"My guess is that your projected article is a bit of PR intended for local consumption. You will present the "reasonable Muslim" trying to reach a compromise with those pestiferous Jews."

Stephany, do you think I write purely for PR reasons? You haven't met me. Yet you seem prepared to rush to make this kind of judgment.

Do you think Muslims are genetically programmed to hate Jews?

Dear Banjo

As was exclusively revealed on last night's edition of "The Chaser's War on Everything", Channel Ten will soon be programming "The Big Muslim". I understand that Irfan has got a very good chance to appear on it, especially if he was the bloke in the second row on Monday night's "Difference of Opinion".

Irfan wrote:

"Do you think Muslims are genetically programmed to hate Jews?"

Leave out "genetically" and you're right. You claim (incredibly) that you do not know whether the contemporary Ummah is antisemitic. Get real Irfan! The Ummah is drenched in hate literature about Jews.

For an example of some of the appalling antisemitic material that appears on Arab TV see memri.org and memritv.org. A recent amusing example has Samir 'Ubeid calling the Nobel Prize Racist.

"Why," Samir wails, "has the prize been awarded to 167 Jews, and to only four Arabs out of 380 million Arabs and all four are considered traitors?"

Similar examples can be found in the media in many Muslim countries.

Here's how Bernard Lewis' explained the rise of Muslim antisemitism:

"Jews in traditional Islamic societies experienced the normal constraints ...of minority status. …In most significant respects they were better off under Muslim than Christian rule…"

"....where hostile stereotypes of Jews existed …. They tended to be contemptuous and dismissive rather than suspicious and obsessive."

"… at the time of the Dreyfus trial in France … Muslim comments usually favoured the persecuted Jew against his Christian persecutors."

"… from 1933 Nazi Germany … made a concerted and on the whole REMARKABLY SUCCESSFUL effort to disseminate European-style anti-Semitism in the Arab world."

(THE CLASH BETWEEN ISLAM AND MODERNITY IN THE MIDDLE EAST: WHAT WENT WRONG. pp153-4, emphasis added)

From the Arab world it spread to the wider Ummah.

"This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the crusades."

Azam Pasha, Arab League Secretary General, 1948. He was referring to the imminent invasion of Israel by the Arab armies.

"..Then the rocks and tree would call: oh Muslim, oh servant of God! There is a Jew behind me, come and kill him..."

The most widely quoted hadith in contemporary Muslim media.

If you persist in denying the antisemitism of the contemporary Ummah you're onto a loser Irfan. The evidence is overwhelming. I've interviewed a number of Imams. Nearly all made antisemitic comments.

Stephany,

"The evidence is overwhelming. I've interviewed a number of Imams. Nearly all made antisemitic comments."

Which imams have you interviewed? In what context?

LOL Irfan, evade answering the substantive issues I raised. However I'll humour you for now. I interviewed 5 Imams, 3 in South Africa and 2 in Victoria. I got the two Victorians by phoning the Islamic Centre in Victoria and asking for some contacts. Of the 5, four made overtly antisemitic comments. Two were Holocaust deniers.

The Imams were interviewed in connection with research others and I are conducting on the impact of rising Muslim populations on "Western" societies. One of the negative effects we forecast is a rise in antisemitism.

My associates also interviewed Imams – mainly in the US and UK – with similar results.

I should emphasise that in concluding the Ummah is drenched in antisemtic media my fellow researchers and I are not relying on any one source.

See for example:

http://www.memritv.org/Search.asp?ACT=S1

View the clip but: WARNING: THIS IS SICKENING

You asked whether I though Muslims were genetically programmed to hate Jews. Here's what Iranian Political Analyst Majid Goudarzi has to say about Jewish "genetic programming."

"They [Jews] are genetically bloodthirsty and criminal, and therefore, they cannot give up their criminal character."

http://www.memritv.org/Transcript.asp?P1=1391

In truth few serious researchers doubt that the Ummah is antisemitic. Here are two online links:

http://www.meforum.org/article/396

http://www.jcpa.org/phas/phas-tossavainen-f05.htm

One of the more distressing aspects of the rise of Muslim antisemitism in Western countries is the extent of the denial and even censorship when this topic is raised. See for example:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,2034780,00.html

How about a substantive response Irfan? One that doesn't conflate the frightened reactions of 13 million Jews – all that's left – with the thunderous and bloodthirsty litany of hate that pours forth from the 1.3 billion strong Ummah.


PS:

In my previous post I mentioned Samir 'Ubeid's complaints about the racist Nobel prize. See:

http://www.memritv.org/Transcript.asp?P1=1313

In fairness to al-Jazeera I should add that they had another participant on the program who opposed Samir 'Ubeid's view. His contribution is not included in the MEMRI clip.

What could be fairer than that? Presenting both sides of the argument.

LOL

Even The Chasers have a hard time competing with Arab / Iranian TV.

I would say it is sick too Stephany, but it is nothing that would be unexpected;

Did people know that Yassar Arafat was the Nephew of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem in WW11 days?

That goes a long way to explaining some things and dispels some Post modern myths about Islam.