Hate Hits the Mainstream

Ever since the Sept. 11 atrocities were carried out by fanatics invoking the name of God, Americans of faith--from President Bush to editorial writers to priests and rabbis--have called for tolerance, both for our nation’s Muslim population and for Islam itself. The hijackers may have invoked Allah to justify their murderous deeds, we are told, but those murderers do not represent the true face of Islam; our war is against terrorists, not a religion. And words have been backed by deeds. A rash of anti-Arab hate incidents led law enforcement to quickly bolster protection for mosques, and Fortune 500 companies rushed to implement special sensitivity training sessions led by Arab American activists.

What is both heartening and remarkable is that virtually all Americans understand that to give in to religious hatred would, in effect, hand Osama bin Laden a great victory, a time bomb that would ultimately inflict greater damage to America’s national psyche than the destruction of the twin towers themselves. At risk are our historic commitments to religious diversity, individual rights and equality for minorities --ideals of our democracy that are a lightning rod for the hate that Al Qaeda supporters harbor for America.

In this holiday season, however, another faith has yet to hear words of support and reconciliation. Jews, far from having their religion celebrated, have been confronted with new and virulent strains of anti-Semitism. Not since Kristallnacht, the infamous night of broken glass in Nazi Germany in 1938, has Europe seen more synagogues attacked and burned than in the last year. And even as the debate raged over whether the onset of Ramadan should bring a temporary cessation of the war in Afghanistan, no such truce was contemplated by Arab regimes in their campaign to delegitimize Israel. They have gone right on equating Zionism with apartheid and nazism and insulting the holy books of Judaism. Not a beat was lost in promoting the big lies of blood libel, alleged Jewish plots to control the world and Holocaust denial.

Witness the new series airing on the state-run satellite television network of the Arab gulf state Abu Dhabi. Facing stiff competition for 25 million homes in the Arab and Muslim world from satellite network Al Jazeera, Abu Dhabi TV has decided to seek its market share by launching “Plots of Terror.” Aired each night of Ramadan as Muslim families gather to break their fast, this family-oriented “satirical comedy” stars a well-known Kuwaiti comedian as Israel’s prime minister, Ariel Sharon. Between ads for Procter & Gamble shampoo, chocolate and computers for kids, viewers are introduced to an Israeli leader depicted as a vampire who craves the blood of Arab children and markets “Dracu-cola.” The “prime minister” is shown personally leading the massacre of helpless prisoners and, in the most horrific scene of all, is shown overseeing the tossing of Arab babies into a bonfire. Sharon tells his money-grubbing, earlocked assistant how the late Prime Minister Menachem Begin fulfilled his 20th birthday wish by providing the blood of 20 Arab kids. “So we drew their blood and drank it. It was one of my best nights,” the fictional Sharon fondly recalls.

Protests have succeeded in getting Procter & Gamble to cancel its shampoo ads, but the show goes on uninterrupted, as Arab officials in the region, including Kuwait’s information minister defended the program as an expression of freedom of speech--a right apparently reserved only for such momentous cultural projects. Western leaders have been silent; though one can only imagine the international outcry had similar programming targeting leading figures in the Muslim world been broadcast by Christians or Jews during Ramadan.

Ominously, the Abu Dhabi series reflects the mainstreaming of anti-Semitism across the Arab world. Saudi Arabian and Egyptian TV are debating whether to air a 30-part miniseries, “Horseman Without a Horse,” which is based on the debunked canard “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” an early 20th century hoax by the Russian czar’s secret police that purported to reveal a Jewish plan to dominate the world. The book, a virtual prescription for genocide, has been invoked by every Jew hater from Adolf Hitler to Louis Farrakhan. The new “expose,” which cost millions to produce, stars a prominent actor backed by a huge ensemble cast.

These television series are, unfortunately, not breaking new ground in the Middle East. In the early 1980s, current Syrian Defense Minister Mustafa Talas wrote a book titled “The Matzo of Zion,” which alleged that Jews living in Damascus in 1840 killed two Christian children in order to use their blood to prepare their Passover matzo. This past summer, a leading Egyptian filmmaker announced at a press conference in Cairo that he was collaborating with Talas on a film version of the book. The film, its director said, would be “the Arab world’s answer to ‘Schindler’s List.’ ”

Talas runs no risk of being ostracized in Syria for his beliefs. The country’s president, Bashar Assad, distinguished himself last May during a visit by Pope John Paul II to Damascus by accusing Jews not only of having killed Jesus but also of having plotted to kill the prophet Muhammad. The pope, a staunch opponent of European anti-Semitism, could not find his voice to condemn it when it emanated from the Arab world.

Tragically, the pope’s silence is more than matched in most of the Western world. Years before Sept. 11, and long before Yasser Arafat walked away from a Camp David deal that would have given birth to a Palestinian state, his Palestinian Authority officially sanctioned hatred of Jews and Judaism in Palestinian textbooks and media. Though a clear violation of the 1993 Oslo accords, such actions hardly caused a ripple in Washington or the European Union.

This month, the United Nations, along with its secretary-general, Kofi Annan, was awarded the Nobel peace prize. But Annan has not only failed to take on anti-Semitism; he has stood by as constituent agencies, especially the Human Rights Commission, have been hijacked by states like Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Yemen, Algeria and others to bestow the veneer of diplomatic respectability on hatred of the Jewish state and its chief ally, the United States.

Nowhere was that invective more forcefully felt than at the United Nations World Conference Against Racism, convened this summer in Durban, South Africa. As a delegate there, I, along with other representatives of Jewish groups, were subjected to taunts and physical intimidation. One day, thousands of South African Muslim demonstrators marched bearing banners proclaiming “Hitler should have finished the job.” The ultimate insult came in the final document produced by NGOs, which called for the reinstatement of the infamous 1975 U.N. resolution equating Zionism with racism. The United States, also subject to withering criticism, was the only country besides Israel to have the courage to walk out on the hate fest, which was eclipsed by the Al Qaeda hijackers who launched their suicide attacks a mere 72 hours after the Durban conference closed.

From his very first public communique following the atrocities of Sept. 11, Osama bin Laden has woven Christians and Jews into his web of hate, railing against plots by “Jews and crusaders.” Still, many leaders in the West continue to delude themselves that the anger of the “Arab street” will never touch them, as long as they continue to wink and nod at the venting of anti-Semitism. But just as President Bush has insisted that “there are no good or bad terrorists,” we must remember that hate is equally detestable regardless of where it is directed. Otherwise, hate--and the cancer of terrorism it spawns--will never disappear.