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Myths & Facts OnlineArab/Muslim Attitudes Toward IsraelBy Mitchell G. BardThe 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 Anti-Semitism“The Jewish nation, it is known, from the dawn of history, from the time Allah created them, lives by scheme and deceit.” — PA Communications Minister,
Imud Falouji “We know that the Jews have manipulated the Sept. 11 incidents and turned American public opinion against Arabs and Muslims....We still ask ourselves: Who has benefited from Sept. 11 attacks? I think they (the Jews) were the protagonists of such attacks.” — Saudi Interior Minister Prince
Nayef in Assyasah (Kuwait) “They succeeded in gaining control in most of the [world’s] most powerful states, and they — a tiny community — became a world power. But 1.3 billion Muslims must not be defeated by a few million Jews. A way must be found....The Europeans killed six million Jews out of 12 million, but today the Jews are in control of the world via their proxies. They lead others to fight and die for them....If we are weak, no one will support us. The Israelis respect only the strong, and we must therefore all unite.” — Malaysian Prime Minister
Mahatir Mohammad “O God, strengthen Islam and Muslims, humiliate infidelity and infidels. O God, destroy your enemies, the Jewish and crusader enemies of Islam.” — Shaykh Jamal Shakir “The Prophet said: the Jews will hide behind the rock and tree, and the rock and tree will say: oh servant of Allah, oh Muslim this is a Jew behind me, come and kill him! Why is there this malice? Because there are none who love the Jews on the face of the earth: not man, not rock, and not tree; everything hates them. They destroy everything, they destroy the trees and destroy the houses. Everything wants vengeance on the Jews, on these pigs on the face of the earth, and the day of our victory, Allah willing, will come.” — Shaykh Ibrahim Mudayris “The Zionist attempts to transmit dangerous diseases like AIDS through exports to Arab countries.” — Al-Manar (Hizballah TV) “The Jews are the cancer spreading all over the world...the Jews are a virus like AIDS hitting humankind...Jews are responsible for all wars and conflicts....” — Sermon by Sheik Ibrahim Mudeiris “If we searched the entire world for a person, more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew. Notice, I do not say the Israeli. ” —
Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah
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 “During this holiday [Purim], the Jew must prepare very special pastries, the filling of which is not only costly and rare –– it cannot be found at all on the local and international markets....For this holiday, the Jewish people must obtain human blood so that their clerics can prepare the holiday pastries....Before I go into the details, I would like to clarify that the Jews’ spilling human blood to prepare pastry for their holidays is a well-established fact, historically and legally, all throughout history. This was one of the main reasons for the persecution and exile that were their lot in Europe and Asia at various times....during the holiday, the Jews wear carnival-style masks and costumes and overindulge in drinking alcohol, prostitution, and adultery.....” — Dr. Umayma Ahmad Al-Jalahma
of King Faysal University “Christian Europe showed enmity toward the Jews when it transpired that their rabbis craftily hunt anyone walking alone, [tempting] him to enter their house of worship. Then they take his blood to use for baked goods for their holidays, as part of their ritual.” — Columnist Dr. Muhammad bin
S’ad Al-Shwey’ir, Al-Jazirah 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, “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, “[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, “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, “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, “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, “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, “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, “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”), “Saddam, you hero, attack Israel with chemical weapons.” — Palestinians marching in
support of Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, “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 PA Preventive
Security in the West Bank, Jebril Rajoub, “...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 “Didn’t we throw mud in the face of Bill Clinton, who dared to propose a state with some adjustments? Were we honest about what we did? Were we right in what we did? No, we were not. After two years of violence, we are now calling for what we rejected.” — Nabil Amr, ex-minister in
the PA cabinet, “Just as Ramallah, Gaza, Nablus, and Jenin are Palestinian cities, so are Haifa, Nazareth, Jaffa, Ramle, Lod, Beersheba, Safed, and others Palestinian cities....The Zionist Jews are foreigners in this land. They have no right to live or settle in it. They should go somewhere else in the world to establish their state and their false entity...They must leave their homes...We do not believe in so-called ’peace with Israel’ because peace cannot be made with Satan. Israel is the greatest Satan.” — Palestinian Christian cleric
Father ’Atallah Hanna, “Hamas will keep its weapons in its hands and will defend any part of the homeland....Our national problem is not related only to the West Bank, Gaza, and al-Quds...but to Palestine, all [the territory of] Palestine.”
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Hamas leader Mahmoud
al-Zahar “Oh Allah, liberate our Al-Aksa Mosque from the defilement of the occupying and brutal Zionists… Oh Allah, punish the occupying Zionists and their supporters from among the corrupt infidels. Oh Allah, scatter and disperse them, and make an example of them for those who take heed.” — Sheikh Abd Al-Rahman Al-Sudayyis, “Al-Qassam warriors, rain rockets
on the settlers! Don’t let any Jew sleep! — Song broadcast on Hamas radio
station Sawt Al-Aksa “We will continue our martyrdom operations inside Israel until all our lands are liberated, by God’s will....We won’t lay down our weapons as long as Jerusalem and the West Bank are under occupation.” — Muhamemd
Hijazi, commander of a Fatah- affiliated militias
in the Gaza Strip “We will not rest and will not abandon the path of Jihad and martyrdom as long as one inch of our land remained in the hands of the Jews.”
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Raed Saed, a senior
Hamas leader “First of all this Palestinian land, and all the Arabic nation, is all part of the same area. In the past, there was no independent Palestinian state; there was no independent Jordanian state; and so on. There were regions called Iraq or Egypt, but they were all part of one country....Our main goal is to establish a great Islamic state, be it pan-Arabic or pan-Islamic.” — Mahmoud
al-Zahhar, Hamas leader “I tell you with all honesty, we will not recognize Israel, we will not recognize Israel, we will not recognize Israel.” — Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh “Israel is a vile entity that has been planted in our soil, and has no historical, religious or cultural legitimacy. We cannot normalize our relations with this entity. The history of this region has proven [time and again] that occupation is temporary. Thousands of years ago, the Romans occupied this land and [eventually] left. The Persians, Crusaders, and English [also] came and went. The Zionists have come, and they too will leave. [We say] no to recognizing Israel, regardless of the price we may have to pay [for our refusal].” — Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud
Al-Zahar Phased Plan & the Destruction of Israel“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, “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, “Israel is much smaller than Iran in land mass, and therefore far more vulnerable to nuclear attack.” — Former Iranian President
Ali Rafsanjani, “We defeated the Crusaders 800 years ago and we will defeat the enemies of Islam today.” — Nazareth Deputy Mayor Salman
Abu Ahmed, “...we shall return to the 1967 borders, but it does not mean that we have given up on Jerusalem and Haifa, Jaffa, Lod, Ramla, Nayanyah [Al-Zuhour] and Tel Aviv [Tel Al-Rabia]. Never. We shall return to every village we had been expelled from, by Allah’s will....Our approval to return to the 1967 borders is not a concession for our other rights. No!..this generation might not achieve this stage, but generations will come, and the land of Palestine...will demand that the Palestinians return the way Muhammad returned there, as a conqueror.” — Sheikh Ibrahim Mudyris, “Hamas would ‘definitely not’ be prepared for coexistence with Israel should the IDF retreat to its 1967 borders. It can be a temporary solution, for a maximum of 5 to 10 years. But in the end Palestine must return to become Muslim, and in the long term Israel will disappear from the face of the earth.” — Hamas
leader Mahmoud al-Zahar — Hamas
leader Mahmoud Zahar — Hamas
political leader Khaled Mashaal “Hamas is clear on this matter. Hamas believes that historical Palestine, that is, all of Palestine, belongs to the Palestinian people...We say that all of Palestine, from the (Jordan) River to the (Mediterranean) Sea, belongs to the Palestinians. They have a legitimate right to this land...We use one voice in all forums. But we also say that we are dealing realistically with the current phase — an independent Palestinian state with full sovereignty over the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. That is what we presented to our people in our elections platform...Yes, it is a temporary and phased solution. This is not a permanent solution.” — Hamas official
Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook “I dream of hanging a huge map of the world on the wall at my Gaza home which does not show Israel on it.” — Hamas
Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar “We [aim to liberate] all our lands... If we have the option, we will establish a state on every inch of land within the 1967 [borders], but this does not by any means imply that we will relinquish our right to all the Palestinian lands. We want all of Palestine from [Ras] Naqura to Rafah, and from the [Mediterranean] sea to the [Jordan] river.” — PA Foreign
Minister Mahmoud Zahar “This is not a country of humans. These are animals and a group of gangs, and this country must be wiped off the face of the earth.” — PA spokesman
Ghazi Hamad — Hamas
Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh — Iranian
President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad — Dr. Ahmad
Bahar (acting Speaker, Palestinian Legislative
Council) — PLO's ambassador
to Lebanon, Abbas Zaki — PLO's ambassador
to Lebanon, Abbas Zaki 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 “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, “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, “If they go from Sheba’a, we will not stop fighting them. Our goal is to liberate the 1948 borders of Palestine...[Jews] can go back to Germany or wherever they came from.” — Hizballah spokesperson Hassan
Ezzedin “If they [Jews] all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.” — Hizballah leader Sheikh Sayyed
Hassan Nasrallah “The jihad and suicide bombings will continue — the Zionist entity will reach its end in the first quarter of the current century. It is therefore up to you [Muslim holy fighters] to be patient — the Hamas takes upon itself the liberation of all Palestinian land from the sea to the river in the Rafah [in the south] and until Rosh Hanikra [in the north].” — Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh
Ahmed Yassin “There is no doubt that the new wave (of attacks) in Palestine will wipe off this stigma (Israel) from the face of the Islamic world....Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation’s fury (while) any (Islamic leader) who recognizes the Zionist regime means he is acknowledging the surrender and defeat of the Islamic world....As the Imam [Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini] said, Israel must be wiped off the map.”
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Speech by Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad “Our enemies ... don't understand that a suicide operation ... is a natural right.” — Hamas
political leader Khaled Meshaal “It is the Palestinian people's right to engage in resistance until the occupation ends. As long as the resistance is legitimate, everything related to it is also legitimate.” — Grand Mufti
of Jerusalem Sheikh Muhammad Ahmad Hussein “Oh warrior brothers, this is a nation that will never be broken, it is a revolution that will never be defeated. This is a nation that gives an example every day that is imitated across the world. We gave the world the children of the RPG [Rocket Propelled Grenades], we gave the world the children stone [-throwers], and we gave the world the male and female Martyrdom-Seekers [suicide bombers].” — Secretary
of Fatah in Gaza Ahmed Hales Abu Maher Radical Islam“First of all this Palestinian land, and all the Arabic nation, is all part of the same area. In the past, there was no independent Palestinian state; there was no independent Jordanian state; and so on. There were regions called Iraq or Egypt, but they were all part of one country....Our main goal is to establish a great Islamic state, be it pan-Arabic or pan-Islamic.” — Mahmoud A-Zahhar,
the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, — Kan'an
Ubayd in the Hamas newspaper — Dr. Ahmad
Bahar (acting Speaker, Palestinian Legislative
Council) — Dr.
Ahmad Bahar (acting Speaker, Palestinian
Legislative Council) — Ismail Haniyeh,
former Hamas prime minister, — Al-Qaida No. 2
Ayman al-Zawahri Sources: Foreign Broadcast
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