WASHINGTON, 10 May — The American Jewish Committee has issued an offensive new label for “the anti-Semitism raging though Arab and Muslim societies and infiltrating Europe.” The term is: “Islamic Fascism.”
Launching its new report entitled, “Muslim Anti-Semitism, A Clear and Present Danger,” at a press briefing at the National Press Club on Tuesday, the AJC author criticized Arabs and Muslims by drawing parallels between “Islamic Fascism” and Nazism, and said they are similar because of their “common search for world domination and their ruthlessness in its pursuit.”
“This is exactly what I’ve been warning my foreign ministry about for over a year,” said a European deputy chief of mission after reading the AJC releases. “This maliciousness is no longer limited to extremist Jewish groups on the East Coast, this mentality of hatred is now permeating the midlands of America. This is very disconcerting,” said the diplomat, who asked not to be identified.
“You don’t fight bigotry with bigotry. You don’t fight sweeping generalizations, stereotypes and prejudices with sweeping generalizations, stereotypes and prejudices,” Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman at the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR, told Arab News. He said CAIR was banned by AJC from attending Tuesday’s briefing.
“Obviously, no one approves of anti-Semitism or anti-Semitic speech, but you have to be wary of lumping Israel’s brutal policies with anti-Semitism, they’re not the same thing,” said Hooper.
According to the author, Robert Wistrich, a Neuberger professor of Modern European and Jewish History at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, this parallel is “underscored” by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The AJC report, “traces the evolution of anti-Semitism in the Islamic world.”
The aim of “the Arab-Islamic anti-Semites,” Wistrich claimed, “is not simply to morally delegitimize Israel as a Jewish state and a nation entity in the Middle East, but to dehumanize Judaism and the Jewish people.”
“This publication is intended as the sounding of an alarm bell for a very clear and immediate threat to Jews worldwide — and, by extension, to democratic values as well,” said David Harris, executive director at the AJC.
“The latest battle is one that we have engaged fully, for it is at our doorstep as well as half a world away in the Middle East, and has also spread to Muslim communities from Europe to South Africa.”
In his analysis, the author notes past efforts by some Arabs and Muslims “to differentiate between anti-Semitism and the more politically correct anti-Zionism.” Wistrich says that differentiation “has been almost totally eroded, and the anti-Semitic virus has taken root in the body politic of Islam to an unprecedented degree.”
Harris and Wistrich’s main focus of alarm dealt with the Arab and Muslim press. Several examples were cited and distributed at the press briefing.
“The irresponsible speech in the Arab and Muslim world has caused problems that have to be addressed,” admitted CAIR’s Hooper.
