Adolf Hitler / Nazis hated Arabs as an inferior “race”, yet praised Islam in its ‘war like’ TOTALITARIAN ideology He saw them as a great disposable tool to be used against the Jews, the mufti fell for it.
SPLCenter.org: The Swastika and the Crescent, Although he loathed Arabs (he once described them as “lacquered half-apes who ought to be whipped“), Hitler understood that he and the Mufti shared the same rivals, British and the Jews… http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?pid=242
ESSAY - May 2002 By Martin A. Lee …Ahmed Huber: Neo-Nazi, Islamic convert… The roots of the Muslim Brotherhood and, in many ways, the Nazi-Muslim axis go back to the organisation’s formation in Egypt in 1928. Marking the start of modern political “Islamic fundamentalism,” the Brotherhood from the outset envisioned a time when an Islamic state would prevail in Egypt and other Arab countries.
The growth of the Muslim Brotherhood coincided with the rise of fascist movements in Europe - a parallel noted by Muhammad Sa’id al-’Ashmawy, former chief justice of Egypt’s High Criminal Court, who decried “the perversion of Islam” and “the fascistic ideology” that infuses the world view of the Brothers. Youssef Nada, current board chairman of Al Taqwa, had joined the armed branch of the Muslim Brotherhood as a young man in Egypt during World War II. Nada and several of his cohorts in the Sunni Muslim fraternity were recruited by German military intelligence. Hassan al-Banna, the Egyptian schoolteacher who founded the Muslim Brotherhood, also collaborated with spies of the Third Reich. Advocating a pan-Islamic insurgency in British-controlled Palestine, the Brotherhood proclaimed their support for the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al-Husseini, in the late 1930s.
The Grand Mufti, the preeminent religious figure among Palestinian Muslims, was the most notable Arab leader to seek an alliance with Nazi Germany. Although he loathed Arabs (he once described them as “lacquered half-apes who ought to be whipped”), Hitler understood that he and the Mufti shared the same rivals - the British, the Jews and the Communists. They met in Berlin, where the Mufti lived in exile during the war. The Mufti agreed to help organise a special Muslim division of the Waffen SS. Powerful radio transmitters were put at the Mufti’s disposal so that his pro-Axis propaganda could be heard throughout the Arab world. http://www.aijac.org.au/review/2002/275/essay275.html
War aims in the second world war: the war aims of the major belligerents … - by Victor Rothwell - History - 2005 - 244 pages (Page 41) However, the Nazis were clear in their minds that the Arabs were racially inferior, and there would, therefore, be no pleasure to be had from helping them in anything except for the extermination of Jews in their region. http://books.google.com/books?id=XfgLbSc94MEC&pg=PA41
Islam, Nazism, and Totalitarianism
During an interview conducted in the late 1930s (published in 1939), Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist and founder of analytical psychiatry, was asked “…had he any views on what was likely to be the next step in religious development?” Jung replied, in reference to the Nazi fervor that had gripped Germany We do not know whether Hitler is going to found a new Islam. He is already on the way; he is like Muhammad. The emotion in Germany is Islamic; warlike and Islamic. They are all drunk with wild god. That can be the historic future. Albert Speer, who was Hitler’s Minister of Armaments and War Production, wrote a contrite memoir of his World War II experiences while serving a 20-year prison sentence imposed by the Nuremberg tribunal.
Speer’s narrative includes this discussion, which captures Hitler’s racist views of Arabs on the one hand, and his effusive praise for Islam on the other:
Hitler had been much impressed by a scrap of history he had learned from a delegation of distinguished Arabs. When the Mohammedans attempted to penetrate beyond France into Central Europe during the eighth century, his visitors had told him, they had been driven back at the Battle of Tours. Had the Arabs won this battle, the world would be Mohammedan today. For theirs was a religion that believed in spreading the faith by the sword and subjugating all nations to that faith. Such a creed was perfectly suited to the Germanic temperament. Hitler said that the conquering Arabs, because of their racial inferiority, would in the long run have been unable to contend with the harsher climate and conditions of the country. They could not have kept down the more vigorous natives, so that ultimately not Arabs but Islamized Germans could have stood at the head of this Mohammedan Empire. Hitler usually concluded this historical speculation by remarking, “You see, it’s been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn’t we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?” http://www.andrewbostom.org/content/view/61/55/
The roots of Arab Anti-Semitism - By David Greenberg - Slate Magazine Oct 31, 2001 … As he notes, anti-Semitism in Arab countries (and non-Arab Islamic states such as Iran) …. East—they were eager to make common cause with Hitler, despite Nazi belief that they, like the Jews, were inferior to Aryans. … http://www.slate.com/id/2057949/
The third Reich & the Palestine question - Francis R. Nicosia - 2000 - History - 319 pages (Page 85) Most Arabs never realized that the Nazis would consider them racially inferior as well and that Germany had no intention of undermining British authority in … http://books.google.com/books?id=xh4m-OMrhJUC&pg=PA85
The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism: Adolf Hitler and Haj … Chuck Morse - 2003 - History - 188 pages (page 53) … as Hitler was known to have described the Arabs as “lacquered half-apes who ought to be whipped,” to a lower race … http://books.google.com/books?id=HGkthBwbNg8C&pg=PA53
Despite Hitler’s personal antipathy towards Arabs, who he once described as lacquered half apes who ought to be whipped, he nevertheless was prepared to … http://www.thecst.org.uk/docs/An%20unholy%20alliance%201801%20original.doc
The Beast Reawakens: Fascism’s Resurgence from Hitler’s Spymasters …Martin A. Lee - 1999 - Political Science - 560 pages (page 122) Even though he loathed Arabs (he once described them as “lacquered half-apes who ought to be whipped”), Hitler was nonetheless the idol of the paramilitary … http://books.google.com/books?id=SX4B7pNG3W8C&pg=PA122
Islamofascism, the very Appropriate Term, Islamo Arab Fascism (Islamic facism)
Hitler's Mufti | Islamofascism 101 | 'Apes & pigs'
Mufti Part 1 - The Arab Muslim Nazi Connection
Mufti Part 2 - Accounts of atrocities
The Truth about Islam and Nazism Adolph Hitler meets with Mufti Hitler, Mufti, Modern Islamo Nazism Hitler and the grand mufti of Jerusalem
Nazi Roots Of Islamofascismhttp://www.willisms.com/archives/2006/06/nazi_roots_of_i.html
Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini with Hitlerhttp://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_grand_mufti.php
Islamic Fascism 101, On all they’ve done to earn the name. Make no apologies for the use of “Islamic fascism.” It is the perfect nomenclature for the agenda of radical Islam, for a variety of historical and scholarly reasons. That such usage also causes extreme embarrassment to both the Islamists themselves and their leftist “anti-fascist” appeasers in the West is just too bad. http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OGEyNjcyNzBjYTQ2MDM0ZGIzZjY5YjhhMzViYjdjNTA
'Islamofascism' Beware of a religion without irony. BY ROGER SCRUTON ... The term "Islamofascism" was introduced by the French writer Maxine Rodinsonhttp://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008822
Islamofascism ... Bush Is on to Somethinghttp://hnn.us/articles/30111.html
target="_blank">[2006] It's Islamo-fascism. It comes in different forms. They share the same tactics, which is to destroy people and things in order to create chaos in the hopes that their vision of the world become predominant in the Middle East.http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/08/20060807.html
Defending 'Islamofascist' What I like the best about the term Islamofascism is that it calls a spade a spade. It's not some wishy-washy euphemism. It pinpoints and accurately describes this century's greatest threat to humanity. It combines intolerant religious zealotry, that's the "Islamo" part, with ruthless totalitarianism, that's the "fascist" part. Islamofascism is a radical subset of Islam. Just as Earth First! terrorists are a radical subset of environmentalists. Not all Muslims are Islamofascists, but all Islamofascists are Muslims. Al-Qaida is Islamofascist, as are the Taliban and the extremist Wahhabi sect. http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/opinion_columnists/article/0,2777,DRMN_23972_5011681,00.html.
What Is 'Islamofascism'?http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/593ajdua.asp
Deroy Murdock on Islamofascismhttp://www.nationalreview.com/murdock/murdock120302.asp
What I mean by 'Islamo-fascism'http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=31315
The Muslim Brotherhood's Subterfuge: Plan For Islamofascism - 101http://www.hyscience.com/archives/2005/11/the_muslim_brot_1.php
Islamofascism similarly pursues its aims through the willful, arbitrary, and gratuitous disruption of global society, either by terrorist conspiracies or by violation of peace between states. Al Qaeda has recourse to the former weapon; Hezbollah, in assaulting northern Israel, used the latter. These are not acts of protest, but calculated strategies for political advantage through undiluted violence. Hezbollah showed fascist methods both in its kidnapping of Israeli soldiers and in initiating that action without any consideration for the Lebanese government of which it was a member. Indeed, Lebanese democracy is a greater enemy of Hezbollah than Israel.http://www.damianpenny.com/archived/007373.html
Early Views of Islamofascism (2008) - Anyone who thinks the idea of Islamofascism is a recent invention will be surprised by the series of quotes from early 20th century intellectuals linking Islam with totalitarianism upturned by Providence-area native...http://www.anchorrising.com/barnacles/005328.html
It's Fascism -- And It's Islamic [September 07, 2006]
Yes, the problem is 'Islamic fascism' [Aug 13, 2006]http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154525865419&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
WALID SHOEBAT, FORMER PLO TERRORIST: Secular dogma like Nazis is less dangerous than this Islamofascism that we do today. It's less dangerous because Islamofascism has a religious twist to it. It has "God almighty" ordering to do this, not the furor. So it is way more dangerous. It is trying to grow itself in 55 Muslim states, so potentially you could have a success rate of several Nazi Germany if these people get their way. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0612/14/cnr.05.html
How to defeat Islamo-fascismhttp://www.faithfreedom.org/oped/Ohmyrus51230.htm
Islamofascism Rising in Hollandhttp://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=6485
Sheik: 'It's OK to kill non-Muslims' London Islamic cleric caught on tapehttp://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=29709
"If a kafir person (non-believer) goes in a Muslim country, he is like a cow," explains Hamza. "Anybody can take him. That is the Islamic law." http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=30689
What I mean by 'Islamo-fascism' [March 2003]http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=31315
The Moderate face of Islamofascismhttp://www.rogerlsimon.com/mt-archives/2005/06/the_moderate_fa.php
Islamofascism The Clash of Civilizations is West vs. Westhttp://www.michaelnovak.net/Module/Article/ArticleView.aspx?id=110
The Devilfish of Islamofascismhttp://capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4364
Islamic radicals, like Hitler, cultivate support by nurturing grievances against others. Islamists, like Hitler, scapegoat Jews for their problems and want to destroy them. Islamists, Hitler divided the world into Aryans and subhuman non-Aryans, while Islamists divide the world into Muslims and sub-human infidels. Nazis aimed for their Thousand-Year Reich, while Islamists aim for their eternal Caliphate. The Nazi party used terror to achieve power, and from London to Amsterdam, Bali to New York, Egypt to Turkey, Islamists are trying to do the same. The two fascisms, one racial and one religious, one beaten and the other resurgent, are evil in both their ideology and their methodology, in their supremacism, intolerance, belief in violence and threat to democracyhttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article550184.ece
...the United States can't win this war alone. We can do damage to the enemy. We can take the philosophical high ground and remind people of the importance of how freedom can change societies. But we will work with allies and friends to achieve this objective. And part of the challenge in the 21st century is to remind people about the stakes, and remind people that in moments of quiet, there's still an Islamic fascist group plotting, planning and trying to spread their ideology. And one of the things that -- one of the things that came out of this unfortunate incident in the Middle East is it is a stark reminder that there are those who want to stop the advance of liberty and destabilize young democracies. And they're willing to kill people to do so. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/08/20060807.html
...about the term, Islamo-fascism [...] listen to what Osama bin Laden has said. He has said that his envisions an "Islamic nation," to reestablish the caliphate -- I don't know if it would still be headquartered in Baghdad, but if you want your pristine historic analogy, that's where it would be, and it would extend from Asia all the way back to Spain, because memories are still raw about 1492 when the Moors were expelled from Andalusia. That's what he's talking about. So in that sense, what you end up having is strict centralized government under repressive conditions, the likes of which we saw with the Taliban. If you look at the interpretation of sharia law that has been championed by bin Laden and others, it fits all of the descriptions you've had. And if you talk about an unbroken government using those kinds of regulations over an extended landmass, which is what he's talking about, that it does fit the description.http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/09/20060913-3.html
Said Amir Arjomand [1986]: Like fascism, the Islamic revolutionary movement has offered a new synthesis of the political creeds it has violently attacked. And, like the fascists, the Islamic militants are against democracy because they consider liberal democracy a foreign model that provides avenues for free expression of alien influences and ideas. (Also like the fascists, however, the Islamic militants would not necessarily accept the label of "antidemocratic.")http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0043-8871(198604)38%3A3%3C383%3AIIRICP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-D
Islamofascism http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/sina50419.htm
Arab Racism & Islamo-Fascism!!! The most vicious Torture for WEEKS! and Cold Blooded Murder of poor Innocent Ilan Halimi by Islamo-Fascists http://arabracismislamofascism.blogspot.com/2006/03/most-vicious-torture-for-weeks-and.html
Neo-Nazi becomes fanatical Muslim. 24/5/2006. YOU COULDN'T make it up. A leading Nazi behind the notorious Combat 18 has become a fanatical Muslim supporterhttp://www.blink.org.uk/pdescription.asp?key=11680&grp=66&cat=330
Islamofascism the term (article by WSJ) http://regimechangeiran.blogspot.com/2006/08/islamofascism.html
Kinder, Gentler Islamofascismhttp://www.kxnet.com/getARticle.asp?ArticleId=103620
How to explain the rise of Islamofascism? One word: Successhttp://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/07/sound2454159.992361111.html
Islamofascism's 1936http://washingtontimes.com/commentary/20060801-093446-6334r.htm
More on the Term "Islamic Fascists"http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/652
The Muslim Brotherhood, Nazis and Al Qaedahttp://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=15344
Islamofascism by any other namehttp://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20060901-090752-7525r.htm
The Meaning of 'Islamofascism'... ‘Islamofascism’. That conflates (sic) all the elements into one image: suicide bombs, kidnappings, and the Qur’an; the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan; Iranian clerics and Hitler … Unlike CAIR, many Arab liberal and reformist writers, have supported such an analogy. A Saudi columnist, Muhammad bin ‘Abd Al-Latif Aal Al-Sheikh, published a series of articles in the Saudi daily Al-Jazirah in July, attacking the ideology of the Al-Salafiyya movement (long associated with Saudi Wahhabi Islam). He said that the ideology of this movement was similar to, or even worse than, the Nazi ideology, and that it should be dealt accordingly. Mr. Al-Sheikh cited the conference on “de-Nazification” held in Potsdam, Germany, shortly following Nazi Germany’s surrender in 1945 to serve as precedence today. He explained it was credited with uprooting the culture of Nazism from Europe and that the conference made Nazism into something similar to a crime, not just in judicial and political terms, but also in terms of culture, ideology, and the media. Just as the world uprooted Nazism at the Potsdam conference, Al-Sheikh explained that the West should follow suit with Islamism after the attacks of September 11, 2001: “I still believe that one of the primary missions of the international community today is to repeat its experience with Nazism and to deal with this dangerous barbarian culture [of Islamofascism] exactly as it dealt with the Nazi culture. If this does not happen, the near future is liable to bring many [events], the consequences of which will be far more severe for all of humanity than [the consequences] of World War II.” A columnist for the London Arabic daily Al-Hayat, Zuheir Abdullah, blamed what he termed “Arab fascism”and “Islamism”for leading to the current backwardness of the Middle East. In an August 2003 article he wrote, “since 1948, primitive Arab fascism,” sometimes “allied with fundamentalist Islam,” has produced only “empty slogans.” Mr. Abdullah continued, “many simple-minded people and ignorant persons were unfortunately brainwashed and turned into the fuel of this extremism.” He concluded by stating the Arab world’s embrace of fascism and Islamism has led it to adding “almost nothing” to modern civilization.http://www.nysun.com/article/33302
Michael Ledeen on Fascism & War on Terrorhttp://www.nationalreview.com/ledeen/ledeen200310170840.asp
Islamic Fascism The only proper response to Islamofascism is total warhttp://markhumphrys.com/islamic.fascism.html
The Devilfish of Islamofascismhttp://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4364
Lebanon, Islamofascism and democracyhttp://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20050619-111015-8701r.htm
Islamofascism and the Mental Immune System Oct 26, 2006 ... The surest way of dealing with Islamofascism is through effective inculcation of a religious software that promotes tolerance of diversity, ... http://www.americanthinker.com/2006/10/islamofascism_and_the_mental_i.html
Never Mind the Bomb, Beware of Islamofascism [Dec 20, 2007]http://www.amilimani.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=88&Itemid=2
Islamo-Fascism Week Spotlights Terrorism Oct 23, 2007 ... A week-long series of forums discussing Islamic fundamentalism’s ties to human rights abuses and terrorism has sparked protests and charges ...http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/islamofascism_week/2007/10/23/43339.html
Let's worry about Islamofascismhttp://www.dailypioneer.com/columnist1.asp?main_variable=Columnist&file_name=kanchan%2Fkanchan166.txt&writer=kanchan
Yes, the problem is 'Islamic fascismhttp://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154525865419&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Islamofasicsm: Hamas' Sturm Und Drang Islamofascism is a completely appropriate termhttp://www.windsofchange.net/archives/008063.php
Islamic Fascism the Enemy, Not Terror, Says Santorum -- 07/21/2006http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=/Politics/archive/200607/POL20060721a.html
New wave of genocide building in Sudan... cleansing black Sufi Muslims from the western province of Darfurhttp://www.nationalreview.com/lowry/lowry200406250926.asp
Oriana Fallaci and the War Against Islamofascismhttp://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=20343
Rogmios on Islamofascismhttp://mysite.verizon.net/rogmios/id75.html
Islamofascism -- an enemy like no other http://www.townhall.com/columnists/LarryElder/2006/08/03/islamofascism_--_an_enemy_like_no_other
Islamofascism, Inc. by Chris Weinkopf To use Time’s pop-business lingo, Hamas is but a subsidiary of Islamofascism, Inc.http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=7938
Hamas and Islamofascismhttp://allocasuarina.blogspot.com/2006/10/hamas-and-islamofascism.html
The Hamas-charter might indeed be a prime example of Islamofascismhttp://ronrosenbaum.pajamasmedia.com/2006/12/18/islamofascism_denial_and_islam.php
Nuclear Islamo-fascismhttp://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3182730,00.html
THE CREATION OF AN ANTI-ISLAMOFASCISM MOVEMENThttp://www.tothepointnews.com/content/view/2539/2/
The Scope of Islamofascismhttp://www.danielpipes.org/comments/5948
Islamism, fascism andhttp://www.atimes.com/atimes/others/islamism-fascism-terrorism.html
The Historical Collaboration of Nazis with Muslims/Arabshttp://somebodyhelpme.info/nazimuslims/nazimuslims.html
DANEgerus - Islamofascismhttp://www.danegerus.com/weblog/Right.asp?svSubject=Islamofascism
A Case For The Term 'Islamofascism': How Hebollah killed (Arab) Civilians [0ct. 2006]James G. Zumwalt, a Marine veteran of the Persian Gulf and Vietnam wars, writes in The Washington Times of Hezbollah's incredibly sinister and deadly chess match in the recent Lebanon war, and of their tactical plan calculated to maximize civilian casualties on both sides of battlefield - by design on the Israeli side in targeting its major population centers and by consequence on the Lebanese side as Israel responded...http://www.freedomszone.com/archives/2006/10/a_case_for_the_term_islamofasc.php
A Bridge to 'Moderate' Islam Is In Fact a Road to Hell... Let us, for the record, be clear on this subject one more time: Islamism, Islamofascism, Radical Islam, Political Islam, and Militant Islam are different terms for essentially the same thing, a virulent, hateful, and violent system of beliefs and practices. Yet, one and all are progeny and mutation of Islam itself. [Agust 2007]http://globalpolitician.com/articledes.asp?ID=3226&cid=2&sid=2
If we don't win the war against Islamofascism other issues won't matter at all.http://www.americancongressfortruth.org/
What is "Islamo-fascism"? Persian Journal, Iran - Jul 20, 2007 http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/article_22192.shtml
Moderate Islam Is No Islam http://globalpolitician.com/articledes.asp?ID=3109&cid=2&sid=2
"Islamofascism is rooted in a theocratic Islamic jihadism that seeks to destroy and annihilate every last one of us. It wants to establish a complete Islamic theocracy across the world and for that to happen it means our culture has to be completely snuffed out http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58183
Fascism, Islamism, and Anti-Semitism [Jan. 2006] http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed010306c.cfm
WAKE UP AND SMELL THE CONFLICT [September 23, 2007] -- WORLD WAR IV: The Long Struggle against Islamofascism http://www.nypost.com/seven/09232007/postopinion/opedcolumnists/wake_up_and_smell_the_conflict.htm
Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week [week of October 22-26, 2007] http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=A5F5C60A-C63A-4142-B4F5-1B8E5A3F3E94
Defending the term "Islamofascism." - By Christopher Hitchens [0ct. 2007]The term Islamofascism was first used in 1990 in Britain's Independent newspaper by Scottish writer Malise Ruthven, who was writing about the way in which traditional Arab dictatorships used religious appeals in order to stay in power. I didn't know about this when I employed the term "fascism with an Islamic face" to describe the attack on civil society on Sept. 11, 2001, and to ridicule those who presented the attack as some kind of liberation theology in action. "Fascism with an Islamic face" is meant to summon a dual echo of both Alexander Dubcek and Susan Sontag (if I do say so myself), and in any case, it can't be used for everyday polemical purposes, so the question remains: Does Bin Ladenism or Salafism or whatever we agree to call it have anything in common with fascism? I think yes. The most obvious points of comparison would be these: Both movements are based on a cult of murderous violence that exalts death and destruction and despises the life of the mind. ("Death to the intellect! Long live death!" as Gen. Francisco Franco's sidekick Gonzalo Queipo de Llano so pithily phrased it.) Both are hostile to modernity (except when it comes to the pursuit of weapons), and both are bitterly nostalgic for past empires and lost glories. Both are obsessed with real and imagined "humiliations" and thirsty for revenge. Both are chronically infected with the toxin of anti-Jewish paranoia (interestingly, also, with its milder cousin, anti-Freemason paranoia). Both are inclined to leader worship and to the exclusive stress on the power of one great book. Both have a strong commitment to sexual repression—especially to the repression of any sexual "deviance"—and to its counterparts the subordination of the female and contempt for the feminine. Both despise art and literature as symptoms of degeneracy and decadence; both burn books and destroy museums and treasures. Fascism (and Nazism) also attempted to counterfeit the then-success of the socialist movement by issuing pseudo-socialist and populist appeals. It has been very interesting to observe lately the way in which al-Qaida has been striving to counterfeit and recycle the propaganda of the anti-globalist and green movements. (See my column on Osama Bin Laden's Sept. 11 statement.) There isn't a perfect congruence. Historically, fascism laid great emphasis on glorifying the nation-state and the corporate structure. There isn't much of a corporate structure in the Muslim world, where the conditions often approximate more nearly to feudalism than capitalism, but Bin Laden's own business conglomerate is, among other things, a rogue multinational corporation with some links to finance-capital. As to the nation-state, al-Qaida's demand is that countries like Iraq and Saudi Arabia be dissolved into one great revived caliphate, but doesn't this have points of resemblance with the mad scheme of a "Greater Germany" or with Mussolini's fantasy of a revived Roman empire? Technically, no form of Islam preaches racial superiority or proposes a master race. But in practice, Islamic fanatics operate a fascistic concept of the "pure" and the "exclusive" over the unclean and the kufar or profane. In the propaganda against Hinduism and India, for example, there can be seen something very like bigotry. In the attitude to Jews, it is clear that an inferior or unclean race is being talked about (which is why many Muslim extremists like the grand mufti of Jerusalem gravitated to Hitler's side). In the attempted destruction of the Hazara people of Afghanistan, who are ethnically Persian as well as religiously Shiite, there was also a strong suggestion of "cleansing." And, of course, Bin Laden has threatened force against U.N. peacekeepers who might dare interrupt the race-murder campaign against African Muslims that is being carried out by his pious Sudanese friends in Darfur. http://www.slate.com/id/2176389/
Islamo-Fascism Denial [Oct. 23 07] There is nothing artful or contrived in the term "Islamo-Fascism." It is derived from history itself. Hassan al Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood (from which today's radical Muslim groups descend) was, after all, an open admirer and supporter of Adolf Hitler -- as was the principal theorist of the modern jihad, Sayyid Qutb. During World War II, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, cousin of Yasir Arafat and spiritual godfather of Palestinian nationalism, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, prouncounced his pro-Nazi sympathies openly and proudly. In May 1941, he issued a fatwa calling upon the Germans to bomb Tel Aviv, and in November 1941 traveled to Berlin and met with Hitler. He implored the Nazi dictator to help implement a Final Solution in the Middle East. Then he went to the Balkans, where he spearheaded the creation of Muslim units of the Waffen SS. In terms of the specific terrorist groups and entities mentioned in the MSA packet, all of them -- along with many others -- have indeed made clear that they wish to destroy the United States and dominate the world under an oppressive caliphate -- that is, a unified Islamic state ruled by Islamic Sharia law: Al-Qaeda: Osama bin Laden has said that the 9/11 attacks strengthened the Muslims, "which is a very good sign and a great step towards the unity of Muslims and establishing the Righteous Islamic Khilafah [caliphate] insha-Allah [Allah willing]." His second-in-command, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, has declared: "The war with Israel is not about a treaty, a cease-fire agreement, Sykes-Picot borders, national zeal, or disputed borders. It is rather a jihad for the sake of God until the religion of God is established. It is jihad for the liberation of Palestine, all Palestine, as well as every land that was a home for Islam, from Andalusia to Iraq. The whole world is an open field for us." Hamas: The Hamas Charter sets out its Islamic mission as global: "Its spatial dimension extends wherever on earth there are Muslims, who adopt Islam as their way of life; thus, it penetrates to the deepest reaches of the land and to the highest spheres of Heavens. . . . By virtue of the distribution of Muslims, who pursue the cause of the Hamas, all over the globe, and strive for its victory, for the reinforcement of its positions and for the encouragement of its Jihad, the Movement is a universal one." Universal in what way? The Palestinian Sheikh Ibrahim Madhi exhorted believers in 2002 "Oh beloved, look to the East of the earth, find Japan and the ocean; look to the West of the earth, find [some] country and the ocean. Be assured that these will be owned by the Muslim nation, as the Hadith says . . . 'from the ocean to the ocean.'" The Muslim Brotherhood: Its founder, Hasan Al-Banna, wrote that "it is a duty incumbent on every Muslim to struggle towards the aim of making every people Muslim and the whole world Islamic, so that the banner of Islam can flutter over the earth and the call of the Muezzin can resound in all the corners of the world: God is greatest [Allahu akbar]!" Despite recent claims to the contrary, there is no evidence that the Brotherhood has renounced this goal. Hezbollah: Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has made clear that he wishes to pose a threat to the United States: "Let the entire world hear me. Our hostility to the Great Satan is absolute.…I conclude my speech with the slogan that will continue to reverberate on all occasions so that nobody will think that we have weakened. Regardless of how the world has changed after 11 September, Death to America will remain our reverberating and powerful slogan: Death to America." The Islamic Republic of Iran: While as a Shi'ite he does not wish to see the establishment of a caliphate, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad harbors similar dreams of Islamic domination. He said in 2005: "we will soon experience a world without the United States and Zionism and will breathe in the brilliant time of Islamic sovereignty over today's world." And in terms of Saddam Hussein, suffice it to say that there was a reason he trained thousands of Islamic jihad terrorists from all over the Middle East at camps in Iraq over the four years preceding the U.S. invasion. http://www.aina.org/news/2007102311299.htm
Islam and Islamofascism [Nov. 07]http://www.globalpolitician.com/articledes.asp?ID=3689&cid=11&sid=109
Why 'Islamofascism' correctly identifies threat [Oct. 25 07] Islamofascism is an ideology that seeks a global theocracy under the dictatorship of a caliph. Everyone will be converted to their extremist interpretation of Islam, and any one who resists will be killed in the name of Allah. These extremists, however, do not represent the basic beliefs of Islam, and their message and methods resemble Nazis more than Muslims. Their goals are almost a mirror image of Hitler's dreams of world domination and extermination of the Jews, except their justification claims to be rooted in Islam rather than German nationalism. How is "Islamofascism" a racist term? It isn't. The term has nothing to do with the ethnicity of our enemy, nor should it. The term is a fusion of Islam - which is a religion and not a race - and fascism. Most of the terrorists are ethnically Arabic, but the membership of al-Qaida and similar networks is not exclusively Arabic. The focus of the word is fascism, which is used to describe the terrorists' methods and goals. How does the phrase "militant fundamentalist Muslims" more accurately describe who we are fighting? It doesn't. Our enemy is indeed militant and claims to be Muslim, but their breed of Islam is not fundamentalist. The fundamentals of Islam are faith, worship, charity, sacrifice and pilgrimage. Islamofacism has interpreted Islam as not only a religion but an entire political and economic system as well. They have twisted the meaning of holy war into a tangible fight against infidels when the concept of jihad is supposed to be an internalized battle within the human conscience. http://media.www.lsureveille.com/media/storage/paper868/news/2007/10/25/Opinion/Why-islamofascism.Correctly.Identifies.Threat-3059132.shtml
Tony Blair: Iran extremism like rise of 1930s fascism [Oct. 2007]http://www.thatpoliticalblog.com/serendipity/archives/1668-Tony-Blair-Iran-extremism-like-rise-of-1930s-fascism
Islamofascism: Why It Is Fascism and Why Hating It Isn't Racist [Dec. 2007] Islam is not a race. Even its harshest critics, if they limit their criticism to doctrine and to those only who follow it, are not to be labeled bigoted or racist. Religion is an idea, a belief system not immune from mockery or even detestation, and abhorrence for it is perfectly ethical (and legal, at least in this country). Succumbing to political correctness would have me now declaring impartiality for all the monotheisms, claiming an equality for each theology. I am all for equal-time ridicule, but not today. So let me be clear. There is very little about the Islamic faith, in particular, that I find believable or inspirational. The given-at-birth compulsory submission to a deity –– as its translation boasts –– is not my bag. An illiterate businessman-turned-general talking to angels and going on fantastical night journeys across the sky, taking six-year-olds as his wife, invading and converting large portions of planet, insisting his word alone is the final and unalterable directive of the divine… None of this makes me want to humble myself, get on my knees, and bow my head. I look at the life of Muhammad –– the pedophilia, the megalomania, the conquests –– and see John Mark Karr with an army. But my contempt for this theological arrogance does not render a hatred for, or suspicion of, Muslims as individuals or as a people; nor will it, nor should it. I have a fair amount of Muslim friends, some of them very good friends, and, in the mold of Dr. King’s litmus test, I judge them, like everyone else, based upon the content of their character –– not their genetic makeup. This is not racism anymore than disdain for Marxism is racism; anymore than abstract anticommunism undermines the concreteness of a beautiful Cuban girl, or the sincerity of a Russian acquaintance, for instance. Those on campus who were wearing green to protest the original protesting of fascism should at least forfeit to irony: the green they don takes us back the “green shirts” of Haj Amin al Husseini, the Palestinian mufti and long time Hitler companion and proxy, as well as the Nazi-admiring Hassan al Banna, brown-shirt wannabe and founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. The lack of study into the fascist origins of contemporary Middle Eastern movements is just another sad example of Western self-loathing and academic indifference, but thankfully we have colleagues like Ryan Mauro to shed some light for us. How quickly we forget that Mussolini, for example, was admiringly called Musa Nili across the Arab world. Who remembers the Waffen SS hit-squads that armed the warriors of Grand Mufti Husseini –– plush with Third Reich subsidies –– to liquefy anti-Nazi citizens of the Baltic? Did your last professor point out that the predecessors of al Qaida –– who Hitler called his Gebirgsjäger Muslim killers –– slaughtered 100,000 innocents by 1943? It continues: Nazi agent General Khairallah Tulfah would go on to raise and mentor his Tikriti village nephew, Saddam Hussein. Future Egyptian presidents Nasser and Sadat –– supposed secularists –– mingled with the Brotherhood, which in turn spawned Egyptian Islamic Jihad, cradle of al Qaida linchpin Dr. al Zawahiri. (Nasser would later rely on ex-Gestapo goon Joachim Daumling to craft his own secret police force.) Hitler’s propagandist Johannes von Leers would flee postwar Germany, change his name to Omar Amin, and become a lead official in Egypt’s information ministry, just as Sami al Joundi of the Syrian Ba’ath would brag, “We admired the Nazis. We were immersed in Nazi literature… we were the first who thought of a translation of Mein Kempf.” (Eichmann aide Alois Brunner would also assist the Assads in Damascus.) I could go on, but must I really? When defending the label of fascist, however, none of this fascist-entrenched history really matters. The premise of subservience to a celestial dominion and the coerced obedience to the earthly holy men who implement this dominion is enough: it’s Islamic and it’s fascistic. It is a creed that seeks to control what you think, say, hear, read, eat and drink; who you talk to, who you befriend, and who you hold hands with. This is the root basis of totalitarianism and it’s all in your God-given Qur’an. Societies, cultures, and peoples can most certainly change, but self-described infallible doctrine cannot. It was not designed to reform. Its divinity and irreversibility is the reason for its existence. There used to be a proud secular tradition of liberal antifascism, but the veneer of multiculturalism and relativism has prodded such thinkers into a state of fear. Many are afraid to come across as intolerant of intolerance, lest they seem as if they are asserting political supremacy or cultural superiority. This is why Western operas have been canceled, why cartoons have been taken out of circulation, why movies have been taken off air, and why journalists and authors with prices on their heads are in hiding all across Europe –– all products of a free and wonderfully crude culture under threat from book-burning mullahs. But there is good news. You do not have to oblige yourself into justifying deplorable atrocities in the name of “understanding.” You do not have to defend the apocalyptic Haghani Circle of Iran, or the Salafist lecturers in Pakistan, or the Wahhabi royal family. You do not have to applaud the “transparency” of the Iranian committee entitled the “Council for Spreading Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Thoughts.” When Hina Saleem’s father cuts her throat, buries her in the yard, and faces her head towards Mecca before rigamortis sets in –– for the sin of loving an Italian man –– and most of the Islamic organizations in Europe (from the Union of Islamic Communities in Italy to the Islamic Cultural Association in Brescia) defend the murderer, not the victim, you do not have to conscript yourself into appreciating or defending this insanity. You’re allowed to hate it. Not all hate is improper. My hatred of the fascistic impulses of archaic shari’a law stems not from ignorance of “the other,” but from knowledge. The more I learn, the more that is revealed, the stiffer my backbone becomes and the more I come to despise. This hatred is fine, as its converse would be immoral indifference. http://www.analyst-network.com/article.php?art_id=1359
"The Islamic fascists who have declared enmity against us are not interested in settling the types of lines of demarcation that normally settle wars. " [2007] http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/30107.html
Mike Huckabee: We must defeat IslamofascismTogether, we must prevent nuclear proliferation and defeat Islamofascism. Together, we must be the people who confront and overcome evil... (Feb , 2008)http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1202064581092&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
First Things Next (for the 2nd time) PoliGazette, Netherlands - Jan 22, 2008 Islamofascism is an aggressive movement determined to impose fundamentalist Islamic theocracy on all the peoples of the world by means of violence http://poligazette.com/2008/01/23/first-things-next-for-the-2nd-time/
Winds of War: Apposing Islamofascism [29 Jan 2008 by WC] I oppose Islamofascism because I believe in the separation of church and state. * I oppose Islamofascism because I believe in freedom of speech. * I oppose Islamofascism because I believe in freedom of religion...http://the-gathering-storm.blogspot.com/2008/01/winds-of-war-apposing-islamofascism.html
Early Views of Islamofascism [7 Feb 2008] by Carroll Andrew MorseAnyone who thinks the idea of Islamofascism is a recent invention will be surprised by the series of quotes Andrew Bostom has upturned from early 20th century intellectuals linking Islam with totalitarianism.http://www.anchorrising.com/barnacles/005328.html
A German’s Point of View on Islam (Feb. 2008) [Islamofascism: Parallels with Nazism & Communism]http://www.icjs-online.org/index.php?article=1414
Islamofascism 101 - Little Green Footballs has several posts that are demonstrative of the true nature of Islamofascism. Rather than post them individually, they are all on this post. Only excerpts are given so check them out via the headline links to the permanent archives!http://blogfromthejungle.blogspot.com/2007/04/islamofascism-101.html
Militant Islam 101: a history - In the wake of the Iraq War, there has been much Monday morning quarter backing by America's weak offensive line (liberals) who insist the “War on Terror” is to be waged only against Osuma bin ladens al Qaeda. This essay is to make the connection of pan-Islamo Fascism and its long terrorism history. As the democratic world confronts al Qeada's Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hezbollah 's Hassan Nasrallah, and their followers, many among us are trying to understand militant Islam, where it came from and its aims. The following background material is designed to give an overview of the phenomenon that has been called "militant Islam," "fundamentalist Islam," “Islamo Fascism” “Islamism,” or "radical Islam." [July, 2008]http://www.free-press.biz/usa/Islamism-101.htm
Testbook Terrorism Islamofascism: [7/24/2008] A new study confirms our “ally” Saudi Arabia is still poisoning young Muslim minds with anti-Western textbooks. So? Its hate-filled graduates are enrolling at our colleges. …despite promised reforms, the kingdom still teaches students to “hate the infidels.” The texts assert that it’s “permissible” for a Muslim to kill an “apostate,” an “adulterer,” a “homosexual,” as well as non-Muslims practicing “polytheism,” or Christianity. The violent ideology is introduced in a religion textbook in the first grade and reinforced and developed in following years of the public education system, culminating in the 12th grade…including to 19 academies founded by the Saudi ministry and chaired by local Saudi ambassadors in or near major foreign cities. Quotes from the latest textbooks Riyadh is propagating include: • “The Jews and Christians are enemies of the believers.” • “Only through force and victory over the enemies is there security and repose. • ”The apes are Jews, the people of the Sabbath; while the swine are Christians, the infidels of the communion of Jesus.” The Saudi ministry has not removed these messages from its school texts…http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=301792048827503
The truth about Islamofascism [2008]Coffee break: Kanchan Gupta...40 per cent want shari'ah in Britain for Muslims; 33 per cent favour a worldwide Islamic caliphate; 24 per cent think men and women are not equal; 32 per cent believe killing in the name of religion is justified; 33 per cent don't think Islam is compatible with democracy...The reason for this digression is not to provide an insight into the warped mindset of those who believe 'Islam is the solution' -- much as Adolf Hitler thought he had found the 'final solution' to rid the world of Jews and Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad thinks god has willed him to complete Hitler's unfinished task -- but to highlight the danger posed by those who see nothing wrong with the fringe increasingly occupying the centre. The lib-left intelligentsia, whose criminal disregard of facts and aggressive peddling of fiction often persuades ill-informed and ill-intentioned journalists to suppress the truth, wants society to be tolerant of Islamofascism; to indulge the Muslim cult of denial; and, to gloss over incidents like serial bombings and suicide attacks. Those who refuse to do so are accused of Islamophobia...http://www.dailypioneer.com/agenda1.asp?main_variable=sundaypioneer%2Fdialogue&file_name=dial1.txt&counter_img=1
Islamofascism, the broader, wider & deep reality, (research) How radical Islam makes you a fascist
Islamo Arab fascism: For Arabs only, For Muslims only & Anti-Israel as an integral part of it
The middle east, Arab Muslim violence & Islamo-Fascism - http://somebodyhelpme.info
Finally mainstream media blows the lid on Islamofascism, Islamofascists: 'Non Muslims = apes & pigs'
The following are some of the recent showing in US media, where up to now it was a taboo, so not to offend some Muslims it's called "Politically correctness", as Brigitte Gabrielle said this PC is killing us... on Glenn Becks's special called "Radical Islam Extremist agenda". You can see how they compare their tactics to the nazis of WW2, (No, not the exaggerated slogans anyone throws in a political discurse, but) real fascism.
They show there the Wahabbi Saudi Arabian evil textbooks that are being spread into the US calling Christians and Jews "apes and pigs" (as if it's not enough that their Quran says that, they stress it out to adhere to in real life...).
Another Arab speaking out is M. Darwish that laments on how the Islamic adults brainwash the toddlers with so much hatred and glorifying mass murder in the name of Islam.
Finally he has the segment of the few rare moderates, like the Nevada's Islamic group that is moderate and speaks out against it so do some cleric in Kuwait that regret the CULT of DEATH, "not giving the value of life to our kids"...
http://www.obsessionthemovie.com/ OBSESSION The Movie Obsessionhttp://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,227057,00.html The Threat of Radical Islamhttp://hotair.com/archives/2006/11/15/tivo-alert-glenn-beck-presents-exposed-the-extremist-agenda/ (CNN) Glenn Beck: 'Islamic Extremism' Greatest Threat to US http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/11/14/170416.shtml?s=br (Video) Exposed: The Extremist Muslim Agenda http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/185400.php
Some quotes from the "Obsession" On radical Muslims' war against Non Muslims (copied from http://attheagora.blogspot.com/ )
First, Walid Shoebat – Billed as a “Former” PLO Terrorist:1. “When the terrorists attacked America on 9/11 – everyone asked, “Why do they hate us, Americans had no clue!”2. “Muslims are also victims.”3. “Jihad means to struggle – the struggle within – but so does Mine Kampf.”4. “Radical Islam is way more dangerous than German Nazism because it is god not the Fuarer telling you to do this.”Second, Khaled Abu Toamel – Palestinian Journalist:1. “Radical Islam has declared War . . .”2. “A campaign to bring down the West”.3. “Islam has been hijacked”.Third, Nonie Darwish – Daughter of a Shahid (martyr)1. “When I saw the second airplane hit, I knew Jihad had come to America.”2. “A down right declaration of war from Islam on Western Culture.”3. “To conquer the world for Allah – That is Jihad.”4. “They blame every little problem in the Arab world on the West.”5. “We have been infiltrated by people who want the Koran to replace our Constitution.”6. “. . . They are here to make Islam the law of the land.”7. “America has to wake up because we are strangling ourselves with our political correctness.”What follows now are direct quotes from Islamic Radicals. I have given names and dates when possible. Speakers are presented in the order of their first appearance, although many statements were presented by some later in the documentary.1. Khattab – Chechen Terrorist Leader (Sept. 2004):“From now on we will get our bombs everywhere! Let Russia await our explosions blasting through their cities. I swear we will do it.”2. From a Lebanese Suicide Bomber Induction Ceremony (1996):“We swear by the blood and severed bodies of our children and the torment of our prisoners, and we will reply blowing our bodies!”3. Hassan Nasrallah – Hizbollah Sec. Gen. (2005):“The most honorable death is by killing. And the most honorable killing and most glorious martyrdom is where a man is killed for the sake of Allah.”“We consider [America] to be an enemy because it is the greatest plunderer of our treasures, our oil, and our rescores, while millions in our nation suffer unemployment, poverty, hunger, unmariageability, ignorance, darkness, and so on.”“Our motto, which we are not afraid to repeat year after year, is: Death to America.”4. Hassein Suadd – Al-Qassam Brigades Commander (Dec. 2005):“We succeeded, with Allah’s grace, to raise an ideological generation that loves death like our enemies love life."5. Sheikh Ibrahim Madhi (2001):“We must educate our children on the love of Jihad for the sake of Allah. And the love of fighting for the sake of Allah.”6. Little Girl on Palestinian T V:“But I march quickly toward my death.”7. Little boy on Palestinian T V:“. . . And we swear to take vengeful blood from our enemies for our killed and wounded.8. Jordanian and Palestinian School book (1998):“This religion [Islam] will destroy all other religions through the Islamic Jihad fighter.”9. 3 ½ year old Girl prompted by some adult (May, 2002):“A - . . . Are you familiar with the Jews?G - Yes.A – Do you like them?G – No.A – Why don’t you like them?G – Because.A – Because they are whats?G – They’re apes and pigs.A – Who said they are so?G – Our God.A – Where did He say this?G – In the Koran.”10. Sheik Dr. Bakr Al-Samarai (February, 2003):“If Allah permits us, oh Nation of Mohammed, even the stone will say, ‘Oh Muslim, a Jew is hiding behind me come and cut off his head! And we shall cut off his head! By Allah, we shall cut off! Oh Jews. God is Great; Jihad for the sake of Allah!” (There were thousands shown cheering this speech.)11. Little girl on Palestinian T. V.“When I wander into the entrance of Jerusalem, I’ll turn into a suicide warrior. I’ll turn into a suicide warrior. In battledress. In battledress.”12. Sheidh Al – Bajrruni – Palestinian Religious Scholars Ass. (2004):“Oh Muslim, as much as you yearn for death, so you will be given life”13. Ahmed Abdul Razek – Palestinian Cleric (2002):“Should we want honor the only way to honor is by jihad!"14. Ibrahim Muderis – Palestinian Cleric (2003):“America is the foremost enemy of the Muslim Nation because it wages war against the Arab, Islamic Nation.”15. Nagi AL-Slihabi – Egyptian Newspaper Editor (2004):“The truth is that the US wants to eradicate our religious and Islamic identities.”“The only enemy of the Arab and Islamic peoples is the US and not only Israel.”16. Saudi Cleric Aed Al-Qami (2004):“Houses and young men must be sacrificed. Throats must be slit and skulls must be shattered. This is the path to victory.”“Furthermore, reality shows that American is behind all problems.”17. Al-Qaeda Operative, (In a hood) (2005):“Come and join us. Join this blessed jihad. Come for the sake of Allah. Join us in the blessed jihad, with Mullah Omar and Sheik Osama bin Laden.”18. Abu Hamza Al – Masri (1998):“What makes Allah happy? Allah’s happy when (non-Muslims) get killed.”“You see the Islamic rule, if a Kuffar (non-Muslims) goes into a Muslim country. And he’s walking by. He’s like a cow; boy, anybody could take him. That is the Islamic rule and this is the opinion of Islam. It’s not my opinion. If you read the books of jihad, you’ll see . . . A Kuffar is walking by, he walks inside – you catch him. “What are you doing here?” Then he’s a booty, you can sell him in the market. If Muslims cannot take him, you know, and sell him in the market then you just kill him. It’s okay.”“It’s only a matter of time until we rule Earth, until we control Earth.”“In the end of the day, Islam must control Earth whether we like it or not it’s a promis from the prophet.”19. On Iranian TV– Momaoun Al-Tamimi – Political Consultant (May 2004):“They [The Americans] are beasts in human form.”’20. Voice over on Iranian TV (2004):The Statue of Liberty slowly turns in above a sea of blood. “There she is, the unique symbol of freedom. American is the enemy of God’s unity and an affront to God.” The statue turns to reveal a death’s head.While showing a picture of President Bush, “This is Satan, the source of tyranny.”21. Palestinian TV - Suliman Sutari, before thousands of chanting fanatics. (July 8, 2005):“Annihilate the infidels and the polytheists. They’re [God’s] enemies and the enemies of the religion. God, count them and kill them to the last one, and don’t even leave one.”22. June 2005 – The Islamic Thinkers Society – a video voice over while young "Americans" are stamping on an American flag:“In this country, one of the loopholes of this government is they allow the freedom of expression.”“Indeed, it is He [Allah] who sent His messenger, Mohamed, with the Islam to dominate over all other religions; to dominate the United Sates; to dominate the world even though the non-Muslims may hate it.”23. Some unnamed, turbaned figure speaking on a computer capture.“Islam’s superior than the Jews, than the Christian, than the Buddhists, than the Hindus. Who ever seeks any other thing apart for Islam will never be accepted. And the Christian or Kuffar, you may think to yourself. No, No, No, they are innocent. No Kuffar is innocent.”24. Another shouting computer image:“From yourself we’ll make your destruction because Allah’s tradition will prevail on this earth.”25. Mohanoud Ahmadinejad – Iranian President (July, 2004):“The message of the (Islamic) Revolution is global, and is not restricted to specific place or time. Have no doubt – Allah willing, Islam will conquer what? It will conquer all the mountains tops of he world.”26. “Palestinian T.V, Ibrahim Mudeins (March 2005):“We have ruled the world before, and by Allah, the day will come when we will rule the entire world again!”27. Screaming demonstrator at a rally in Great Britain: (May 2005)“One day this very flag will fly over the Parliament in London. We will see this flag that will fly over the White House, and we will see the Black House, the Kaaba [in Mecca] will take over the whole world!”28. H. R. Saleen, Chairman of Muslim Youth Organization:“You will take over USA! You will take over UK! You will take over Europe! You will defeat them all! You will get victory!! You will take over Egypt! We trust in Allah!”
First, Walid Shoebat – Billed as a “Former” PLO Terrorist:
1. “When the terrorists attacked America on 9/11 – everyone asked, “Why do they hate us, Americans had no clue!”
2. “Muslims are also victims.”
3. “Jihad means to struggle – the struggle within – but so does Mine Kampf.”
4. “Radical Islam is way more dangerous than German Nazism because it is god not the Fuarer telling you to do this.”
Second, Khaled Abu Toamel – Palestinian Journalist:
1. “Radical Islam has declared War . . .”
2. “A campaign to bring down the West”.
3. “Islam has been hijacked”.
Third, Nonie Darwish – Daughter of a Shahid (martyr)
1. “When I saw the second airplane hit, I knew Jihad had come to America.”
2. “A down right declaration of war from Islam on Western Culture.”
3. “To conquer the world for Allah – That is Jihad.”
4. “They blame every little problem in the Arab world on the West.”
5. “We have been infiltrated by people who want the Koran to replace our Constitution.”
6. “. . . They are here to make Islam the law of the land.”
7. “America has to wake up because we are strangling ourselves with our political correctness.”
What follows now are direct quotes from Islamic Radicals. I have given names and dates when possible. Speakers are presented in the order of their first appearance, although many statements were presented by some later in the documentary.
1. Khattab – Chechen Terrorist Leader (Sept. 2004):
“From now on we will get our bombs everywhere! Let Russia await our explosions blasting through their cities. I swear we will do it.”
2. From a Lebanese Suicide Bomber Induction Ceremony (1996):
“We swear by the blood and severed bodies of our children and the torment of our prisoners, and we will reply blowing our bodies!”
3. Hassan Nasrallah – Hizbollah Sec. Gen. (2005):
“The most honorable death is by killing. And the most honorable killing and most glorious martyrdom is where a man is killed for the sake of Allah.”
“We consider [America] to be an enemy because it is the greatest plunderer of our treasures, our oil, and our rescores, while millions in our nation suffer unemployment, poverty, hunger, unmariageability, ignorance, darkness, and so on.”
“Our motto, which we are not afraid to repeat year after year, is: Death to America.”
4. Hassein Suadd – Al-Qassam Brigades Commander (Dec. 2005):
“We succeeded, with Allah’s grace, to raise an ideological generation that loves death like our enemies love life."
5. Sheikh Ibrahim Madhi (2001):
“We must educate our children on the love of Jihad for the sake of Allah. And the love of fighting for the sake of Allah.”
6. Little Girl on Palestinian T V:
“But I march quickly toward my death.”
7. Little boy on Palestinian T V:
“. . . And we swear to take vengeful blood from our enemies for our killed and wounded.
8. Jordanian and Palestinian School book (1998):
“This religion [Islam] will destroy all other religions through the Islamic Jihad fighter.”
9. 3 ½ year old Girl prompted by some adult (May, 2002):
“A - . . . Are you familiar with the Jews?
G - Yes.
A – Do you like them?
G – No.
A – Why don’t you like them?
G – Because.
A – Because they are whats?
G – They’re apes and pigs.
A – Who said they are so?
G – Our God.
A – Where did He say this?
G – In the Koran.”
10. Sheik Dr. Bakr Al-Samarai (February, 2003):
“If Allah permits us, oh Nation of Mohammed, even the stone will say, ‘Oh Muslim, a Jew is hiding behind me come and cut off his head! And we shall cut off his head! By Allah, we shall cut off! Oh Jews. God is Great; Jihad for the sake of Allah!” (There were thousands shown cheering this speech.)
11. Little girl on Palestinian T. V.
“When I wander into the entrance of Jerusalem, I’ll turn into a suicide warrior. I’ll turn into a suicide warrior. In battledress. In battledress.”
12. Sheidh Al – Bajrruni – Palestinian Religious Scholars Ass. (2004):
“Oh Muslim, as much as you yearn for death, so you will be given life”
13. Ahmed Abdul Razek – Palestinian Cleric (2002):
“Should we want honor the only way to honor is by jihad!"
14. Ibrahim Muderis – Palestinian Cleric (2003):
“America is the foremost enemy of the Muslim Nation because it wages war against the Arab, Islamic Nation.”
15. Nagi AL-Slihabi – Egyptian Newspaper Editor (2004):
“The truth is that the US wants to eradicate our religious and Islamic identities.”
“The only enemy of the Arab and Islamic peoples is the US and not only Israel.”
16. Saudi Cleric Aed Al-Qami (2004):
“Houses and young men must be sacrificed. Throats must be slit and skulls must be shattered. This is the path to victory.”
“Furthermore, reality shows that American is behind all problems.”
17. Al-Qaeda Operative, (In a hood) (2005):
“Come and join us. Join this blessed jihad. Come for the sake of Allah. Join us in the blessed jihad, with Mullah Omar and Sheik Osama bin Laden.”
18. Abu Hamza Al – Masri (1998):
“What makes Allah happy? Allah’s happy when (non-Muslims) get killed.”
“You see the Islamic rule, if a Kuffar (non-Muslims) goes into a Muslim country. And he’s walking by. He’s like a cow; boy, anybody could take him. That is the Islamic rule and this is the opinion of Islam. It’s not my opinion. If you read the books of jihad, you’ll see . . . A Kuffar is walking by, he walks inside – you catch him. “What are you doing here?” Then he’s a booty, you can sell him in the market. If Muslims cannot take him, you know, and sell him in the market then you just kill him. It’s okay.”
“It’s only a matter of time until we rule Earth, until we control Earth.”
“In the end of the day, Islam must control Earth whether we like it or not it’s a promis from the prophet.”
19. On Iranian TV– Momaoun Al-Tamimi – Political Consultant (May 2004):
“They [The Americans] are beasts in human form.”’
20. Voice over on Iranian TV (2004):
The Statue of Liberty slowly turns in above a sea of blood. “There she is, the unique symbol of freedom. American is the enemy of God’s unity and an affront to God.” The statue turns to reveal a death’s head.
While showing a picture of President Bush, “This is Satan, the source of tyranny.”
21. Palestinian TV - Suliman Sutari, before thousands of chanting fanatics. (July 8, 2005):
“Annihilate the infidels and the polytheists. They’re [God’s] enemies and the enemies of the religion. God, count them and kill them to the last one, and don’t even leave one.”
22. June 2005 – The Islamic Thinkers Society – a video voice over while young "Americans" are stamping on an American flag:
“In this country, one of the loopholes of this government is they allow the freedom of expression.”
“Indeed, it is He [Allah] who sent His messenger, Mohamed, with the Islam to dominate over all other religions; to dominate the United Sates; to dominate the world even though the non-Muslims may hate it.”
23. Some unnamed, turbaned figure speaking on a computer capture.
“Islam’s superior than the Jews, than the Christian, than the Buddhists, than the Hindus. Who ever seeks any other thing apart for Islam will never be accepted. And the Christian or Kuffar, you may think to yourself. No, No, No, they are innocent. No Kuffar is innocent.”
24. Another shouting computer image:
“From yourself we’ll make your destruction because Allah’s tradition will prevail on this earth.”
25. Mohanoud Ahmadinejad – Iranian President (July, 2004):
“The message of the (Islamic) Revolution is global, and is not restricted to specific place or time. Have no doubt – Allah willing, Islam will conquer what? It will conquer all the mountains tops of he world.”
26. “Palestinian T.V, Ibrahim Mudeins (March 2005):
“We have ruled the world before, and by Allah, the day will come when we will rule the entire world again!”
27. Screaming demonstrator at a rally in Great Britain: (May 2005)
“One day this very flag will fly over the Parliament in London. We will see this flag that will fly over the White House, and we will see the Black House, the Kaaba [in Mecca] will take over the whole world!”
28. H. R. Saleen, Chairman of Muslim Youth Organization:
“You will take over USA! You will take over UK! You will take over Europe! You will defeat them all! You will get victory!! You will take over Egypt! We trust in Allah!”
The usual slogan by the "religion of peace" - Palestinian-Arabs shout "itbach al yahood", slaughter the Jews!http://christianactionforisrael.org/antiholo/raging.html
Not just radical clerics, but even mainstream "activists" like 'Pro-palestinian' ISM - Anti-Semitic hate speechhttp://www.stoptheism.com/Default.asp?M=24&T=139
..."When the Solidarity Movement met at the University of Michigan, delegates chanted 'Kill the Jews.'" The ISM/PSM denies that it chanted "Kill the Jews," apparently because what it actually chanted was "Itbach al yahood" (Arabic for "Kill the Jews"). http://www.standwithus.com/news_post.asp?NPI=85Read More »
It took a while, but here is the talk I gave in NYC recently. It takes a while to get to the Obama reference, but I think (hope) it is worth it!
Beyond prejudice: Antisemitism’s lessons for today’s world.
À propos the presentation of Antisemitism. A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2008) at the Leo Baeck Institute, New York, June 17, 2008
Antisemitism is often seen as an endemic prejudice, a mental disease almost, that has infected European societies for centuries past—and persists as such even today, under the surface. The study of antisemitism often appears to discount the historical reality in which antisemitism existed, treating it as a prejudice—how it developed, and how it affected people’s attitudes and actions, without looking at the historical contexts in which antisemitism actually functioned. It often appears enough simply to prove that this or that famous figure, this or that politician or writer, this or that religion, culture or society had antisemitic prejudices, and leave it at that, as one more proof of the irredeemable Jew-hatred of Western or (post-) Christian society.
The problem with this fairly straightforward research program concerning antisemitism is that it does little to explain the actual historical record of Jewish-non-Jewish relations in European history, or indeed history generally. Considering that antisemitic prejudice is held to be ubiquitous, deeply ingrained into Christian and hence Western culture, it appears very odd that there have been many societies within Europe and the Americas, ranging over time and space, in which antisemitism or anti-Jewish animosity were not strong, and certainly not predominant attitudes politically or socially. England, for instance, had been one of the most fervently anti-Jewish societies in medieval Europe, originating the ritual murder libel, and then being the first Western country to expel the Jews in 1290. By the nineteenth century, however, anti-Jewish animosity had so diminished that, when Adolf Stoecker tried to spread his newfangled political movement of “antisemitism” (the term was only invented in the late 1870s to reflect the racial underpinnings of the supposed “Semitic” threat of the Jewish race) to England, English public opinion basically laughed him out of court. Despite some “genteel” anti-Jewish disdain in certain sectors of the upper classes (but not all) and some not so genteel anti-Jewish prejudice lower down the social scale, the fact was that creating a political movement to combat “Semitism” appeared ridiculous, and un-English, because general English public opinion held that discrimination against Jews, as against the members of any respectable religious group, was anathema.
Even if prejudices against Jews existed, and research has abundantly shown they did, especially based on Christian theology, the question that we should ask is how effective such prejudices were when it came to social or political action? The answer in many cases was very ineffective, sometimes so ineffective (as in nineteenth century Italy) as to be barely noticeable. Moreover anti-Jewish hatred, anti-Jewish discrimination, did not automatically translate into political success.
Even when prejudice against Jews did result in anti-Jewish persecution and discrimination, as it did, for instance, in the Russian Empire, it did not necessarily take the form of modern antisemitism. Actual antisemitism, the modern political and ideological movement that began in the 1870s, led to the Holocaust, and whose influence is still with us today, was not a ubiquitous phenomenon in nineteenth century Europe. In much of Western Europe and Southern Europe it was virtually non-existent. The key region where it originated and developed was Central and Eastern Europe, primarily the German Empire and the Habsburg Monarchy of Austria-Hungary. The movement started here and it was politically most successful here. It was here that modern antisemitism, as opposed to traditional anti-Jewish animosity, took shape as a reaction to the perceived threat resulting from the granting of legal equality to Jews and their integration into society as full members.
Tsarist Russia, in contrast, was notoriously hostile to Jews, but Russia’s Jewish Question and hence the basis of Russian anti-Jewish hostility was quite different than in Central Europe, because Jews never achieved full legal equality and emancipation there and were never as integrated as a group in Russian (or Polish or Ukrainian or Lithuanian or White Russian) society. Hence anti-Jewish hostility—which did come also, admittedly, to be called antisemitism—tended to be more backward-looking, more traditional, and did not produce the Holocaust. The key question in the historiography of antisemitism is how did modern Germany (and Austria-Hungary) go so wrong as to regress and produce the Holocaust? The fact is that despite all the evident government-backed hostility against Jews in Russia, the pogroms of the 1880s and later, the active government discrimination against Jews, tsarist Russia did not perpetrate genocide against Jews, but “civilized” Germany did. So Russia is not the main subject, nor is, despite the Dreyfus Affair, France. That affair was more about the character of France than about Jews, and in any case it was the republican, Dreyfusard side that won, reasserting France’s liberal and progressive values (and hence the equal rights of Jews)—until 1940. The main subject in a study of antisemitism’s career must be Central Europe.
Even in Central Europe antisemitism was far from being successful everywhere. There was some minor political success in parts of Germany, such as the more rural parts of Hesse; there was more success in the Habsburg Monarchy, with the spectacular victory of the antisemitic Christian Socials in Vienna from 1895, as well as success in other parts of Cisleithania (the Austrian half of the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy). Yet there were also many areas and communities in Central Europe which resisted or defused political antisemitism. Budapest—and Hungary generally—before 1918 saw the Hungarian political leadership stamping down hard on antisemitic agitation in the 1880s, so that Hungary was viewed before the First World War as a relative paradise for Jews. Similarly, the leadership of the German community in Prague, as Gary Cohen has shown, adopted a very pro-Jewish approach. Till van Rahden’s study of Breslau (Wroclaw) in Germany similarly shows a city in which Jews and other Germans coexisted with little friction before 1914. In Germany generally, indeed, political antisemitism as such was a bust before 1914, and even the German capital, Berlin, was far from being a center of antisemitic power, being instead run by a liberal “Progressive” administration.
There are rational explanations for these examples. In Budapest and Hungary the political leadership regarded Hungarian Jewry as allies in two key causes. First, many Hungarian Jews had voluntarily “Magyarized”, adopting the Hungarian national language of Magyar and a Magyar Hungarian national identity, and thus helping the Magyar effort to achieve a Magyar-speaking majority in the Hungarian Kingdom, where only a minority in the 1860s, lower than 40%, spoke the “national” language (as opposed to Romanian, Slovak, German and so forth). Second, the Magyar leadership viewed Jews as an entrepreneurial minority who were Hungary’s best hope for achieving the national goal of rapid commercial and industrial modernization. For these reasons, any attack on Jews such as political antisemitism was seen by them as also an attack on the Hungarian (Magyar) national cause, and should be suppressed—as it largely was.
In Prague, it was a question for the German leadership of “ethnic survival” in a city which was becoming increasingly Czech in population. Those Jews in the city who still were German-speakers constituted roughly half of the German-speaking population; therefore to preserve a German presence in the city it made sense not to alienate the Jewish community. Again, Jews were seen as allies, and not foes, depending on circumstances.
What these two examples suggest is that even though there may well have been an underlying anti-Jewish prejudice based largely on Christian anti-Judaism, individuals and whole communities appear to have been amenable to rational considerations when deciding whether to let this prejudice decide their choices and actions. In other words, antisemitism in Central Europe was not always impervious to reason, and was indeed amenable to argument and experience, especially if circumstance suggested that one’s own interests would be better served by being positive with Jews rather than negative. The question then becomes why, nevertheless, did antisemitism in Central Europe become as prominent and potent as it did, and why did it remain so?
I suggest that there were three main factors which made Central Europe particularly fertile for antisemitism. The first concerned the Jews of Central Europe themselves. To be clear: Jews were not to blame for what happened to them, they were not to blame for antisemitism, let alone the Holocaust, nor were they even “responsible” in any meaningful, moral sense. However, the way in which Jews entered the modern world in Central Europe, the strategies they followed in integrating into German and Habsburg society and culture, the time it took, and the very framework in which their “emancipation” and “assimilation” (integration) took place, all were factors making for a persistence of the “Jewish Question”, and hence an opening for antisemitism, that were not present in other European states to the north, west and south.
The initial problem was that Jews in Central Europe did not, unlike their western counterparts, gain their civil equality on their right to this as citizens or subjects. Instead, in the German states and in Austria-Hungary the right to full civil equality came to be provisional on the achievement by Jews of a sufficient modernization and integration—assimilation—into German or Austrian society. This quid pro quo between Jews earning their right to equality through acculturation and assimilation, so that they would become just like all other Germans/Austrians, and their actually being granted that equality took roughly ninety years (1780 to 1871) to be fully realized. In the course of those decades a whole ideology of emancipation grew up, with various associations and support systems to enable Jews in Central Europe to become just like their fellow German and Austrian citizens. These were, of course, Jewish institutions, and it was a Jewish ideology, all aimed at achieving through Bildung (education, but also with the sense of self-realization and self-improvement, both morally and aesthetically) parity with their non-Jewish fellow citizens. The end result, as historians of Central European Jewry know only too well, was that Jewish identity in the region did profoundly change, in terms of occupations, and in the character and level of education, as well as in understanding of what the Jewish religion meant, but what this did not achieve was a “disappearance” of Jewish difference. The very effort over decades to achieve what the German and Austrian states wanted Jews to become, resulted only in a new social profile for the Jewish communities, and another, new Jewish identity.
Moreover the very energy that Jews in Central Europe put in to their transformation into well-educated citizens and prosperous agents in the new, modern economy (instead of itinerant beggars and peddlers, as many had been) meant that, as a group, they stood out for being much more bourgeois, and better educated, than the average Central European. By 1900 the very success of Jews in accepting the challenge set to them a century before had left them, despite their being a really tiny minority, with a very high profile in many fields of modern culture and the modern economy. In other words, from a certain point of view, Jews had not actually achieved the goal of being just like their fellow citizens. They were far too successful in the rational, modern world to be seen as the same, or as “German”.
That at least was the conclusion drawn by many in a very significant branch of Central European and German culture: irrationalism. The second factor encouraging a survival of animosity against Jews in Central Europe was the high cultural context in which Jewish integration was received, and the strength specifically of what has been termed irrationalism in key sectors of central European culture and society, especially among many cohorts of German and Austrian-German students, who went on to populate academia and the liberal professions, and become the backbone of the (non-Jewish part of the) Bildungsbürgertum of German-speaking Central Europe. Irrationalism was a form of German idealism, based on Romanticism. Its leading lights in the nineteenth century were Arthur Schopenhauer, Richard Wagner and Friedrich Nietzsche. It was not irrational per se, rather, much as the counter-culture of the Sixties, it asserted that rationalism, an absolute reliance on rationality, was too narrow a basis on which to conduct human affairs, manage human relations, or create culture and art. Instead, more emphasis needed to be put on the “irrational” side of human experience, on emotions, on creative imagination, and on the organic, living world, which in human terms was seen as heritage and descent, or “blood”. The problem for Jews presented by the adoption of this irrationalism by the world of Central European high culture was that, first: Jews had very much adopted the rationalist attitudes that had been behind the initial quid pro quo of emancipation; and second: irrationalism’s emphasis on the source of emotional authenticity and cultural creativity in the humus of the organic given meant that German (or Czech, or Polish, or whatever nationality’s) culture meant that Jews, not being descended of that organic whole, could never be authentic bearers of that culture. Therefore from this perspective Jews, contrary to the assumptions of the ideology of emancipation, could never become just like their fellow Germans or Central Europeans.
The third factor making Central Europe receptive to antisemitism was the form of Central European modernization. Namely, Germany and the other nascent polities within the Habsburg Monarchy entered the modern world through nationalism, and ultimately through integral ethnonationalism. Even though Central Europe had been once the site of the universalist and multi-layered polity of the Holy Roman Empire, whose multifaceted character the Habsburg Monarchy perpetuated, the dominant form of modernity that was seen as the way to the modern, rational future was the nation-state, and a nation-state based on the sort of organic community that Romantic thought had seen as “natural”, whether linguistic, or increasingly as the nineteenth century advanced, ethnic or racial. It was the old multi-national empires and polities that were seen as “unnatural” and hence irrational, whereas the integral ethnonational state, where everyone shared the bond of natural community through culture or “blood”, was seen as the best guarantee of national cohesion and hence national success.
This modernization through integral ethnonationalism was seen at the time as “rational”, because based on the most advanced scientific theories available, especially those coming from biology and Darwinian evolutionism. Although antisemitism is seen today as a completely irrational ideology, based on illusory claims about Jewish difference, especially racial difference, we need to remember that at the time racialism was seen by many as on the cutting edge of scientific thought, especially in Central Europe. It fitted both the Romantic organicism behind nationalism, and the materialism implicit in nineteenth century scientific thought. What could be more “scientific” than a theory that traced everything important, including our values and our thought patterns, through materially inherited (racial) traits, as Darwinian evolutionary theory suggested with regard to species?
Central Europe, and especially Germany, was particularly fertile for this racial, organicist-based thinking, because its intellectual tradition had by 1900 become one in which holistic thought, with the whole greater than the individual, was seen to have priority over “Anglo-Saxon” and French traditions of empiricism and Comteian positivism in which individual facts (and individuals) were prior. Hence the good of greater whole of the nation, of the Volk, increasingly racially defined, was what counted, not the rights of individuals. This holistic nationalism (mirrored, ironically perhaps, in the nationalisms of the smaller Central European nationalities, such as Poles and Czechs) received a huge boost in prestige from the fact that Germany by 1900 appeared to be the most scientifically advanced, socially best organized, and industrially and economically most vital (on the way to surpassing Britain) nation in Europe. It was the German model of modernity that appeared to be the path to the future, not the empirical Western one. This perceived dichotomy was described in many ways at the time. One of the best known was Thomas Mann’s contrast between Western Zivilisation and German Kultur—the former superficial and atomistic, the latter profound, holistic and deeply spiritual. (The same sort of dichotomy can also be seen in the near contemporary novel by E.M.Forster, Howard’s End.) it does not take too much imagination to realize that Jews would, because of the very terms of the emancipation, their liberalism, their role in the modern capitalist economy, even reverence of many of them for English liberty, be identified by antisemites with this foreign, Western empirical, lower modernity, and hence be seen as unsuitable for the higher, German path to modernity.
Jews were, indeed, in a double or even triple bind: to begin with they had not been rational enough for Central European states’ liking; then they had become too rational for the irrationalists; and finally they had ended up being seen as having the wrong kind of rationality. Behind this constant moving of the goalposts was that while Jews were trying to be Germans, for instance, the Germans were still trying to define themselves, and one of the main ways of doing so was by defining themselves against others. This process of “negative integration” (I know I am German, because I am not an x) could employ external targets (such as the English) or it could employ internal ones, such as Catholics (as in the Kulturkampf), who owed allegiance to a foreign power (the Pope); or socialists, who threatened social order and believed in international brotherhood—or Jews. The place in Central Europe where this definition of self against the Other was most pronounced and most successful was Vienna, where Karl Lueger’s genius lay in his realization that the disparate groups opposed to liberalism in Vienna all could be unified by their opposition to Jewish influence. Hence his Christian Socials captured power in Vienna’s municipal government in 1895 on an explicitly antisemitic ticket, due to Lueger’s instrumental rationality in selecting Jews as his main Feindsbild (target). It is still not clear that Lueger really was all that convinced of his antisemitic rhetoric, but what it achieved was a uniting behind a Viennese and later Austrian identity that defined itself, ultimately by being “Christian”, i.e. not Jewish.
Closely linked to this danger of being the preferred target of “negative integration” in Central Europe, the very logic behind nationalism, which was in itself very modern and rational, also posed an immense problem for Jews. The law of the excluded middle seems on the face of it a truism: something either is or is not the case. It cannot be both a and not a, so in classical logic the middle ground (both/and) is excluded. This law of either/or makes sense in any number of settings, and its simple efficiency was behind much of the administrative and economic power of the emergent nation-state, comparing most favorably to the complexities and apparent self-contradictions of previous multi-national and international polities. Instead of the multiple loyalties of these premodern polities, only one loyalty, loyalty to the nation-state, was expected of the citizen/subject of such a state. This simplified things immensely, much to the benefit of logistical and bureaucratic efficiency. Yet it also did much damage to actual human relations, and actual human experience, for it forced decisions in many instances that were not really necessary. For instance, this logic imparted huge pressures in the nation-state system for citizens to have only one national identity/loyalty, and not be indulged in any dual or triple loyalty, regardless of one’s background and parentage. The monolithic nation-state demanded in principle total and absolute loyalty, and identity, and made any form of different identity, allegiance or loyalty, ultimately any difference at all, suspect. If you were of French and German background, for instance, there was huge pressure to choose sides—one could be either French, or German, one could not be both.
Although it was not immediately obvious, given the status of Jews in most of Europe as a religious minority, the residual identity of Jews as an ethnic group, and in any case as still recognizably different in social, cultural, political and economic terms, meant that Jews did not fit in to this model of the monolithic nation-state. Whether they wanted it or not, Jews had remained different as a group within Central European and German society. Subjectively they were different, because most still saw themselves as Jews, even many of those who had converted or were konfessionslos. Intersubjectively, Jews were also seen as different by most other non-Jewish Germans, as part of a special, other group; and objectively as well Jews remained as a group noticeably different by most measures, whether it was political allegiance, cultural preferences, level of education, or socio-economic stratification.
There really should not, by our current standards, have been anything at all wrong with this continuance of difference. Indeed one major marker of difference was the relative, and very significant economic and intellectual success of Central European Jewry. Central European Jews, it can be claimed, were the most successful example of minority integration in modern times and were a huge cultural success (much as American Jewry has been). The Leo Baeck Institute is indeed an institutional testament to that immense achievement. Despite being a tiny portion of the populace, Jews came to occupy a vital place in German and Central European culture and society, acting as the pluralizing leaven of German and Central European modern culture.
Yet this very success was, in the terms of the exclusory logic of nationalism, and in terms of the original quid pro quo of the emancipation bargain, let alone in terms of antisemitism, a sign of failure, for it meant that Jews were still different, identifiably different. Given the exclusory either/or, “us v. them” logic of nationalism, one could either remain a Jew, or become a German, but, ultimately, one could not be both. And, if one were a devotee of racial thought, the question was in any case moot, for Jews could never become really, authentically German in any case. This explains the paradox that the place where Jewish integration had its greatest cultural and intellectual achievements was also the place where antisemitism flourished best.
By 1914, these three factors meant that the potential for disaster for Central European Jewry was already present, and some of the more perceptive and sensitive commentators of the times, such as Arthur Schnitzler in The Road to the Open, could see this and express it in writing. Nevertheless, and this needs stressing, the situation in Central Europe regarding Jews and antisemitism in the early years of the twentieth century did not have to result in the Holocaust. E.H.Carr once wrote that, in history, nothing is inevitable until it has happened, and the Holocaust is very much a case in point. The potential was there, but potentialities are not always realized; it was the self-induced collapse of European, of Western, civilization in the First World War, and the subsequent economic and political crisis of the Twenties and Thirties, which was never really resolved before the Second World War, that allowed those potentialities to be realized.
The resulting Third Reich was the hyperbolic realization of Central European nationalism’s logic, and the logic of Central Europe’s special form of holistic modernity, taken to absurd, ultimately insane, paranoid, lengths. Yet in those terms the consequence of the Holocaust was but a logical progression, of purification of the body politic and prevention (by extermination) of those “foreign” bodies, the equivalent of the “free radicals” of today’s medicine, that were perceived as threatening the political and economic health of that body politic. There was in this most cataclysmic of genocides a form of what Alexander Herzen had termed, a century before referring to the crushing of the 1848 revolutions, “rational evil”: the application of reason without the pathos of humanity, of logic without ethical restraint, as we understand it, and only “irrational” if we apply our moral and ethical values as the basis of reason. Beyond these questions of theodicy, there was another form of rational evil that enabled the horror of the Holocaust to occur, an instrumental rationality that encouraged individuals to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by the misfortunes of their fellow human beings (whether Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, communists, and other persecuted categories) to better their own prospects, whether through material gain or career promotion. The studies by, among others, Gerhard Botz for Vienna, and of Götz Aly for the occupied lands, of National Socialism’s really quite sophisticated, and in its own perverse way effective, race-based welfare policies only confirm this insight into the abysmal depths of human nature, cut loose from humanist and pluralist restraints.
Fortunately, that particular modernity, and that particular application of exclusory logic did not totally succeed. The Western Allies and the Soviet Union won out, and, by the end of the twentieth century, with the demise of the Soviet Union, the Western Allies and their version of the world (embodied, perhaps ironically, in the United Nations) had won out. This meant that it was their version of modernity, not that of Central European nationalism, that is today predominant in the world, to a greater or lesser extent, depending, and that modernity is based on the concept of liberal pluralism.
The success of liberal pluralism after 1945 has only been a gradual one, and, as Tony Judt has pointed out, was built in Europe on the ruins of the previous, much more diverse and plural societies “cleansed” as a result of the Second World War and its aftermath. Yet liberal pluralism has largely succeeded, and this is the most hopeful sign, for me, that the factors that enabled antisemitism are a shadow of what they once were. This took a while—it is a myth that Europe after 1945 suddenly shook off decades of monolithic, nationalistic and racist thinking and immediately adopted a liberal pluralist, multilateral approach. Instead racial thought and nationalism persisted for many years. Initially the European powers maintained their empires, and defended them on the basis of basically racist theories of white superiority over the yellow, brown and black peoples. The US Army was still segregated at the end of the Second World War. Nevertheless, over time attitudes did change, radically, so that today, in the United States and in the European Union, itself evidence of this remarkable change, as well as in most of the rest of the developed world, the predominant logic concerning human relations and human values, identities and loyalties is much more inclusive and open, as is fitting.
This inclusive, open logic is what liberal pluralism is about, because what liberal pluralism basically asserts is that in very many circumstances the classic, exclusory logic of “either/or” does not apply in human relations. There are just too many cases where there is more than one right answer to a question of values, or where the best thing to do is not to make a false choice but to attempt to encompass both interests, both priorities, both points of view. Liberal pluralism in other words is based on the inclusive logic of “both/and”, where the middle ground between stark choices is included and not ruled out. This is the logic of connections and of co-operation, of relations and not divisions, lateral thinking and not categorization, and it is the system that allows, indeed makes as its basis for functioning, the existence of multiple value systems, multiple loyalties, multiple cultures and multiple origins and heritages. The multiplicity of human experience and human achievement can, under the liberal pluralist umbrella, be encompassed, difference allowed and respected, treasured even, in ways that the monolithic logic of nationalism in the end never did. It is not the nationalistic “Each to his own” but rather “Chacun à son goût” that typifies liberal pluralism.
This makes liberal pluralism by far the best antidote to antisemitism that we are likely to find, for in a liberal pluralist polity or community Jews can be full members while retaining their difference. In such a system it is those that do not have a hyphenated identity (Jewish-American, African-American, Irish-American etc.) who are not the norm, and this simple hyphenation is but the most basic form of what could be a triple, quadruple form of (connected, not divided) identity, to the nth degree. In this system the existence of multiple loyalty and of difference is not a problem but a possibility. The vibrancy of pluralist societies such as modern America (and elements of modern Britain and Europe) attest to the tragic error that occurred in Central Europe’s modernization. For the lesson of that moral disaster must surely be that the central mistake was the attempt, in the interests of social and political unity and cohesion, to erase difference.
The aim should not be to produce ethnically pure nation-states, but rather to allow for “diversity in unity”. This entails respecting difference in other people’s views and values, and attempting to understand those differences. It is through mutual respect and mutual recognition that our society gains strength and insight, as a whole.
Ethnic nation-states, however they historically came about, are not in themselves bad—but they should not, cannot, be the be-all and end-all of human interaction and endeavor. Instead, the most hopeful path for all of us, Jews or not, is a liberal pluralist approach that encompasses difference, encouraging unity and synergy where others mistakenly see division and weakness. That is why I find the apparent fears among many Jews about Barack Obama so oddly misplaced, because Obama’s whole approach is based on the inclusive “both/and” logic of liberal pluralism, his campaign exudes this sense of mutual respect of difference combined with recognition of fundamental unity, and he himself, in his bi-racial, multi-ethnic self, physically embodies the principle.
The central power of Obama’s attraction resides, I would assert, in the fact that he realized at some point in his life that he was not divided and weakened by having more than one racial and ethnic origin, but that the ability to straddle, and more, unite, these diverse heritages, these diverse cultures and sets of values, gave him strengths and insights that were not to his disadvantage but rather to his immense benefit, and to the benefit of others who might share his insight. And it is that vision of a country, and of a world, that can live and flourish in a world where the “infinite variety” of the human experience is valued and cherished, and not regarded as a problem, that is the best antidote of all to the narrow, prejudiced visions of the world that gave us the Holocaust and that continue to produce and justify Man’s inhumanity to Man to this day.
©Steven Beller
