Racism in the Islamic World
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FLAME - factsandlogic.org


For years, the U.N., led by Islamic and Arab nations and their
sympathizers, has accused Israel of racism, but the world
consistently turns a blind eye to open, seething anti-Semitism in
Islamic society.
. What are the facts?

In one of the most astonishing propaganda coups ever, a United
Nations conference on racism, which took place in Durban South Africa
in 2001, declared that Zionism is racism. No wonder the U.S. and
Israel walked out of the meeting, which was dominated by
representatives of Islamic and Arab states and other anti-Israel
forces, and whose conclusions were predictable from the outset.

The supreme irony of this conference was that it accused no other
nation of racism—only Israel. In truth, Israel is perhaps the most
racially and ethnically diverse and tolerant country in the world.
More than half of Israel’s Jewish population consists of people of
color—blacks from Ethiopia and Yemen, as well as brown-skinned people
from Morocco, Iran, Syria, Egypt and Israel itself. In addition,
Israel’s population includes more than one million Arabs, who enjoy
the same civil rights as Jewish Israelis. In Israel hate speech is
banned, and it is against the law to discriminate based on race or
religion.

In contrast, anti-Semitism—a poisonous form of racism directed
specifically against the Jewish people—is rampant in most all Islamic
societies. Not only is anti-Semitism commonplace in Muslim nations,
but it is propagated shamelessly by their leaders, in state-sponsored
media, and by Muslim clergy.

For example, former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed
declared in a 2003 speech to the Organization of Islamic Conference
that, “today Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight
and die for them.” Imagine if an American president had made a
similarly sweeping and bigoted statement about blacks, Latinos or any
other race—what a justifiable uproar, perhaps even an impeachment,
would ensue. Yet there was no condemnation by the Muslim world of Mr.
Mohamed’s comments. Rather, virtually all of the conference’s Muslim
leaders actually voiced their approval.

In response to a terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia in May 2004, Crown
Prince Abdullah declared that “Zionism is behind [these] terrorist
actions in the kingdom.” (Zionism is the code word often used by
Islamic anti-Semites for Jews.) U.S. Congressman Tom Lantos called
the Prince’s assertion “an outrage… blatant hypocrisy,” but Islamic
leaders were silent. In fact, millions of Muslims still insist that
Zionists were behind the September 11 attacks on the World Trade
Center.

Anti-Semitism is expressed so freely and ubiquitously in most Islamic
societies that no citizen can escape it. During Ramadan in 2002,
Egypt’s state-controlled TV aired “Horseman Without a Horse,” a
program based on the notorious forgery, The Protocols of the Elders
of Zion, in which Jews allegedly use the blood of non-Jews to make
Passover matzot. In Iran, a TV series, “Zahra’s Blue Eyes,” portrays
“Zionists” kidnapping Palestinian children and harvesting their
organs.

Perhaps nowhere is the hatred of Jews more virulent than among the
Palestinians. Most perniciously, Palestinian children are taught in
school that Jews are descended from apes and pigs and that the most
noble thing they can do is to kill Jews. Muslim clerics like Imam
Ibrahim Madiras, an employee of the Palestinian Authority, declared
in a 2005 television sermon, “Jews are a cancer” and later that,
“Muslims will kill the Jews . . . [and] rejoice in Allah’s victory.”
No surprise, then, that the 1982 doctoral dissertation of Palestinian
president Mahmoud Abbas makes the astounding claim that “Zionists”
collaborated with the Nazis to annihilate the Jewish people in order
to drive the survivors to Palestine.

Anti-Semitism and the prospects for peace: Islamic anti-Semitism
permeates the Arab Middle East and creates an atmosphere in which
Jews are reviled and represented as subhuman. How can the Palestinian
people embrace peace with a people represented by their religious and
political leaders as dehumanized, evil beings? Even more importantly,
how can Israel be expected to trust a so-called peace partner who
expresses abject hatred and murderous intent toward Jews on a daily
basis? Yet the U.S. and many European nations continue to demand that
Israel make one-sided sacrifices for peace with a people steeped in
racism and committed to its destruction.

Until Islamic leaders muster the integrity to relentlessly condemn
anti-Semitism (and its evil twin, anti-Zionism), we can’t expect
Israel to accept a forced peace with the Palestinians. Likewise,
until moderate Muslims reject racism in all forms, they can’t expect
Islam to enjoy full respect as a political and spiritual force among
the world’s people.

“Until Muslims reject racism in all forms, they can’t expect Islam to
enjoy full respect as a political and spiritual force.”
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