The latest of the Updates from AIJAC (06/05 #02) includes an article called "National Socialism and Anti-Semitism in the Arab World", by Matthias Küntzel. It's a detailed and scholarly study that demonstrates why the anti-Semitism we see today is so reminiscent of the scourge our parents and grandparents faced - not so long ago - and which we face today. We post just a very brief extract ...
Anti-Semitism based on the notion of a Jewish world conspiracy is not rooted in Islamic tradition but, rather, in European ideological models. The decisive transfer of this ideology to the Muslim world took place between 1937 and 1945 under the impact of Nazi propaganda. Important to this process were the Arabic-language service broadcast by the German shortwave transmitter in Zeesen between 1939 and 1945, and the role of Haj Amin el-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, who was the first to translate European anti-Semitism into an Islamic context. Although Islamism is an independent, anti-Semitic, antimodern mass movement, its main early promoters - the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Mufti and the Qassamites in Palestine - were supported financially and ideologically by agencies of the German National Socialist government.
...(in 2003)... the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES), a think tank with close ties to the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), and the Hizbollah's "research department" organized a joint conference in Beirut titled "The Islamic World and Europe: From Dialogue to Agreement." Just as remarkable as the cooperation between an institution of a German party of government and an Islamist terror organization was the conference agenda, which included an item on "occupation and resistance" but nothing on Al-Manar's anti-Semitic agitation.
.....The Al-Manar satellite channel ....has the greatest reach in the Arab-Islamic world after al-Jazeera. Ten million people a day tune in to the round-the-clock broadcasts from Beirut. Al-Manar ("the Beacon") is the first and to date only satellite channel that, not even pretending to objectivity, sees itself as the global voice of Islamism. Its popularity is due to its countless video clips, which use inspiring graphics and uplifting music to promote suicide bombing. Al-Manar not only pushes for terrorist acts against Israel but inspires, justifies, and acclaims them.
...In Europe this channel, whose costs are covered by, among other things, advertising the German chocolate Milka, the Finnish Smeds cheese, the Austrian Red Bull drink, and the French Gauloises cigarettes, is broadcast by the Eutelsat satellite firm via its Hotbird 4 satellite. The French newspaper Libération estimates that 2.6 million households in France alone can receive the channel, which since 9/11 has also gained growing popularity in Germany's Arab neighborhoods.
....From Zeesen (the WW2 radi station) to Beirut (the Al manar satellite station) : why did the anti-Semitic holy warriors in 2002 decide to approach Germany in particular with their conference proposal? The answer is no secret. Udo Steinbach, head of the Deutsche Orient-Institut in Hamburg, quite openly enthused about the "lingering effects of the sympathy traditionally evinced for Germany in the whole region."
... The ideological basis for this sympathy was decisively strengthened by Radio Zeesen and the Mufti's pro-German orientation. Is German foreign policy today picking up the threads of this "sympathy"? Foreign Office officials evade giving a clear answer to this question. Instead, the virulent pro-Nazi sentiment is purposefully ignored and the continuation of a Nazi-like anti-Semitism has met with inexcusable nonchalance.
The Matthias Küntzel Web site is a treasure trove of material for defenders of truth and justice. We have added it to our permanent links.
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