Can antisemitism be viewed as a primarily European phenomenon methodically transferred to the Arab-Islamic world? Was the historical coexistence between Jews and Arabs the prevailing reality before antisemitic ideologies seeped into the region from Europe?
These questions compel us to address a core inquiry: What distorted narratives have inflamed hostility toward Jewish communities in our societies?
Systemic antisemitism originated as a distinctly European construct
A closer examination of history confirms that systematic antisemitism originated as a distinctly European construct, evolving over centuries before permeating Arab-Islamic societies in the 1900s.
This is corroborated by the prolonged periods of peaceful coexistence between Jewish and Arab-Muslim communities, where institutionalized anti-Jewish animosity remained alien to our cultural and social ethos.
European antisemitism underwent distinct phases of evolution – from religiously charged persecution in the Medieval era to race-based pseudoscientific hatred in the modern age.
During the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church propagated the libel of Jewish responsibility for Christ’s crucifixion, justifying the marginalization of Jews into ghettos, along with the recurrent violence against them; and mass expulsions.
A pivotal transformation occurred in the 19th century, as antisemitism turned from religious hostility into pseudoscientific racism. This ideology was not a fleeting prejudice but a codified system spread through academic texts, media, and political rhetoric. It reached its grotesque apex in Nazi Germany, which elevated antisemitism to state doctrine, culminating in the industrialized slaughter of six million Jews between 1941 and 1945. The Nazi regime and collaborators implemented a systematic blueprint for annihilation via death camps, mass shootings, and bureaucratic precision.
Far from being an isolated atrocity, the Holocaust marked the culmination of Europe’s centuries-old anti-Jewish legacy.
This reality underscores how deeply antisemitism was entrenched in Europe’s intellectual and cultural foundations, raising an urgent question: How did this European export infiltrate Arab-Islamic contexts?
Scholars identify colonialism, Nazi propaganda, and the Arab-Israeli conflict as primary vectors during the interwar period.
A notorious case is The Protocols of the Elders of Zion – debunked as a czarist-era forgery by 1921 – which was translated into Arabic and circulated in Syria by 1925. This fabricated text served as a primary conduit for transplanting antisemitic conspiracy theories into the region.
Israeli historian Avi Shlaim, of Iraqi-Jewish heritage, stresses that the Arab world had no historical tradition of antisemitism. It is fundamentally a European pathology. Shlaim observes that antisemitism was artificially grafted onto Iraq during the 1930s, noting the absence of indigenous Arabic antisemitic literature prior to that period.
Conversely, archival evidence demonstrates that Jewish communities flourished for centuries within Arab-Islamic societies, woven into the social fabric as traders, artisans, and intellectuals.
Under Islamic jurisprudence, Jews held protected minority status, enjoying legal safeguards and communal autonomy, in stark contrast to their persecuted counterparts in medieval Christendom. Iraq’s Jewish community, as Shlaim notes, stood among the most prosperous and assimilated in the Arab world.
Frictions emerged principally from 20th-century geopolitical tensions over Palestine, not inherent religious or ethnic animosity.
Modern antisemitic narratives in the region – such as myths of global Jewish domination – are foreign ideological imports, not organic products of Arab-Islamic thought.
Extremist groups have co-opted these fabrications, distorting religious principles to legitimize violence, despite faith traditions emphasizing human dignity and pluralism.
In the end, confronting antisemitism demands dismantling fabricated narratives, differentiating between legitimate criticism of Israel and bigoted stereotyping – and reviving the legacy of Jewish-Arab symbiosis. The Abraham Accords exemplify this latent potential.
Rebuilding this shared future requires educational reforms, cultural initiatives, and responsible media discourse to eradicate myths and reaffirm coexistence.
History affirms this past reality; with resolve, it can again define our trajectory.
The writer is a UAE political analyst and former Federal National Council candidate.