Racism in the Palestinian territories encompasses all forms and manifestations of racism experienced in the Palestinian Territories, of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, irrespective of the religion, colour, creed, or ethnic origin of the perpetrator and victim, or their citizenship, residency, or visitor status. It may refer to Jewish settler attitudes regarding Palestinians as well as Palestinian attitudes to Jews and the settlement enterprise undertaken in their name.
Accusations of racism and discrimination have been leveled by Palestinians and Israelis against each other. Racism in the Palestinian territories may also be used to refer to prejudice directed at Palestinians of African origin, such as the Afro-Palestinian community, some of whom are descendants of the victims of Slavery in Palestine. [1] It has been claimed that racism on the part of Palestinians against Jewish people has been displayed in the realms of educational curriculum, official government policy, state media, social media, institutional policies regarding such issues as land and housing sales, and in statements issued by both the Palestinian Authority governing the majority of the West Bank, and Hamas government in the Gaza Strip.
The British Mandate in Palestine witnessed the rise in tensions between Palestinians and the vast majority of Zionists, who were reluctant to recognize Palestinian resistance to Jewish immigration as reflecting legitimate concerns, though some Zionist and Yishuv leaders held that Palestinian opposition reflected a genuine reaction to being "invaded". [2] Resistance to this mass Jewish immigration, who to that date had been numerically unimportant compared to the overwhelmingly Muslim population, arose out of feelings of shock at the proposal by the new British authorities to bestow privileges on an exiguous minority of foreigners. The tensions between an emergent Palestinian nationalism and Zionist ambitions for a Jewish state led on several occasions to riots and violence against Jewish immigrants. [3] Gudrun Kramer argues that Arab positions and actions were "political in character, aiming to defend Arab social, economic, and cultural, and political interests. It was not racial in character, and neither did it reflect racial concepts rooted in Islam.", [4] and that the idea that one can equate anti-Zionism with anti-Judaism and therefore anti-Semitism "is itself politically motivated, and must be understood as such." [4] The antisemitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was at times cited in Palestinian sources after an Arabic translation was issued in Cairo in 1925. [5] [6] After going into exile in 1937 the Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husayni sought support from Nazi Germany and during WW2 expressed his opposition to Zionism in anti-Semitic language. Scholars also disagree on the broader impact of the elements of antisemitism, with Jeffrey Herf [7] arguing that it was influential enough to provide seeds for later Islamist movements, and Krämer [8] and René Wildangel [9] arguing that most Palestinians and Arab nationalists distanced themselves from Nazi ideology. Richard Levy notes that, "Original works of Arabic antisemitic literature did not appear until the second half of the twentieth century, after the establishment of the state of Israel and the defeat of Arab armies in 1948, 1956, and 1967." [10]
1920s – 1940s
After the British assumed power in the region, Haj Amin al-Husayni was appointed as Mufti of Jerusalem by High Commissioner Herbert Samuel. He was the principal leader of the Arab national movement in Palestine and a popular personality in the Arab world during most of the years of British rule. [11] Two decades later, after the outbreak of WW2, he met with Hitler and other Nazi officials on various occasions and attempted to coordinate Nazi and Arab policies to solve the "Jewish problem" in Palestine. [12]
Zvi Elpeleg, while rehabilitating Haj Amin from other charges, [13] wrote that there is no doubt that the Mufti's hatred was not limited to Zionism, but extended to Jews as such. Amin, according to Elpeleg, knew the fate which awaited Jews, and he was not only delighted that Jews were prevented from emigrating to Palestine, but was very pleased by the Nazis' Final Solution. [14] Benny Morris also argues that the Mufti was deeply anti-Semitic, since he 'explained the Holocaust as owing to the Jews' sabotage of the German war effort in World War I and [their] character: (...) their selfishness, rooted in their belief that they are the chosen people of God." [15] In contrast, Idith Zertal asserts that 'in more correct proportions, [Husayni appeared] as a fanatic nationalist-religious Palestinian leader'. [16]
In the 1930s, wealthy Arab youths, educated in Germany and having witnessed the rise of fascist paramilitary groups, began returning home with the idea of creating an "Arab Nazi Party". [17] In 1935, Jamal al-Husayni established the Palestine Arab Party, and used the party to create a half-scout, half-paramilitary al-Futuwwa youth corps; [18] briefly [19] designated as the "Nazi Scouts". [17] [20] The organization recruited children and youth, who took the following oath: "Life—my right; independence—my aspiration; Arabism—my country, and there is no room in it for any but Arabs. In this I believe and Allah is my witness." [17] [20] The British expressed concern at the situation in Palestine, stating in a report that "the growing youth and scout movements must be regarded as the most probable factors for the disturbance of the peace." [17]
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According to the US Congress report "Contemporary Global Anti-Semitism":
In July 1990, the Palestinian Liberation Organization-affiliated Palestinian Red Crescent published an article in its magazine Balsam claiming that Jews concocted, "The lie concerning the gas chambers." Gradually, throughout the 1990s, Holocaust denial became commonplace in popular media in the Middle East, particularly in the Palestinian Authority. [21]
In August 2003, senior Hamas official Dr Abd Al-Aziz Al-Rantisi wrote in the Hamas newspaper Al-Risala:
It is no longer a secret that the Zionists were behind the Nazis' murder of many Jews, and agreed to it, with the aim of intimidating them and forcing them to immigrate to Palestine. [22]
In August 2009, Hamas refused to allow Palestinian children to learn about the Holocaust, which it called "a lie invented by the Zionists" and referred to Holocaust education as a "war crime." [23]
Hamas ("Islamic Resistance Movement") is the Palestinian Islamist socio-political organization which won a decisive majority in the Palestinian Parliament in 2006 and currently rules the Gaza strip.
According to academic Esther Webman, antisemitism is not the main tenet of Hamas ideology, although antisemitic rhetoric is frequent and intense in Hamas leaflets. The leaflets generally do not differentiate between Jews and Zionists. In other Hamas publications and in interviews with its leaders attempts at this differentiation have been made. [24]
The 2017 Hamas charter states, "Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion." [25] But their 1988 founding charter claimed that the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, colonialism and both world wars were created as a Jewish Zionist conspiracy and that the Freemasons and Rotary clubs are Zionist fronts and refers to the fraudulent Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an antisemitic text purporting to describe a plan to achieve global domination by the Jewish people. [26]
Hamas legislator and imam, Sheik Yunis Al Astal, said that "suffering by fire is the Jews' destiny in this world and the next". He concluded "Therefore we are sure that the Holocaust is still to come upon the Jews". [27] [28] Another Hamas cleric, Yousif al-Zahar said that "Jews are a people who cannot be trusted. They have been traitors to all agreements. Go back to history. Their fate is their vanishing." [27] [28]
In its 2009 report on human rights in the Palestinian territories, the US State Department asserted that:
Rhetoric by Palestinian terrorist groups included expressions of anti-Semitism, as did sermons by many Muslim religious leaders. Most Palestinian religious leaders rejected the right of Israel to exist. Hamas's al-Aqsa television station carried shows for preschoolers extolling hatred of Jews and suicide bombings. [29]
According to the report, international academics had concluded that "the textbooks did not incite violence against Jews." [29]
In its 2004 report on global antisemitism, the US State Department reported that:
The rhetoric of some Muslim religious leaders at times constituted an incitement to violence or hatred. For example, the television station controlled by the Palestinian Authority broadcast statements by Palestinian political and spiritual leaders that resembled traditional expressions of anti-Semitism. [30]
The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Sheikh Ekrima Sa'id Sabri appeared on the Saudi satellite channel Al-Majd on February 20, 2005, commenting on the assassination of the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. "Anyone who studies The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and specifically the Talmud," he said, "will discover that one of the goals of these Protocols is to cause confusion in the world and to undermine security throughout the world." [31]
The Palestinian Authority has a prohibition based on a 1973 Jordanian law against selling land to Israelis. [32] The law made such sales, which in the case of Israeli settlers are exclusively to Jews, punishable by death. The Palestinian Authority announced it would enforce the law in 1997, and drafted a replacement for it called the Property Law for Foreigners. [33] The Palestinian Authority describes the law as a response to occupation and illegal settlement. [33]
As of September 2010, the Palestinian Authority has not formally executed anyone under the law, but many land dealers suspected of selling land to Israeli Jews have been extrajudicially killed, in recent decades. [33] In April 2009, a Palestinian Authority military court sentenced an Arab from Hebron to death by hanging for the "crime" of selling land to Jews in the West Bank. [34] At one such case, an arrest by the PA of Arabs who did sell to Jews, the community of Jewish settlers in Hebron sharply protested, declaring: "We call upon the government to accept the racial hatred prevalent in the PA." [35]
The Palestinian Authority and opponents of such land purchases argue that a prohibition of such land purchases is necessary to prevent the illegal expansion of Israeli settlements, and to avoid the prejudicing negotiations on the status of Palestine and further reductions in Palestinians' freedom of movement. [33] Draft PA legislation described the sale of land to "occupiers" as "national treason." [33] There is a broad international consensus, affirmed by a series of UN Security Council resolutions, that Israeli settlements, and the transfer of Israeli nationals into the West Bank and Gaza, constitute violations of international law, specifically the Fourth Geneva Convention. [36] [37] [38] [39] Article 49(6) of that Convention requires that "The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies". [40]
According to one poll conduct by the Anti Defamation League, 97% of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza held antisemitic views, which would rank as the highest proportion in the world. [41] The Anti-Defamation League's survey methods has been criticized by some[ who? ] who argue that they fail to distinguish "teenage pranks designed to shock." [42]
The State of Palestine has a community of Afro-Palestinians, many of whom are descendants of the victims of the historical Slavery in Palestine, which ended in the 20th-century. [43]
Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, has been the subject of some viciously racial personal attacks, alongside vociferous criticism of her policies. [44] These included an anti-black racist cartoon in Palestinian Authority's controlled Press Al Quds. The New York Times reported in 2006:
Her comment that the Israel-Lebanon war represented the "birth pangs of a new Middle East"—coming at a time when television stations were showing images of dead Lebanese children—sparked ridicule and even racist cartoons. A Palestinian newspaper, Al Quds," which "depicted Ms. Rice as pregnant with an armed monkey, and a caption that read, "Rice speaks about the birth of a new Middle East." [45]
The Palestinian media has used racist terms including "black spinster" and "colored dark skin lady." [46] [47]
A review of Israel's country report conducted by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination stated "The status of the settlements was clearly inconsistent with Article 3 of the Convention, which, as noted in the Committee's General Recommendation XIX, prohibited all forms of racial segregation in all countries. There is a consensus among publicists that the prohibition of racial discrimination, irrespective of territories, is an imperative norm of international law." [48] In Hebron, the Israeli Army has responded to violence between Israeli settlers and Palestinians by restricting the latter's freedom of movement in the central city. [49] The Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem charges this policy violates the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and that:
Underlying the prohibition on Palestinian movement in the City Center is the army’s capitulation to the racist demands of Hebron settlers to enable them to conduct their lives in an environment “free of Arabs,” and the attempt to Judaize the area by separation based on ethnicity. [50]
Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against, Jews. This sentiment is a form of racism, and a person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Primarily, antisemitic tendencies may be motivated by negative sentiment towards Jews as a people or by negative sentiment towards Jews with regard to Judaism. In the former case, usually presented as racial antisemitism, a person's hostility is driven by the belief that Jews constitute a distinct race with inherent traits or characteristics that are repulsive or inferior to the preferred traits or characteristics within that person's society. In the latter case, known as religious antisemitism, a person's hostility is driven by their religion's perception of Jews and Judaism, typically encompassing doctrines of supersession that expect or demand Jews to turn away from Judaism and submit to the religion presenting itself as Judaism's successor faith—this is a common theme within the other Abrahamic religions. The development of racial and religious antisemitism has historically been encouraged by the concept of anti-Judaism, which is distinct from antisemitism itself.
Antisemitism has increased greatly in the Arab world since the beginning of the 20th century, for several reasons: the dissolution and breakdown of the Ottoman Empire and traditional Islamic society; European influence, brought about by Western imperialism and Arab Christians; Nazi propaganda and relations between Nazi Germany and the Arab world; resentment over Jewish nationalism; the rise of Arab nationalism; and the widespread proliferation of anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist conspiracy theories.
Scholars have studied and debated Muslim attitudes towards Jews, as well as the treatment of Jews in Islamic thought and societies throughout the history of Islam. Parts of the Islamic literary sources give mention to certain Jewish groups present in the past or present, which has led to debates. Some of this overlaps with Islamic remarks on non-Muslim religious groups in general.
Mohammed Amin al-Husseini was a Palestinian Arab nationalist and Muslim leader in Mandatory Palestine. Al-Husseini was the scion of the al-Husayni family of Jerusalemite Arab nobles, who trace their origins to the Islamic Prophet Muhammad.
The history of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict traces back to the late 19th century when Zionists sought to establish a homeland for the Jewish people in Ottoman-controlled Palestine, a region roughly corresponding to the Land of Israel in Jewish tradition. The Balfour Declaration of 1917, issued by the British government, endorsed the idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, which led to an influx of Jewish immigrants to the region. Following World War II and the Holocaust, international pressure mounted for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, leading to the creation of Israel in 1948.
New antisemitism is the concept that a new form of antisemitism developed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, typically manifesting itself as anti-Zionism. The concept is included in some definitions of antisemitism, such as the working definition of antisemitism and the 3D test of antisemitism. The concept dates to the early 1970s.
Antisemitic tropes, also known as antisemitic canards or antisemitic libels, are "sensational reports, misrepresentations or fabrications" about Jews as an ethnicity or Judaism as a religion.
The Palestinian people are an ethnonational group with family origins in the region of Palestine. Since 1964, they have been referred to as Palestinians, but before that they were usually referred to as Palestinian Arabs. During the period of the British Mandate, the term Palestinian was also used to describe the Jewish community living in Palestine.
Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionism. Although anti-Zionism is a heterogeneous phenomenon, all its proponents agree that the creation of the modern State of Israel, and the movement to create a sovereign Jewish state in the region of Palestine—a region partly coinciding with the biblical Land of Israel—was flawed or unjust in some way.
Antisemitic incidents escalated worldwide in frequency and intensity during the Gaza War, and were widely considered to be a wave of reprisal attacks in response to the conflict.
Criticism of Israel is a subject of journalistic and scholarly commentary and research within the scope of international relations theory, expressed in terms of political science. Israel has faced international criticism since its establishment in 1948 relating to a variety of issues, many of which are centered around human rights violations in its occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
This timeline of anti-Zionism chronicles the history of anti-Zionism, including events in the history of anti-Zionist thought.
Palestinian nationalism is the national movement of the Palestinian people that espouses self-determination and sovereignty over the region of Palestine. Originally formed in the early 20th century in opposition to Zionism, Palestinian nationalism later internationalized and attached itself to other ideologies; it has thus rejected the occupation of the Palestinian territories by the government of Israel since the 1967 Six-Day War. Palestinian nationalists often draw upon broader political traditions in their ideology, such as Arab socialism and ethnic nationalism in the context of Muslim religious nationalism. Related beliefs have shaped the government of Palestine and continue to do so.
Belgium is a European country with a Jewish population of approximately 35,000 out of a total population of about 11.4 million. It is among the countries experiencing an increase in both antisemitic attitudes and in physical attacks on Jews.
Comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany occur frequently in the political discourse of anti-Zionism. Given the legacy of the Holocaust, the legitimacy of and intent behind these accusations are a matter of debate, particularly with regard to their potential nature as a manifestation of antisemitism. Historically, figures like British historian Arnold J. Toynbee have drawn parallels or alleged a relationship between Zionism and Nazism; British professor David Feldman suggests that these comparisons are often rhetorical tools without specific antisemitic intent. French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy argues that such comparisons not only lack historical and moral equivalence, but also risk inciting anti-Jewish sentiment.
The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism (JDA) is a document meant to outline the bounds of antisemitic speech and conduct, particularly with regard to Zionism, Israel and Palestine. Its creation was motivated by a desire to confront antisemitism and by objections to the IHRA Definition of Antisemitism, which critics have said stifles legitimate criticism of the Israeli government and curbs free speech. The drafting of the declaration was initiated in June 2020 under the auspices of the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem by eight coordinators, most of whom were university professors. Upon its completion the declaration was signed by about 200 scholars in various fields and released in March 2021.
Anti-Palestinianism or anti-Palestinian racism refers to prejudice, collective hatred, and discrimination directed at the Palestinian people for any variety of reasons. Since the mid-20th century, the phenomenon has largely overlapped with anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia due to the fact that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians today are Arabs and Muslims. Historically, anti-Palestinianism was more closely identified with European antisemitism, as far-right Europeans detested the Jewish people as undesirable foreigners from Palestine. Modern anti-Palestinianism—that is, xenophobia or racism towards the Arabs of Palestine—is most common in Israel, the United States, Lebanon, and Germany, among other countries.
Zionist antisemitism or antisemitic Zionism refers to a phenomenon in which antisemites express support for Zionism and the State of Israel. In some cases, this support may be promoted for explicitly antisemitic reasons. Historically, this type of antisemitism has been most notable among Christian Zionists, who may perpetrate religious antisemitism while being outspoken in their support for Jewish sovereignty in Israel due to their interpretation of Christian eschatology. Similarly, people who identify with the political far-right, particularly in Europe and the United States, may support the Zionist movement because they seek to expel Jews from their country and see Zionism as the least complicated method of achieving this goal and satisfying their racial antisemitism.
Germany–Palestine are relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and the State of Palestine. Germany does not recognize Palestine diplomatically. However, Germany has a Representation Office in Ramallah, while there is also a Palestinian Mission in Berlin. There are numerous contacts between both societies, and Germany provides economic support to the Palestinian Territories through development partnerships. Germany is diplomatically committed to a two-state solution and has acted as a mediator in the Arab–Israeli conflict in the past.
Jews and Israelis as animals in Palestinian discourse refers to the language and imagery that are encountered in Palestinian narratives that zoomorphically portray Jews and Israelis as members of non-human species that are considered lowly or loathsome. This kind of dehumanization is commonplace on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.