I would say the almost the obsession with ritual purity. Jews were regarded as ritually impure, which meant not only social discrimination. For instance, in Iran, there was Jews to distinguish between Jews and non Jews. Jews were not supposed to wear Socks, Okay. They had to. Or they could not trim their beards. But Jews could not open stores in the bazaar. Many Jews could work as peddlers, but not on stores in the bazaar. When a Jew is ritually impure means that if a Jew touches certain foods or water, a Muslim cannot touch this food. It has to be cleansed.
- [15:38]
A
This is Iran under the Safavids, starting in, what was it?
- [15:42]
B
1501. 1501. But it took while.
- [15:45]
A
Now, for how long does this. Do Jews live like this in Iran?
- [15:48]
B
Safavids collapsed in 1722, but some of these discriminatory measures continued until the 1920s. I can show you some interesting anecdotes from the 1930s. It's two peaks. One is that in the 17th century, under Shah Abbas II, about a third of the Jewish community in Iran was forced to convert to Islam. They disappeared, the Jews. In 1839, the entire Jewish community of Mashhad was forced to convert to Islam because they accused a Jew of slaughtering a dog during a Muslim ritual procession in order to make the procession ritually impure and therefore invalid. Now, interestingly enough, the Jews in Mashhad lived as crypto Jews for 100 years, living double life. Muslims outwardly Jews, inwardly by the way, marrying among themselves. Only some fled from Mashhad, settled in Bukhara and other places, but Afghanistan. But most stayed in Bukhara, remained crypto Jews until they were allowed to return to Judaism. In the 1930s, under the Secular Reza Shah, there was also a mass pogrom against the Jewish community in Tabriz, which disappeared apparently in 1809 or at some point beyond the exact dates. It, by the way, this obsession with purity that some Muslim clerics ruled that when it trains, Jews should not go outside. Because if they go and the rain fall on their head and then fall close to the ground, the ground will be contaminated, so Muslims won't be able to walk. Now, these rulings were issued in the 19th century or 17th century onward, and they remained invalid until the mid 20th century. I met people who came from Iran and told me that this was practiced when they were children. So Iran was the exception or the worst case. And again, Wahedoon, another case. If you look at the Ottomans, for instance, under the Ottomans, again Jews which enjoyed tolerance. The Ottomans were the only empire that opened its gates to the Jews who were expelled from Spain. Was they food equality? No. Was the major tolerance? Yes. Now, Jews, you could. At the same time, Jews spoke Turkey, but they also maintained, of course, their language. Their own language. Nadino in Ottoman Empire in the Balkans. So this was, I would say, the picture. And Then in the 19th century, the Ottomans also gave Jews legal equality. Okay, not necessarily in practice, but it's sadistic. According to the law. When European imperialism reached the Middle east, the Jews, unlike the Muslims, welcomed the European imperialists. For me, it shows that they still felt as a minority, they felt insecure. They prefer the protection and benevolence of the European imperialists, be it the French in North Africa and or the British in Iraq over the Arab majority. That shows you that if the Jews in Algeria welcomed the French and took wholeheartedly French citizenship, shows you that they did not feel any solidarity, brotherhood with the Muslims. They certainly did not feel that they were like their brethren. Okay? They felt like a minority.
- [19:19]
A
I was challenged once by somebody trying to lead me into a conversation about a traditional Muslim belief that that comes very early on in the Quran, that the Jews falsify their scripture, that there is a special. You've touched on this. That there's a special kind of treachery in the Jews, a lying of they received a revelation. The Christians misunderstood their revelation, maybe, but the Jews received a revelation and then warped it, changed it, made it not accurate. And so the Jews are kind of prototypical. They're an archetype of dishonesty and refusal of divine truth and divine revelation. There are pogroms. There's a pogrom in Tzfat in 1834. There's a pogrom in Rhodes. There's the blood libel of Damascus. There are just again and again and again these spasms of violence. That's in the Ottoman period, which is remembered by Ottoman Jews, remembered by Sephardi Jews, by Turkish Jews as a period of calm, as a period of quiet. Toward the end, the empire is toppling everybody's suffering. But there is this memory that things were tolerant. And yet we have the spasms. We have this recurring argument. It's not just Maimonides Rambam's childhood, it's his letters, Jewish communities that feel under pressure from Islam. It's all these things that you describe. You just described inheritance laws in which if one member of the family converts to Islam, they inherit everybody, everybody's things, and the others are disinherited because they remained Jewish. Well, centuries and centuries and centuries of that will ultimately dissolve families and dissolve communities. And that's without the forced conversion, mass forced conversion that you saw in Iran under the Safavid. And what triggers me to ask the question in that way is your point about colonialism. The Europeans show up and the Jews are immediately excited about it. Because there's a sense that post revolutionary France gives equality something that Jews could never even hope for or imagine. Islam is a religion of social order in which the Jews are from the beginning by the great prophet of God himself positioned in a lower class. Was it a good experience or was it a bad experience or what in between?
- [21:44]
B
It is very politicized today on both sides. By the way, those who try to present harmony and to ideal as a situation and those who want to present it as a period of 14 centuries of constant persecutions. I think both are mistaken. Now there are you mentioned before that yes, Jews are regarded as those distorting the scriptures, therefore they aren't even Christians are simply mistaken. Even worse, there's a whole theme or genre in Islamic literature called Israeliyat, that is of Jews who supposedly converted to Islam but in fact remained Jewish and they entered Islam in order to distort Islam from within. So many of the problems that are developed in Islam are a result of this supposedly Jewish Jewish penetration. Now you can also see it in another way. By the way, in every split that happened in Islam in Islamic history, there's this tendency always to find the person who is guilty of the split, okay? There's supposedly one person who was the guilty person. By and large, 99% of these cases is a Jew. When you have the major split between Sunnis and Shias, of course it's the fault of a Jewish, okay, we are splits within Shiism. It's the fault of a Jew. That is the fact that you always attribute every bad thing to a Jew shows you there's a problem, okay? And we cannot deny it. Again, at the same time, if you look at Jewish, most Jewish communities, by the way, were not massacred or murdered and did not suffer constant persecutions. Yes, there was discrimination, by the way, similar to Christians. Christians were not preferred, by the way. Sometimes Jews were preferred. Under the Ottomans, in the early centuries of the Ottoman Empire, until, let's say 18th century, Jews fared better than Christians because Christians were suspected of being agents of Europe. Jews were loyal and therefore in fact they enjoyed more tolerance than Christians under the Ottomans. I would say the picture is mixed. There are positive and negative elements. Now the change comes, by the way, in the 19th century. This is a different story. And okay, so let's we see the entrance of antisemites into the Middle East.
- [24:14]
A
So at what point does traditional Islamic anti Judaism, the Dhimmi system, at what point does that transform into something that is much Closer to modern antisemitism. In other words, where we really begin to see the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is already, by the early 20th century, translated into Arabic. A kind of European inflected modern antisemitism that is already core to Islamic conversations, Islamic politics, Arab politics, Muslim world, you know, public affairs.
- [24:48]
B
Well, the change certainly takes place in the 19th century and it is the result of two processes. One is European influence, cultural influence on the Middle East. For instance, the 1840 blood libel in Damascus was invented by Christian Marx and then developed in Damascus. So it was European influence that brought anti Semitic themes to the Middle East. One process, the other process in the 19th century. Let's go this way. For many centuries, Muslims were tolerant to Jews and Christians because they were powerful, self confident. When you are powerful and self confident, you can afford to be generous toward others, toward people who are weaker than you. In the 19th century, Muslims begin from the 19th century until today, by which the Muslim world is indeed weaker economically, technologically, scientifically lagging behind the West. It also suffered from military defeats from European powers from the 17th century. 1683 is the beginning, but then 18th century, 1772, major defeat by the Russians and from then on, a whole series of defeats by Muslims, of Muslims, by Europeans. Muslims feel threatened by the West. The moment they feel threatened, they become less tolerant. Even worse, because of the economic penetration of European powers to the Middle east, non Muslim minorities prospered much more than Muslims, Christians much more than Jews, but also did Jews.
- [26:34]
A
Can you explain that? There are the treaties signed between the Ottomans and European powers, the capitulations that granted European citizens, subjects of European empires, legal immunity in part to bring European trade into the empire. But you're saying people actually living in the empire. In other words, ancient Christian communities in the empire prospered in a way that the Muslims living next to them didn't. What caused that?
- [26:59]
B
Well, the capitulations, by the way, were given in the 16th century when the Ottomans were very powerful. Again out of generosity. The powerful Ottomans helping this, say inferior Christians to make business, to do business in the Ottoman Empire, they did not understand the consequences. In the 19th century, it becomes a very powerful economic tool of Europeans. But what we see that if European companies enter the Middle east, merchants, okay, they purchase things, who would they employ? They would employ Christians, much to a large extent. It's easier for them to work with Christians and to a lesser extent with Jews. So Jews and Christians or Christians and Jews prospered from the link with the Europeans where Muslims did not. Now Muslims See themselves, I would say under a dual attack. First of all, we are under attack by the powerful militaries, European militaries, then by the powerful European economies and you can say also subject to European culture and influence. Their self confidence is shaken, their tolerance disappears. How do you see it? 1860, there's a large scale massacre against Christians in Damascus because by the way, they're supposed to give Jews and Christians legal equality. That led to fury against the minorities. All you needed was one economic crisis. And by the way, the Christians made a mistake. They took the legal equality seriously. So they began to hold processions with crosses and ring church bells. They were now allowed. Jews, being a much smaller community, much more cautious, did not provoke the Muslims. They knew that they had to be cautious. So we saw in 1860, large scale massacre, maybe 5,000 people. Christians were massacred by the Muslims in Damascus. A smaller massacre in Aleppo, another small massacre in Mosul against Christians because the Christians violated the right order, the right social hierarchy. A very important landmark is 1894 before the advent of political Zionism. The first Zionist Congress is 1896 before the advent of political Zionism. The first major anti Semitic tract was translated from German to Arabic. It was called, it is the vicious anti Semitic book by the German author called Oling, called Talmud Yude, which speaks about this evil Talmud that, you know, sort of contains various machinations against Christians etc. And it was translated to Arabic. So now antisemitism becomes supposedly scientific. It is now, it has scholarly basis. Then the major turning point is the First World War. The last great Muslim empire is destroyed. The Caliphate, the symbol of Islamic unity, is abolished. Worse than that, European powers now conquer or control the entire Middle East. And you have the Jewish community or the tsarist movement receiving international recognition, first by the Balfour declaration, then in 1922 by the League of Nations that gives the British the mandate over Palestine to implement the Balfour Declaration. Now Muslims in these years find ourselves in a new world which they cannot understand. The whole world, the whole old world collapsed. Everything, the picture that we had of the world collapsed, shattered completely. How to explain it? What happened now? Societies in crisis are prone to conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories make everything clear. Everything bad that happened to us is a result of this powerful sinister group of people who are behind the scenes. They dominate everything, they manage, they manipulate everything. And who are what better than the Jews who have it now? Add to that First World War leads to the postilic revolution description of the Habsburg Empire. That is all of Europe is sitting with conspiracy theories. And then Comes this horrible anti Semitic tract, the Protocols of that design that was invented and forged by the Russian secret police in 1905 to explain the upheaval in Russia attributed to the Jews, what we call a White Russian, that is anti Bolshevik Russian, anti Semite. Sergey Nilos brought it to Western Europe and it became a bestseller in Europe in the 1920s. And indeed during the 1920s, the particles were translated twice to Arabic. And since then they become one of the first of all, they're one of the most popular books all over the world. But they become extremely popular in the Arab world, in the Muslim world. There are over 59 printed editions of the Protocols in Muslim countries. Not to mention now the spread in the Internet which reaches many millions of people. So here I would say the post World War period is the turning point. The Muslim world is in distress. The Muslim world is in a cultural predicament. Now let me explain also the cultural predicament which I did not put before. According to Islamic belief, Islam is the superior religion that has superseded all previous religions. It is God's final, most perfect word, revelation to or message to humanity. One of the theological proofs of Islam's superiority over other religions was it also it is Islamic civilization was more powerful because Islam always had. Islam was in the beginning, a religious community, was also a political community. And politics was an important element in Islamic tradition and religion. The success of the Islamic polity in history was a proof of its just cause. Indeed, for many centuries, Muslims could look at the world and say, indeed we are superior. We are more powerful, more advanced than Europeans. And that was true until the 18th century, when the tips turn against the scale, tip against the Muslims. And since the 19th century to this day, when Muslims find themselves lagging behind the west, being defeated by the west and later by the Israelis, this theological concept is shaken, it is challenged. How can it be the gods chosen religion, God's superior religion is inferior politically, militarily, economically, scientifically, technologically to the infidels. It is wrong. It is against the right order of things. Add to that the Jews are more powerful than Muslims. Then in such a predicament, conspiracy theorists provide answers. We are victims of a very powerful, powerful group of people, again who dominate the world behind the scenes. And everything bad happens to us is their fault, not ours.
- [33:30]
A
So what happens in the 20th century and how does this relationship with the Jews express itself?
- [33:37]
B
In the 20th century, Muslims suffer. There was predicaments and the search for the what has gone wrong with us and how do we solve? How do we get out of our crisis goes Back to the 19th century with Jamal ad Din al Afghani and others. Now, by the way, Afghani did not deal with the Jews. He didn't care about the Jews. One of his disciple or friend or Muhammad Abdu, by the way, again doesn't deal so much with the Jews. But although he says unless we Muslims take care of ourselves, we'll find ourselves in the same situation as the Jews. That is the Jews are the symbol of being humiliated. Miserable group. He warns against it, but he's not. Again, he doesn't care so much about the Jews. Jews are not his problem.
- [34:19]
A
They're out to reform Islam. They're out to return Islam to the kind of piety that it would have, that it'll need to rise up again.
- [34:28]
B
Ironically, Rashid Rida, Abdul's disciple by the way, supports Dryfus. When there's the Dryfus case in France, Rida publishes articles in support of Dreyfus as a victim of persecution. Yeah, not that he's a friend of Jews, but again, Jews are not a problem for him.
- [34:45]
A
As an example of Islamic tolerance, by the way, he says this Dreyfus thing could never happen in Islam
- [34:51]
B
again. The change I would say is the 20th century with the destruction of the Ottoman Empire, the tremendous sense of loss. I should have said, by the way, there is a statement in Arabic about Islam which is very powerful. It says Islam should reign supreme. Nothing can be above Islam. This is a theological concept. Now what happens in 20th century Islam no longer reigns supreme. On the contrary, Islam is suffering, is defeated, humiliated, etc. Now the worst situation is it is also the Muslims or many Muslims see that in the modern period Jews are very successful. Think of Einstein, think of Freud, Karl Marx, who was an anti Semite himself. But when his father converted, Karl Marx was an anti Semite. But for anti Semites he's Jewish. The Muslims, not many Muslims see modernity associate Jews with modernity. Too many Jews are successful in modernity and they associate then with many aspects of modernity with the Jews. Again, Einstein, Freud and we see by the way, in current Muslim anti Semitic diatribes, again the Jews are responsible for many of the evils of modernity. Zionism adds to it or I would say is again the major turning point. Because now Muslims are defeated by Jews. 1948 is a major trauma for many Muslims. How could it be that 600,000 Jews could defeat five other Arab armies? Now there can be two possible answers to this. One is maybe there's something deeply wrong in Arab societies. That is we are Disorganized. We have corrupt governments, we have corrupt systems, our education is lacking, et cetera, et cetera. Or we are victims of a very powerful force. We were not defeated by 600,000 Jews. We were defeated by a sinister force that actually dominates the world. How can you understand? How can you explain that Communist Soviet Union and capitalist America joined together in 1947 to vote for a petition and for the salvation of the Jewish state. It must have been the outmath of a conspiracy. And 1948, the humiliation leads to a jump in anti Semitry. It starts before again, Hassan Al Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brothers, was an anti Semite.
- [37:40]
A
And he found the Muslim brothers in the 1920s. And he's already late 1920s, reading anti Semitic literature, writing about it.
- [37:46]
B
Yeah, yes, yes. 1980, 1928, he founded it. 1930s becomes a mass movement. Certainly he's vehemently anti Zionist, but also becomes anti Jewish. By the way, in 1948, the Muslim Brothers not only pressured the Egyptian government to go to war against Israel, but they wage a pogrom against the Jewish community in Cairo. Again, why? Because Muslims feel threatened. For Muslims, being defeated by the Europeans is painful, but it still can be no longer explained. But being defeated by Jews, who are usually the lowest of the law, who are under Muslim rule, who are subject to Muslim domination, all of a sudden, they defeat. It's intolerable. Sometimes when I speak to American audiences, I say, okay, no, when the LA Lakers lose to the New York, to the Boston Celtics, painful, but tolerable. But if the LA Lakers would lose to a team from a small town in Wisconsin, okay, over to. That would be major humiliation, okay? And it's exactly what happens in the Middle East. And then we see after 1948, I would say again a major change in the spread of antisemitism, in the virulence of antisemitism, and also again, in the Islamization of antisemitism. Again, it becomes much more intertwined with Islamic Islamist, modern Islamist ideology. In fact, it becomes an inherent central element of modern Islamist ideology. For them, it starts with four, as we mentioned, but it became much worse after 1948. The conflict in this land, okay, the Jewish Palestinian conflict, Zionist Palestinian conflict, is essentially originally a national conflict. Two national movements, two peoples vying for the same land. Both believe that this land is theirs, this is their homeland. It was actually a battle over again, territory, country, etc. It has released elements certainly Jewish longing for the Holy Land, for Earth. Israel had a very powerful religious foundation. There's no Question about it for Muslims, I mentioned it before. Jewish sovereignty is unacceptable. Jewish sovereignty is an affront against Islam. Jews cannot have sovereignty over territory. Jews were destined by God to be dispersed and humiliated by the nations. So Jewish sovereignty is in front against God. Had another element, Jerusalem, the holy city for both religions or peoples. Now. So it is a national conflict, but had religious elements which complicated it. Then in the 1920s, the leader of the Palestinian national movement, Hajimen Hosseini, who was by the way, a rabid anti Semite, uses religion as a force to mobilize the people. He understands that nationalism is still very weak among most Arabs and Palestinians. And the tool that can mobilize people, motivate people for the struggle is religion. And then Hajimen begins to use the Al Aqsa is in danger. The Jews threaten Al Aqsa mosque. They want to take over Al Aqsa mosque. They want to destroy it and just form it into a Jewish temple. He infuses religious elements into the conflict. That is, this is a conflict now becomes between Islam and Jews. Now under Hajimen Al Husseini, and I will also say under Yasser Arafat, it is nationalism using religion, religion as a tool or religion as the force of popular mobilization. Yasser Arafat uses to quote from the Quran to describe some of the elements with the Jews, although again, he always described this as a national crisis. Islamization means that you describe the conflict as between Islam and Judaism, between Muslims and Jews, and the struggle wages around the sanctities of the Holy Land, especially Jerusalem. The Jews want to again undermine Islam. It is a Jewish fight against Islam.
- [42:01]
A
And this hearkens back to the stuff we talked about at the very beginning. In other words, Jews as treacherous, Jews as faking the revelation, Jews as resisting and refusing the truth of God. Those come back as immutable traits of Jews. We are dealing Hamas the very world that says we have to go back to the Islam of our forefathers if we want to regain geopolitical preeminence. Now says, oh, and by the way, their enemy, the Jews are our enemy, the Jews. There is something unnamed.
- [42:32]
B
The Jews had been enemies of some from the beginning.
- [42:34]
A
This is something you hear from Hamas all day long.
- [42:37]
B
The Jews wanted the prophet Muhammad wanted to prevent him from spending the news. By the way, Muhammad died because he was poisoned by his Jewish wife. This is one of the legends that developed in Islamic tradition. He survived the poisoning effect, but it affected his health. Okay, so you see, the Jews were always, by the way, sinister. This Jewish wife supposed to convert to Islam, but In fact, remained vengeance. So she wanted to take revenge against the Prophet. She poisoned him. See, Jews always use this, say, immoral ways to fight, to fight Islam. So, yes, the modern Islamist movement say, see, Jewish enmity toward Islam goes back then and now it is this continuous Jewish enmity toward Islam from the 7th century to this morning.
- [43:34]
A
Just to clarify this point, people who argue that Islam is fundamentally set against Jews, that antisemitism is core to Islam, that the Jews are innately the opposite of what Islam is, that those people are not anti Muslim Westerners, necessarily. Those are Hamas themselves. That is an argument made deep within the, you know, Salafist Islamist political world, where that is what it is that they are claiming. And that is what we see in terrorism against Jewish communities in Britain, terrorism against Jewish communities in the United States and all over the world in Bandai Beach. So just, you know, there's this sense in Western conversations about Muslim antisemitism that to say that somehow Islam and Judaism are set against each other in some kind of permanent way is an evil version of hatred of Muslims. It is, in fact, the opinion of Hamas.
- [44:34]
B
Yeah. Not only of Hamas, by the way, all Islamist thinkers, all Islamist movements. Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, the ideological of the Islamic Republic, in the first page of his most important political book, the Rule of the Jews, in the first page says that Islam from its beginning was afflicted by the Jews because the Jews conspired against Islam and they wanted to foil the mission of the Prophet Muhammad.
- [44:58]
A
First page, can you take us deep into Iran? So now we're. This is. You know, you're really one of the great experts on this. You wrote a book, Know Thy Enemy. I have it somewhere on my shelf. Which is not that we should know our enemy, Iran, but in fact, how Iranian, Shia, thinking about the other, about who the enemy is, influences Iranian ideology, the Iranian state. Okay. Is anti Semitism, specifically Jews obsession with Jews and not framed as Israel. Israel is the immediate challenge of the Jews. The Jews are the great challenge. Is a pillar of the Islamic identity of the regime.
- [45:41]
B
It is deep.
- [45:42]
A
It is foundational. And that's something I learned from you. Can you walk us through that? What are the Jews to Khomeini and to the regime, the last 47 years of the regime that he founded?
- [45:53]
B
Yeah. First of all, I would say yes, anti Semitism is a very important pillar of the Islamic ideology of the Islamic Republic. Now, if you go back to, as I mentioned, I discussed Shijim before, but let's say that in the 20th century, there were two developments in Iran. On the one hand, the Pahlavis, who were secular, removed many of the legal restrictions against Jews. Jews were allowed to go to schools and get jobs, et cetera, moved out of the Jewish ghetto. And indeed the Jewish Committee in Iran enjoyed unprecedented prosperity under Pahlavi rule. In many ways, you could compare them to the Jewish community in America. At the same time, there was also anti Jewish traditions or strong modern anti Semitism. If you look at, for instance, the most illustrious Iranian author in 20th century, Sadiq Hadayat, was a rabid anti Semite. In all his books or plays, there's always this Jew who is a liar, deceiver, stingy crook, et cetera, et cetera, okay? The same thing we see in many other films and books. So it always existed, also existed. Now, Khomeini was an anti Semite through and through. From the beginning in the 1950s and 60s, he always complained that Jews are taking over Iran. He was very hostile to the Shah because of his policies. And he accused again the Shah was collaborating with the Jews, et cetera. When Khomeini now became a revolutionary, of course he integrated this animosity to the Jews into his overall ideology. And for instance, and this is, as I mentioned, his book, first book, first page, he says Jews conspired against Islam from the beginning. Three pages later, he explained that in the modern period, the Muslim world has been under an attack by, you could say an unholy trinity. The west, the Jews and Westernized Iranians. This unholy trinity wants to destroy Islam. This unholy trinity wants to prevent Islam from fulfilling its mission. Why? Because they understand that Islam, thanks to its moral percepts and laws, is the major obstacle against their sinister desires, designs to take over the world. And Khomeini explained that all the calamities that had befallen upon the Muslims in the modern period are the result of this Jewish Western conspiracy. The pick of these conspiracies is Zionism, that is Khomeini and all other Islamist movements. By the way, don't make any distinction between Zionism and Judaism. For them, Zionism is the practical implementation of Judaism. Now, when Khomeini seized power in Iran and became the leader of Islamic Republic on Iran, he explained that in fact, we make a distinction between Jews and Zionism. We are not anti Jewish. Judaism is a protected religion. In fact, there is a Jewish member in the parliament who is always anti Zionist and always takes Israel on every occasion, you see, he's put there, by
- [49:03]
A
the way, it's not like authentically elected. He's put there by the regime so
- [49:07]
B
they can point to him at the same time. The Islamic Republic in Iran in its official publications, I mean Islamic discourse in Iran. The ruling Islamic discourse in Iran is thoroughly antisemitic. The Islamic Republic of Iran published the Protocols of the Zion in at least two printed publications, not to mention frequent use in Internet. But I know hundreds of ways. Okay. The Islamic Republic of Iran disseminates the idea of the blood library you have in Islamic Iranian tv, official tv, supposedly scholars who tell you that in fact the Jews do use blood of different Christians for ritual purposes. By the way, why didn't you hear about it in the news? It shows you how the Jews control the media. That is the fact that there are no evidence of Jewish use of ritual or blood is a proof of the Jewish domination. They are able to hide the truth. The Islamic Republic of Iran is the only country in the world whose official ideology contains Holocaust denial. Not only Ahmadinejad, including late Supreme Khamenei described the Holocaust as a complete exaggeration. Again invented by the Jews and by the way the Americans as well to hide American atrocities in the war. And not only that, but leading Islamic spokesman in the Islamic Republic of Iran justify the Holocaust. Hitler. There was no Holocaust. But what Hitler did to the Jews was completely justified. A supposedly moderate senior politician like Ravsan Jani, former president number two man under Khomeini explained that in the 19th century the Zionists dominated Europe. Germany was under the stranglehold of Zionist organizations and Hitler simply liberated Germany from this Zionist stranglehold. And then he said what happened? What happened? That is something happened. We don't know what exactly what it is, certainly not 6 million. But what you see is Rav Saint Geni. He speaks about Zionist domination of 19th century Germany. Clearly he means Jews. He uses Zionism. But in fact everyone understands he speaks about Jews. So Iran is the only country in the world again who disseminates the Protocols denies the Holocaust justifies it to some extent. And now by the way, we also have another very important some other important elements describing the Jews as enemies of Shi Islam, particularly Jews are responsible for many of the calamities that has befallen upon the Shias. They were the force behind the Sunni animosity. Taught Shias Jews and historical enemies of Iran going to antiquity. The genocide the Jews committed against perpetrated against Persians in biblical time under Queen Esther. And you also have another element that it is essential not only to destroy Israel but to fight The Jews, you know, to prepare the ground for the coming of the Messiah. That is, this is what the great Israeli historian Solfinidil defined as redemptive anti Semitism. That is, you redeem the world by persecuting the Jews. And today in modern Eastern Shiite discourse, fighting the Jews is essential to redeem humanity, to facilitate the coming of the hidden of the Messiah, of the Mahdi.
- [52:45]
A
So I want to just ask this. We have studies of anti Semitism in the Muslim world, incidentally rare, hard to come by. I think Pew did something in 2008, a deal did this huge survey of global anti Semitic sentiment in 2014. There's a little bit here and there more recent. But people don't like asking the Muslim world what they think of Jews because they don't like the answers. One of the things that we have seen is compared to the Arab world, compared to Indonesia, compared to Malaysia, for example, Iran has relatively low rates of anti Semitic sentiment. And by relatively low, I mean half, 47%. So the Iran you're describing is arguably, I'm asking this as a question, half of Iranian society and then we see in Iran, Iran specifically is very interesting because of course, we're now in war with Iran. The other half of Iranian society is I guess the half that's producing the protesters, the people who hate the regime, the people who think that antisemitism is part of a structure that oppresses them much more than it ever oppressed, at least since the Jews left after the revolution. Oppressed the Jews. Is that a fair assessment? Is Iranian society split in that way on the question of antisemitism?
- [54:09]
B
Apparently, yes. I would say probably many Iranians, first of all, they have much more urgent problems than Jews. And secondly, because they hate the regime, they don't believe anything that the regime says. And if the regime is anti Semitic, then of course the Jews must be good. The Jews are okay. And therefore, yes, we see less open anti Semitism in society than we see in other countries. Because there it is again. Antisemitism is from below. Some regimes encourage it or tolerate it, others are not engaged in it. Okay, Indonesia is a very tolerant Muslim country. So what you have anti Semitism Indonesia, by the way, the anti sentence without Jews, they've never seen a Jew in their life is of only of the most radical movements within Indonesian Islam.
- [55:01]
A
But Indonesians say things about Jews like Jews control the world banks at rates of 90%. So it's the Jew, the abstract Jew, the category of a Jew. They've never. Yeah, so there's nobody pushing back against this in Indonesia, Malaysia.
- [55:18]
B
To some, I would mistake a distinction between Malaysia and Indonesia. Malaysia is much worse. But you know, the president of Indonesia appeared last year in the UN General assembly and said that we must have peace in the Middle east to ensure Israel's security. Ended his speech with the word shalom in Hebrew. That is something that is not common among Muslim leaders. So maybe he doesn't fight anti Semitism actively, but he certainly, first of all supports peace with Israel. He speaks about the need to ensure Israel's security. This is something you do not find among any other Arab Muslim leader who speaks about peace with Israel. Yes, they accept Israel. Some of them are willing to live in peace with Israel. They don't stress the need of Israeli security. He went further than others. Yes, he doesn't fight anti Semitism, probably because he has too many other problems on his plate to, and simply fighting anti Semitism.
- [56:15]
A
So I want to ask, I guess the last question, and it's a big one. We're seeing a massive rise in antisemitic rhetoric. Podcasters in the United States, mass marches in England over the Gaza war. I know many decent people who joined the marches because they saw terrible scenes from a, from, from a very painful war. But we also have seen Hezbollah flags all over those marches and Hamas flags all over those marches and organizations where there's no, there's no doubt, there's no question. They're explicitly and openly genocidal and anti Semitic. And, and how shall I put this? You're not marching against a war or against a genocide if you are explicitly supporting movements that explicitly call for genocides and are anti Semitic in the, in the, in the insane that we're describing here that they borrowed from the West. A lot of that, a lot of those ideas have come from Muslim immigrant groups. A lot of the core activist groups that push a lot of the anti Semitic ideas, not anti Israel, explicit anti Jewish and the levels of anti Semitic sentiment. We have polls of British Muslims. We have polls in the United States that are again, hard to come by. But every time they happen, they always tell us the same thing. Rates of negative sentiment against Jews and of conspiratorial thinking of Jews are through the roof. And a lot of the conspiracies that you get from the Tucker Carlsons and the Candace Owens who are borrowing from, you know, mid 20th century Europe, but where has that stuff gone to hibernate so that it can come back into the world? It went to the Muslim world to hibernate explicitly Literally translating from German to Arabic, from Russian to Arabic, putting it in the major libraries of the Muslim world. And now it's coming back into the west and Third world is people who, you know, from the progressive deep left who, who feel that you have to listen to the Muslim world, you have to listen to the third world. They are exposed to this constantly because a lot of what the Muslim world says on these issues is deeply, classically European, 19th, 20th century, anti Semitic. Where, where is anti Semitism in the Muslim world going in the future? What, what do you, do you see it getting much, much worse? Is there any reason for optimism of any kind?
- [58:44]
B
Well, let me just mention one thing which I didn't say before. Islamist anti Semitism today is the most openly genocidal anti Semitism. It is the most openly movement that says openly the need to exterminate the entire Jewish people. By the way, they don't use, they don't mince wars, they don't use euphemisms, okay? They don't speak about the final solution, resettlement, etc. They speak openly and explicitly about the need to exterminate the entire Jewish people.
- [59:13]
A
Who, for example, Islamic who, for example
- [59:18]
B
Sayyid Qutb, Hamas and many other Islamist thinkers. They need to start to exterminate Jewish people. This is the first time after the Holocaust and by the way, now anti Semitism is popular that movements say openly speak openly about the need to exterminate the entire people. Now I have to say I'm very pessimistic about this spread of antisemitism partly because again of the demographic growth and the political empowerment of Muslims in Europe, in the US and other societies, partly I would say, because of what is happening. In my view. I'm not an expert on Ukraine anti Semitism or Western anti Semitism, but I believe that what we had in Europe was a 70 years hiatus in antisemitism that after the Holocaust it became, let's say, unfashionable. But now it can re. Emerge.
- [60:16]
A
But what specifically about Muslim communities is there? For example, we just dealt with the British Muslim community because of the attacks on Jews there. And look at that. And we looked at polls and it turns out several things. One, there is a huge problem of deep antisemitism in the British Muslim community and not, not, you know, Lebanese and Palestinian and Jordanian expats in Britain, but in fact Pakistanis in Britain. It's an Islamic thing. It's not borrowed directly from some kind of experience with Israel. And it's immense. It's immense. It's it's, it's, it depends what question you ask. It'll range from a third to two thirds. But then there's also a data point that says that the more integrated they feel in British society, the more British they say they are, the lower the levels of antisemitism. Dramatically. If 97% of Algerians say that Jews control the world through the banks, then Algerian immigrants are going to bring antisemitism to your country. That is simply part of their culture at this point. It's an almost universal perspective of Algerians. But, I mean, but more importantly than that, can Muslim societies end this? Can they fight this? Can they tackle this? Is there any chance that these Muslim communities in the west or Muslim communities in Islam, in the lands of Islam overcome this stuff? We see, for example, the Abraham Accords, the Emiratis, the Somaliland. I just interviewed, the ambassador of Somaliland was here. There is no anti Semitism there. There is, you know, they have all the problems in the world. They are an amazing success story despite those problems, but they're just, they're not obsessed with the Jews. Is there a way for the Muslim world to find a path out of the conspiratorial thinking that, you know, you've traced in great detail from the 19th century till today, which has a lot of roots all the way back to the very beginning and which they're bringing in these immigrant waves to the west explicitly? It's the data. If you don't like it, you know, you're arguing against data, not against a Zionist Jewish evil. Israeli podcast. Is there a way of hope, a reason to think a path forward, in which I guess I'm saying Islam cures itself of this.
- [62:37]
B
The people who can fight anti Semitism first are first and foremost Muslims. The way to fight anti Semitism is to somehow explain or convince them that, yes, you have many problems, but the solution is not anti Semitism. The solution is addressing you deep socioeconomic, political culture problems, your patriarchal systems, your bad, certain authoritarian traditions or corrupt systems. You want to solve your problems. Don't blame the Jews. This is the easy solution. This is the way out of indeed addressing your problems. Now, it is done by some Muslims today, unfortunately, small minority. It has to be done by them and I would say also by Western governments who should not tolerate it, who should not tolerate Islamist anti Semitism in the name of pluralism or being open to third world cultures, or in the name of multiculturalism. Multiculturalism does not justify the fact that you can advocate the killing of another people or you can justify rape against others. Now I would say no. Convince also Europeans and others. Jews are the first. You'll be the second. We have always been the first victims. We are the canary in the coal miner. We are the first victims of intolerance or rapid movements. You will be next. You will be next. Unless you do. Address it
- [64:17]
A
now.
- [64:17]
B
Is it easy? No. Does it have a chance? Yes. Is it? Am I certain of success? I'm not very optimistic, but I hope.
- [64:30]
A
Mayor Litvak, thank you so much for joining me. We know a little bit more. And you didn't end with, everything's gonna be fine, don't worry. But. But that's our situation.
- [64:43]
B
Yeah. Unfortunately.
- [64:45]
A
Thank you for joining me.
- [64:46]
B
You're most welcome.