Myths & Facts - Arab/Muslim Attitudes Toward Israel

Myths & Facts Online

Arab/Muslim Attitudes Toward Israel

By Mitchell G. Bard

The desire for peaceful relations between Jews and Arabs sometimes leads people to overlook public comments by Arab officials and media publications that are often incendiary and sometimes outright anti-Semitic. Frequently, more moderate tones are adopted when speaking to Western audiences, but more accurate and heartfelt views are expressed in Arabic to the speaker's constituents. The following is just a tiny sample of some of the remarks that have been made regarding Israel and the Jews. They are included here because they demonstrate the level of hostility and true beliefs of many Arabs and Muslims. Of course, not all Arabs and Muslims subscribe to these views, but the examples are not random, they are beliefs held by important officials and disseminated by major media. They are also included because one of the lessons of the Holocaust was that people of good will are often unwilling to believe that people who threaten evil will in fact carry out their malevolent intentions.

Anti-Semitism
Blood Libel
Fabrications of Abuses
Holocaust Denial
Peace
Phased Plan & the Destruction of Israel
Sanctioning Violence

Anti-Semitism

“They [the Jews] try to kill the principle of religions with the same mentality that they betrayed Jesus Christ and the same way they tried to betray and kill the Prophet Mohammed.”

� Syrian President Bashar Assad at May 5 welcoming ceremony for the Pope
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, May 6, 2001

“Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them. Wherever you are, kill those Jews and those Americans who are like them and those who stand by them they are all in one trench, against the Arabs and the Muslims because they established Israel here, in the beating heart of the Arab world, in Palestine.”

� Dr. Ahmad Abu Halabiya, Member of the PA appointed "Fatwa Council"
and former acting Rector of the Islamic University in Gaza.
Palestinian Authority television, October 14, 2000

“It is not a mistake that the Koran warns us of the hatred of the Jews and put them at the top of the list of the enemies of Islam. Today the Jews recruit the world against the Muslims and use all kinds of weapons. They are plundering the dearest place to the Muslims, after Mecca and Medina and threaten the place the Muslims have faced at first when they prayed and the third holiest city after Mecca and Medina. They want to erect their temple on that place....The Muslims are ready to sacrifice their lives and blood to protect the Islamic nature of Jerusalem and El Aksa!”

� Sheikh Hian Al-Adrisi,
Excerpt of address in the al-Aksa mosque, September 29, 2000

“The Jews are Jews, whether Labour or Likud, the Jews are Jews. They do not have any moderates or any advocates of peace. They are all liars. They are the ones who must be butchered and killed. As Allah the Almighty said: 'Fight them'. Allah will torture them by your hands and will humiliate them and will help you to overcome them, and will relieve the minds of the believers. ... Our people must unite in one trench, and receive armaments from the Palestinian leadership to confront the Jews. ... Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Whenever you meet them, kill them. Wherever you are, kill those Jews and those Americans who are like them - and those who stand with them - they are all in one trench, against the Arabs and the Muslims - because they established Israel here, in the beating heart of the Arab world, in Palestine. They created it in order that it be the outpost of their civilisation - and the vanguard of their army, and to be the sword of the West and the Crusaders, hanging over the necks of the Muslim monotheists, the Muslims in this land. They wanted the Jews to be the spearhead for them...”

— Dr Ahmad Abu-Halabia, a member of the "Fatwa Council"
appointed by the Palestinian Authority and the
former acting Rector of the Islamic University in Gaza,
delivered in the Zayd bin Sultan Nahyan mosque in Gaza
on October 13, 2000, the day after the lynching of the Israeli
reservists in Ramallah, and carried live on Palestinian television

“Thanks to Hitler, blessed memory, who on behalf of the Palestinians, revenged in advance, against the most vile criminals on the face of the earth. Although we do have a complaint against him for his revenge on them was not enough.”

— Columnist Ahmad Ragab
Al-Akhbar (Egypt), April 18, 2001

“All weapons must be aimed at the Jews, at the enemies of Allah...whom the Koran describes as monkeys and pigs, worshippers of the calf and idol worshippers. Allah shall make the Moslem rule over the Jew, we will blow them up in Hadera, we will blow them up in Tel Aviv and in Netanya in the righteousness of Allah against this rif-raff.....We will enter Jerusalem as conquerors, and Jaffa as conquereors, and Haifa as conquerors and Ashekelon as conquerors...we bless all those who educate their children to jihad and to Martyrdom, blessing be he who shot a bullet into the head of a Jew.”

— Sermon broadcast on Palestinian Authority television, August 3, 2001

Blood Libel

“The Talmud says that if a Jew does not drink every year the blood of a non-Jewish man, he will be damned for eternity.”

— Saudi Arabian delegate Marouf al-Dawalibi
before the UN Human Rights Commission
conference on religious tolerance
December 5, 1984

Fabrications of Abuses

"Israel carries out a clear policy of annihilating our people and destroying our national economy by smuggling spoiled foodstuff� not fit for human consumption, into PA territories�. Israel did not change its strategy, which aims to kill and destroy our people, rather it began counting on means other than bombs, missiles and planes. These measures are distributing and smuggling spoiled foodstuffs� into the PA territories."

� PA Deputy Minister of Supplies, Abd Al-Hamid Al-Qudsi
Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, August 22, 1998

“Our people have been subjected to the daily and extensive use of poisonous gas by the Israeli forces, which has led to an increase in cancer cases among women and children.”

� Suha Arafat, wife of Yasser Arafat
November 11, 1999, during a Gaza appearance
with First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton

“[Israeli doctors] use Palestinian patients� for experimental medicines and training new doctors.”

� PA Health Minister, Riyadh Al-Za'anoon
Al-Ayam, July 25, 1998

Holocaust Denial

“...Lies surfaced about Jews being murdered here and there, and the Holocaust. And, of course, they are all lies and unfounded claims. No Chelmno, no Dachau, no Auschwitz! [They] were disinfection sites... They began to publicize in their propaganda that they were persecuted, murdered and exterminated... Committees acted here and there to establish this entity [Israel-Ed.], this foreign entity, implanted as a cancer in our country, where our fathers lived, where we live, and where our children after us will live. They always portrayed themselves as victims, and they made a Center for Heroism and Holocaust. Whose heroism? Whose Holocaust? Heroism is our nation's, the holocaust was against our people... We were the victims, but we shall not remain victims forever...” [emphasis added]

— Dr. Issam Sissalem, history lecturer, Islamic University Gaza,
P.A. TV broadcast, November 29, 2000

“The issue of the holocaust rises again. It defies disappearing over its half-century because the Zionist propaganda has converted it into a means to produce political and economic benefit, besides exploiting it for the advancement of occupation and settlement...”

“A recently published book by an American researcher, discusses the holocaust. Employing scientific and chemical evidence, it proves that the figure of six million Jews cremated in the Nazi Auschwitz camps is a lie for propaganda, as the most spacious of the vaults in the camp could not have held even one percent of that number.”

— Hiri Manzour in the official Palestinian Authority daily,
Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 13, 2001

Peace

“Unless the Palestine problem is settled, we shall have difficulty in protecting and safeguarding the Jews in the Arab world.”

— Syrian delegate, Faris el-Khouri
New York Times, February 19, 1947

“The Arab world is not in a compromising mood. It's likely, Mr. Horowitz, that your plan is rational and logical, but the fate of nations is not decided by rational logic. Nations never concede; they fight. You won't get anything by peaceful means or compromise. You can, perhaps, get something, but only by the force of your arms. We shall try to defeat you. I am not sure we'll succeed, but we'll try. We were able to drive out the Crusaders, but on the other hand we lost Spain and Persia. It may be that we shall lose Palestine. But it's too late to talk of peaceful solutions.”

— Arab League Secretary Azzam Pasha,
September 16, 1947

“[A]ll our efforts to find a peaceful solution to the Palestine problem have failed. The only way left for us is war. I will have the pleasure and honor to save Palestine.”

— Transjordan's King Abdullah
April 26, 1948

“The representative of the Jewish Agency told us yesterday that they were not the attackers, that the Arabs had begun the fighting. We did not deny this. We told the whole world that we were going to fight.”

— Jamal Husseini before the Security Council
April 16, 1948

“This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.”

— Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League
May 15, 1948

“I am not solely fighting against Israel itself. My task is to deliver the Arab world from destruction through Israel's intrigue, which has its roots abroad. Our hatred is very strong. There is no sense in talking about peace with Israel. There is not even the smallest place for negotiations.”

— Egyptian President Nasser
October 14, 1956

“Our forces are now entirely ready not only to repulse the aggression, but to initiate the act of liberation itself, and to explode the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland. The Syrian army, with its finger on the trigger, is united....I, as a military man, believe that the time has come to enter into a battle of annihilation.”

— Syrian Defense Minister Hafez Assad
May 20, 1967

“Arab policy at this stage has but two objectives. The first, the elimination of the traces of the 1967 aggression through an Israeli withdrawal from all the territories it occupied that year. The second objective is the elimination of the traces of the 1948 aggression, by the means of the elimination of the State of Israel itself. This is, however, as yet an abstract, undefined objective, and some of us have erred in commencing the latter step before the former.”

— Mohammed Heikal, a Sadat confidant and editor of the semi-official Al-Ahram
February 25, 1971

“The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland, and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live.”

� PLO spokesman Mahmud Abbas ("Abu Mazen")
Falastin a-Thaura, March 1976

“Saddam, you hero, attack Israel with chemical weapons.”

— Palestinians marching in support of Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait
(Associated Press, August 12, 1990

“Let us work together until we achieve victory and regain liberated Jerusalem.”

— Yasser Arafat
Baghdad Republic of Iraq Radio Network, November 16, 1991

“I have always rejected normalizing relations with (Israeli) women....They always invite me to their functions and I categorically refuse because I hate Israel.”

— Suha Arafat, wife of Yasser Arafat
Saudi Arabian women's magazine, Sayidaty, quoted by AP, May 3, 2001

“We will not give up a single grain of soil in Palestine, from Haifa, and Jaffa, and Acre, and Mulabbas [Petah Tikvah] and Salamah, and Majdal [Ashkelon], and all the land, and Gaza, and the West Bank....”

� Dr Ahmad Abu-Halabia, a member of the "Fatwa Council"
appointed by the Palestinian Authority and the
former acting Rector of the Islamic University in Gaza,
delivered in the Zayd bin Sultan Nahyan mosque in Gaza
on October 13, 2000, the day after the lynching of the Israeli
reservists in Ramallah, and carried live on Palestinian television

“We will not arrest the sons of our people in order to appease Israel. Let our people rest assured that this won't happen.”

� Chief of the P.A. Preventive Security in the West Bank, Jebril Rajoub
Islamic Association for Palestine, June 9, 2001

“...Allah willing, this unjust state...Israel will be erased; this unjust state, the United States will be erased; this unjust state, Britain will be erased...Blessings to whoever waged Jihad for the sake of Allah...Blessings to whoever put a belt of explosives on his body or on his sons' and plunged into the midst of the Jews...”

� Sermon by Sheikh Ibrahim Madhi
a few days after Yasser Arafat's cease-fire declaration
P.A. Television, June 8, 2001

“We said from the beginning that there is no ceasefire for the settlers.”

� Fatah leader, Ziad ibu-Aid
International Herald Tribune, June 20, 2001

Phased Plan & the Destruction of Israel

“The Palestinian people accepted the Oslo agreements as a first step and not as a permanent arrangement, based on the premise that the war and struggle on the ground [i.e., locally against Israeli territory] is more efficient than a struggle from a distant land... for the Palestinian people will continue the revolution until they achieve the goals of the '65 revolution...”

� P.A. Minister of Supply Abd El Aziz Shahian,
Al Ayaam, May 30, 2000.
[The "'65 Revolution" is the founding of the P.L.O.
and the publication of the Palestinian covenant that
calls for the destruction of Israel via an armed struggle.]

“Our people have hope for the future, that the Occupation State ceases to exist, and that it makes no difference [how great] its power and arrogance...”.

— P.A. Minister of Communications, Amad Alfalugi
Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, November 18, 1999

“When we picked up the gun in '65 and the modern Palestinian Revolution began, it had a goal. This goal has not changed and it is the liberation of Palestine.”

— Salim Alwadia Abu Salem, Supervisor of Palestinian Political Affairs,
Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, January 20, 2000

“I want to say that this is our Palestine, from Metulla [Israel's northernmost city] to Rafiah [Southern border] and to Aqaba [Israel's southernmost point], from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea; whether they want it or not.”

— Dr. Jareer Al-Kidwah, advisor to "President" Arafat
P.A. TV broadcast, November 29, 2000

“If we agree to declare our state over what is now 22 percent of Palestine, meaning the West Bank and Gaza, our ultimate goal is the liberation of all historic Palestine from the River to the Sea...We distinguish the strategic, long-term goals from the political phased goals, which we are compelled to temporarily accept due to international pressure.”

— Faisal al-Husseini
Al-Arabi, June 24, 2001

Sanctioning Violence

“The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies — civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aksa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim.”

� The fatwa (religious edict) issued by Osama bin Laden in 1998

"We decided to liberate our homeland step by step... this is the strategy... we say: 'should Israel continue � no problem. And so we honor the peace treaties and non-violence, so long as the agreements are fulfilled step-by-step. [But] if and when Israel says 'enough,' namely, 'we will not discuss Jerusalem, we will not return refugees, we will not dismantle settlements, we will not withdraw to the borders,' in that case it is saying that we will return to violence. But this time it will be with 30,000 armed Palestinian soldiers and in a land with elements of freedom. I am the first to call for it. If we reach a dead end we will go back to our war and struggle like we did forty years ago."

� PA Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Nabil Sha'ath
An interview with ANN television, London. October 7, 2000

"Violence is around the corner, and the Palestinians are willing to sacrifice even 5,000 casualties."

� PA Justice Minister Freih Abu Middein
Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, (PA) August 24, 2000

"The Intifada will continue until the achievement of our national goals."

� PA Finance Minister Muhammad Al-Nashashibi
Al-Ayyam, October 10, 2000

"The Intifada is a means of popular struggle in which all parts of the people take part in order to realize the internationally recognized legitimate rights of the Palestinian people... This is the goal of the Intifada... The use of violence, the struggle and martyrdom... used by people to achieve their rights."

� PLO representative in Washington, Hassan Abd Al-Rahman
TV MBC, October 10, 2000

"The Intifada should be continued and escalated."

� The head of the Fatah organization in the West Bank, Marwan Al-Barghuthi
Al-Jazeera TV (Qatar), October 11, 2000

"The Palestinian people are in a state of emergency against the failure of the Camp David summit. If the situation explodes, the Palestinian people living in the areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority are ready for the next fierce battle against the Israeli occupation. ... The next Intifada will be more violent than the first one especially since the Palestinian people now possess weapons allowing them to defend themselves in a confrontation with the Israeli army. ... the Lebanese experience of wiping out the Israeli occupation from southern Lebanon gave the Palestinian people the needed moral strength and added to their spirit of armed struggle."

� A "senior security figure" in the Palestinian Authority
Kul Al-Arab, July 14, 2000

“The issues of Jerusalem, the refugees and sovereignty are one and will be finalized on the ground and not in negotiations. At this point it is important to prepare Palestinian society for the challenge of the next step because we will inevitably find ourselves in a violent confrontation with Israel in order to create new facts on the ground. ... I believe that the situation in the future will be more violent than the Intifada.”

� Abu-Ali Mustafa of the Palestinian Authority, July 23, 2000

“Hamas has tens of martyrs who are willing to carry out attacks against Israeli targets. An operation of such martyrs exceeds that of the Arab armies who fought the Hebrew state. The importance of the weapons of such martyrs is no less than the importance of nuclear weapons.”

� Khaled Mash'al, head of the Hamas Politbureau
Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (PA), June 24, 2001

“We are teaching the children that suicide bombs make Israeli people frightened and we are allowed to do it....We teach them that after a person becomes a suicide bomber he reaches the highest level of paradise.”

� Palestinian “Paradise Camp” counselor speaking to BBC interviewer
Quoted in Jerusalem Post, July 20, 2001

“I promise that the number of shootings at the occupation will increase to 500 to 1,000 shooting [incidents] per day....The Palestinians have trained themselves to attack the Israeli tanks and explode their bodies that will be loaded with a belt of explosives, as part of the preparations for a possible Israeli attack in the Palestinian territories....The current intifada differs from the previous one because it is armed and the Palestinians are fighting inside their territory and from it.”

� Deputy Commander of Force-17, Muhammad Dhamrah (a.k.a., Abu Awdh)
Al-Hayat, August 17, 2001

“The suicide bombers of today are the noble successors of their noble predecessors...the Lebanese suicide bombers, who taught the U.S. Marines a tough lesson in [Lebanon]....These suicide bombers are the salt of the earth, the engines of history....They are the most honorable [people] among us.....”

� Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (PA), June 24, 2001

“I do not think that a Muslim would let an Islamic homeland like Palestine, and Jerusalem, remain in the hands of the Zionists, who plunder it and damage its holy sites, without the owners of the land having the right to defend themselves. All I said is that this oppressed people that was expelled from its home has the right to become a human bomb and blow himself up inside this military society.”

� Sheikh Yussef Al-Qaradhawi, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood
Al-Jazeera TV (Qatar), September 16, 2001

“Our efforts to continue the Intifada and resistance will persist until we achieve our right of return, and our independence, with Jerusalem as the capital.”

� Ahmad Sa'adat speaking at a press conference after becoming leader of the PFLP
Jerusalem Post, October 4, 2001

Sources: MEMRI
Palestinian Media Watch
Israeli Foreign Ministry

Jerusalem Post
Near East Report
Various news sources

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