Arab rights movements need to purify themselves of anti Semitism

[Carla786]

The historical roots of anti Semitism in Arab nationalist movements are very important. It does not make the cause itself wrong.

What it does do, though, is ensure that very unhealthy patterns are handed down.

A prominent example is Nasser's use of Nazis to write anti Israel propaganda.

Examples in Syria & Nasserite Egypt :

Johann von Leers: A prominent Nazi propagandist close to Joseph Goebbels, he moved to Cairo in 1956, converted to Islam, and took the name Omar Amin. He served as an advisor to Nasser, masterminding anti-Israel propaganda and, according to reports, helped fuel antisemitic campaigns.
Aribert Heim: Known as "Doctor Death" for his atrocities at Mauthausen, he fled to Egypt and lived in Cairo as Tarek Hussein Farid.
Notable Figures:
Alois Brunner: An SS officer responsible for deporting tens of thousands of Jews, he fled to Syria in 1954, where he worked as an adviser, assisted the regime in organizing security, and engaged in arms trading.
Otto Skorzeny: A former SS officer who was hired to train Egyptian special forces and also allegedly engaged in training Palestinian volunteers for raids against Israel.
Hans Eisele: A former doctor at Buchenwald concentration camp, he practiced medicine in Cairo, protected by the Egyptian government despite international demands for his extradition

The youth wing of the Palestinian Arab movement in the 1930s modelled itself on the Hitler Youth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Futuwwa_(Palestine)

The Mufti of Jerusalem was also violently anti Semitic and supportive of Hitler.

https://time.com/4084301/hitler-grand-mufi-1941/

Israelis seem much more able, as a group, to strongly self-critique.

Whereas Palestinian campaigners don't seem to soul-search much about the disgusting Nazi-style elements of historical Palestinian rights movements, and how these have contributed to the rise of extremist groups like Hamas and made Israelis understandably suspicious of anti Semitism being hidden under cover of Arab rights movements.

I think there are lots of issues in the UK with anti semitism so purification needed here too

Yes, definitely. I'm focusing on Arab rights movements (including pro-Palestine etc branches here) because there seems to be a huge lack of self-examination on the part of Palestine activists. The UK as a while has serious issues but there is at least more willingness to discuss the situation, historical and today

There's a large amount of strong criticism of Israel from within the Zionist movement, from various perspectives, and people who scrutinised Israel' history. There seems to be little comparable self-criticism in the Palestine movement.

Is this partly because people are afraid of reaction from extremists?

It’s probably more because there is little time for reflection while being bombed and starved, surely? It seems monumentally tone deaf to ponder why a people you are actively treating in the way Israel is treating Palestine, don’t loudly examine their roots.

Yes, a bit of reflection is certainly needed

https://share.google/nMPNL1WHR6V1nbwnJ

Indeed. I've seen enough of the playbook to know that those people have no powers of self reflection, they are on the far right side as far as they are concerned.
Hind Rajab is another pawn in their game, Kfir and Ariel Bibas can't touch their hearts.
It's not about a child's life, it's about weaponising
emotional reactions.
The sinister thing, when you drill down to the people behind the campaigns, the foundation, the app, bds...in their own interviews they delegitimise Israeli and jewish presence in the middle east. At its heart it is a supremacist movement accusing it's target of the same.
Utter darvo.

Absolutely bloody hear hear 👏

This.

A child was shot over 300 times, a way to avoid that being “weaponised” is not to shoot kids, simple. No murdered kids and no one will get emotional over it - honestly! I think you misunderstand DARVO btw!

I would like to see reflection on whether there has been a racial element to the way the war has been conducted by Israel against the Palestinians (mainly Arabs) in Gaza, and Western governmental response to it.

The way the war was fought against the Palestinians and the way the Israeli government acts towards those Palestinians living in the West Bank is also going to impact on the way the surrounding Arab countries view Israel. It would be useful to reflect on this too.

Yes because antisemitism didn't exist long before did it.

Yes, this whole thread is about the dangerous anti Semitism of some prominent Arab & Palestinian nationalists historically, and how the Palestinian rights movement today needs to rid themselves of it. There can be no real progress for a proper campaign for the rights of Palestinians until this history is faced up to.

I've seen a few articles where people have pointed out that acknowledging the tragedy of Kfir and Ariel Bibas and all the other civilians murdered by Hamas doesn't necessitate ignoring what happened to Hind Rajab or the suffering of Palestinian civilians in general.

But as you say, there's a vocal subset who are clearly blinded by anti Semitism. It is a complete zero sum to them : campaigning for Palestinians, in their eyes, has to necessitate denying any connection Jews have to Israel, and moreover, clearly the ultimate aim to these people is the destruction of Israel.

This is of course extremely harmful for Jews. It's also harmful for a genuine Palestinian rights movement if the loudest campaigners insist on being blindingly anti Semitic.

What happened to Hind Rajab is still disputed.

But questioning if the IDF is responsible isn't anti Semitic by itself.

The problem, as you say, with organisations like the one using her name is that investigating potential war crimes by IDF isn't seen in a tragic context where countries from the US to UK to France (and of course many others) have also committed them. Instead, it's apparently seen by them as proof of Jews and Israel being uniquely evil...

It did and will continue to do so. However, framing this as an issue that only Arabs in particular need to reflect upon is narrow minded and will not aid longer term peace required in the region.

Some parts of Israeli civil society do reflect on discrimination against Arabs, but unless this is main stream, there is clearly a lot more work required all around.

I never said only Arabs need to self-reflect.

My post focused on Arabs as I've seen virtually no Palestinian rights campaigners reflect on their history the way for example the Israeli new historians movement have.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Historians

And I think there is MORE need for Arab campaigners to reflect on this. Some Israeli forces during the 1948 war was responsible for terrible things like the Deir Yassan massacre, but they never had leaders endorsing things like 'kill the Arabs wherever you find them, this pleases God' the way vile people like the Mufti & other prominent figures were saying about Jews.

And there are Arab campaigners and historians that agree with the historians in your wiki link in the “foundation myths” of Israel. If they agree, does that mean they haven’t reflected or thought about the difficulties and nuances of the situation?

The issue is with Arab campaigners apparently not reflecting at all on the anti Semitism that was strongly prevalent in Palestinian campaigning to quite a large degree from the 1920s. New Historians like Benny Morris HAVE acknowledged this in their books.

Can you name any Palestinian campaigners or historians who have self-critically reflected on the Mufti's Nazi links, Nasser's Nazi links and Al-Futuwwa being based on the Hitler Youth? There is much else.

I hope I am wrong and there ARE historians & campaigners on the Palestinian side who HAVE self critically reflected on this?

That is because the two movements are not comparable and don’t share the same aims and context. Hence the toxicity and sexism of the Men’s Rights Movement compared to women’s rights campaigners, etc.

I think it’s in their own self interest. A lot of conspiracy theories about Jews, if you can blame literally everything wrong with your life, your people, your government and your place in the world on a particular people it avoids reflection on why you are in the state you are in. For a lot of these countries it’s a cognitive avoidance tactic and it suits their leaders who live secular liberal lives while encouraging their people to wallow in the worst of religiosity and sectarianism because it keeps them in power. It’s not the Jews it’s your own leaders.

The most successful stable majority muslim countries tend to be a bit more chill about Jews. There are literally only 7 million Jews in Israel, they project an extraordinary amount of power given their size. I think this is something a lot of muslim majority populations can’t get their heads around so they assume it’s scheming rather than strong institutions, less sectarianism and basic competence. Theres a lot of bitterness because of it as well.

Well wipe out Israel and your country will still be a mess, it makes no difference.
If it was genuinely about loss of life I wouldn’t be seeing pro Palestinians mocking Iranian deaths. 16,000 killed by their own government in a a few weeks, it’s shocking, 300,000 dead in Syria, no real concern about that.

It’s definitely the Jew bit but that bothers people, not dead people. Watch if America attacks the IRCG who complains about it, because it won’t be ordinary Iranians.

I lived in the gulf for a bit and remembered the muslim brotherhood MP’s in Kuwait banging on about segregation of male and female students. So who’s responsible if your population is undereducated and produces nothing of value? This was a country who’s pisa results were so dire that they withdrew from it completely. But yes the problem is definitely boys seeing a girls ankle.

I suppose the Arab antisemitic groups could just do the same as the Western far right has done recently. Just proclaim themselves to have never been antisemitic, say they have always been best friends to the Jewish folk, and blame the lefties for it all.

And yes, I am aware of antisemitism in Communist Russia. Communists have had a history though of disliking/hating everyone except their own group of Communists. I am not saying that to excuse them, just saying it as it is.

The Austrian corporal? Now, according to the US far right, he was a socialist. As claimed by Dinesh D'Souza in his 2018 pro Trump film "Death of a Nation". That's the narrative one will see pedaled on likes of Breitbart.

Revisionism. Is that not the fashion these days ?

Christ, just seen a video of pro-Palestinian protesters in Birmingham raise the flag of the regime, wtf is wrong with people. This is where extreme anti-semitism gets you, supporting a regime that regularly rapes and murders it’s own people.