"Problems of Contemporary Antisemitism"

by Yehuda Bauer

The term "antisemitism" is, as many of us realize, the wrong term for what we try to

describe and analyze. It was coined, paradoxically, by an antisemite, Wilhelm Marr, in 1879,

because he needed a new word for Jew-hatred. The old one, Judenhass, was identified as a

Christian, basically theological, appellation, and Marr was anti Christian, because Christianity

was, and in this he was quite correct, a Jewish invention. The new term sounded scientific, did

not mention Jews, but everyone knew who and what was meant; it described a newly developed

phenomenon, of a nationalistic and racial biological approach. Antisemitism, especially in its

hyphenated spelling, is inane nonsense, because there is no Semitism that you can be anti to.

There are semitic languages, and you can hardly be against semitic languages. We have come to

use "antisemitism" to describe dislike of Jews, and worse, from the days of Manetho, the

Egyptian priest of about 300 B.C., whose comments on the Jews were a combination of

contempt and hatred, probably motivated by the settlement of Jews in Alexandria. There is no

differentiation in the term antisemitism between periods, between mild, moderate, and radical

Jew hatred, between phenomena that can easily be explained by referring to a general dislike of

strangers, to hatred or dislike concentrated especially against Jews. The term really fits only

Jew hatred, ‫שנאת ישראל‬, from about the middle of the nineteenth century. Even then, the

mixture of Christian and Moslem theological opposition to Jews, traditional economic jealousy

and competitiveness, and racial biological and nationalistic ideological motives makes it difficult

to encompass all that with this essentially erroneous term. It makes a mess of research projects,

Copyright © 2003 Yehuda Bauer

 2

as it interferes with the task of differentiation. Yet we all use it, simply because we have not

come up with the proper terminology. So, knowing we are talking nonsense when we use it, let

us use it, faute de mieux.

Since 1945, there have been three waves of antisemitism (at least I spell it as one word, a

translation of the original Antisemitismus)(, and we are now experiencing a fourth. The

approximate dates are 1958 1960, 1968-1972, 1987 1992, and now, since 1999 or 2000, we have

a fourth. An analysis done in Jerusalem by Simcha Epstein has shown that the motivations were

different in each case, and in the third, the one starting in 1987, no economic motivation has

been shown. That means that our traditional explanations that modern antisemitism always has

something to do with economic downturns are inaccurate. It seems that cultural, political,

economic, or theological crises can all be causes, or part causes, of a phenomenon that cannot be

explained monocausally. At the basis, and this of course is an attempt to answer the famous

$64,000 question (don't worry, I won't get the money)(, is, I think, the fact that the Jews produced

a civilization that differed in some central aspects from the civilizations around them.

Monotheism may have been invented by the Egyptians during the times of Akh en aton, the

Sabbath may originate in Babylon (the name shabbat sabbatu is Babylonian)(, others may have

tried to limit or abolish slavery, Hebrew social legislation may have some precedents elsewhere,

but nowhere were all these, and other, elements, combined in a religious ethnic social ideology

that was formulated over a long period of time and as a result of considerable internal conflicts.

On its basis there developed a way of life, with changing, but clearly defined customs that

solidified into laws sacralized by religious belief. Jews were certainly no better or worse than

Copyright © 2003 Yehuda Bauer

 3

others, but they were different in the way they conducted their lives. Had they stayed in their

hilly land, they would have been another interesting and peculiar tribe; but they spread, not

necessarily by expulsion from Palestine—there was never a mass expulsion of Jews from there,

either by the Babylonians or by the Romans—but rather by conversion of others to their ethnic

religion, or if you like their religious ethnicity. At the beginning of the first century there were

about 4 million Jews in the Roman Empire; at its end their numbers are estimated at between 8

and 10 million, despite the destruction of the Temple and the rebellion against the Romans. That

was not the result of natural Increase, but of a wave of conversions. Everywhere the Jews went

they carried their distinctive civiIization with them, which marked them off against their

environment. Crises of whatever source could, and sometimes did, cause this basically

defenceless, well known yet strange, minority to be seen as the reason for the crisis, and

therefore they were subject to discrimination or attack. Jew hatred is the oldest group hatred that

exists, it precedes racism, because as we know, Blacks who acknowledged Roman gods and

were free men, could be and did in fact become Roman citizens of equal status. Jews were

intensely disliked—they refused to acknowledge the gods, they would not share in the food with

their neighbors, and on the whole they kept themselves separate. This solidified in the

theological power dispute with Christianity, and later Islam. The economic stresses came later,

and contrary to Marxist interpretations, they were the result of the theological tensions, not the

other way round.

This Christian theological basis is today slowly being eroded. Vatican II in 1965 was a

first, incomplete but major, step. Christian Churches are slowly developing the idea that there

Copyright © 2003 Yehuda Bauer

 4

may be several ways to serve God, and that theirs may not be the only one. Theological

antisemitism is not dead, but it is weakening, and in the struggle against contemporary

antisemitism the Christian Churches are often allies, not opponents.

However, many hundreds of years of an antisemitic culture have had their result in the

formation of an underlying latency of antisemitism, that waits to explode when aroused by some

outside crisis. In the post 1 945 era this has been complicated by two major events of a political

and cultural nature: the Holocaust and the establishment of Israel. In parentheses I want to stress

that again, the terms Holocaust and Shoah are the wrong terms for the genocide of the Jews, but

again, let us use this wrong terminology for the lack of something better. The Holocaust created

an unease about the Jews, especially of course in Europe, where people have to live with close to

six million ghosts, created by a deadly mutation of European culture. As the famous saying goes

—the Europeans, and not necessarily only the Germans, cannot forgive the Jews for Auschwitz.

Periods of self accusation and beating of breasts alternate with periods in which everything is

done to turn the Jews into perpetrators, nowadays even Nazis, in order to liberate the heirs of

European culture from the burden of the genocide. The establishment of Israel caused a

widespread feeling of relief on the one hand: we don't have to bother about the Jews anymore,

they have made good, they are wonderful, they will create a new Christianity for us, or a new

socialism—a humanistic, idealistic society that will bring salvation to a sick world. The kibbutz

and the moshav, the Weitzmann Institute of Science, the Hebrew University, and Izhak

Perlmann took the place of the Christian Savior, or provided an alternative to Stalin's

Communism. On the other hand, Israel turned the victims into perpetrators, David into Goliath,

Copyright © 2003 Yehuda Bauer

 5

and when occasion arose, everything was and is done to identify Israel with evil. In both cases,

Israel is singled out, a collective deity or an evil force, Jews as a collective entity are never equal

to others.

The Arab Israeli conflict, and now the Israeli Palestinian confrontation, provide ample

material for an antisemitism that sees itself as anti Zionist, and not anti Jewish. Indeed, one can

be, in theory at least, anti Zionist without being antisemitic, but only if one says that all national

movements are evil, and all national states should be abolished. But if one says that the Fijians

have a right to independence, and so do the Malays or the Bolivians, but the Jews have no such

right, then one is anti Jewish, and as one singles out the Jews for nationalistic reasons, one is

antisemitic, with an attendant strong suspicion of being racist. Irwin Cotler has stated many

times that the international community, as expressed in the UN and its Commissions and

Committees, singles out Israel as a pariah nation, and that the status of the collective Jew, that is

Israel, is akin to the status of the individual Jew in the Middle Ages. Not that there is not just

cause to criticize Israel—quite the contrary. Israel is locked in a bitter struggle with Palestinian

nationalism, and that nationalism is no less legitimate than the Jewish one is. Palestinian

terrorism has been defined as crimes against humanity by international human rights groups, and

Israeli policies on the West Bank and the Gaza strip are mainly reactive. But these reactions do

cause very serious violations of human rights, and result in terrible suffering of the local

population. Compromises that were suggested, failed, and seem currently impossible of

achievement as both sides are ruled by elites that oppose any compromise that would be

acceptable to the other side. However, antisemitic latency in the West latches on to that tragic

Copyright © 2003 Yehuda Bauer

 6

dispute in order to brand the Jews as mass murderers and Nazis, in order to solve the social

psychological problem caused by the Holocaust. Facts do not matter there—the total number of

Palestinian victims of the second Intifada, since September 2000, until today, is slightly over

2000, which is about one sixth of the daily number of Jews shipped to Auschwitz from Hungary

in the spring of 1944. 800 Jews were killed by Palestinian terrorists, mostly civilians. Any kind

of simplistic comparison becomes totally ridiculous. In Jenin, a UN commission, which the

Israeli government in its stupidity opposed, found that there were probably 58 Palestinian dead,

and 23 Israelis. You cannot compare this to the Kashmiri or Sri Lankan or Sudanese situations,

never mind World War II. The reason for the vile attacks on Jews in Western Europe is not

based on any consideration of facts, but on basic civilizational trends that latch themselves onto

real events in a distorted manner. A realistic approach would, in my view, sharply criticize Israel

in the context of its justified defence against terrorist suicidal homicide, and seek a compromise

between two national movements fighting over a very small piece of real estate. But we are not

talking about a realistic approach; we are talking about antisemitism.

It appears that the present, fourth wave of antisemitism since 1945, in the West, is a

basically upper middle class, intellectual phenomenon. It is widespread in the media, in

universities, and in well manicured circles. Typical is the statement of the French ambassador to

Britain at a cocktail party, later reported in the British Press, referring to Israel, with typical

diplomatic politeness and finesse, as that "shitty little country." What is important here is not the

statement itself, but the fact that that gentleman felt perfectly at ease making it in an environment

he was sure would understand and appreciate it. It is the atmosphere, the ambiance, that is

Copyright © 2003 Yehuda Bauer

 7

important. Students at a number of American universities identify with the Palestinian struggle

without really knowing the facts of the situation. I am also pro Palestinian, I believe that they

deserve independence and prosperity, but I also believe that their armed struggle consists largely

of acts of barbarity and inhumanity that in turn provoke inexcusable behavior on our part. The

point is that many students cross the line from criticism of a government policy to antisemitism.

In Europe, this is combined with anti Americanism. The US and Israel are the evil forces, and in

any case the US is governed by Jewish interests. This expresses another well known antisemitic

myth, of course. In addition, many Europeans have not forgiven the Americans for having

liberated them, first from Hitler, and then from Stalin.

One should not generalize: many Europeans, and most Americans, especially of the

working and middle classes, but also among the elites, are opposed to these antisemitic trends. It

is my view that this wave will pass in time, and of course if a compromise is found, or even

seriously discussed, in the Mideast conflict, the situation will ease. The conflict did not cause

antisemtitism, but it partly triggered it, and certainly enhanced it. On the whole, it is not Western

antisemitism, with all its dangers, that causes me to worry, but something else: Islamic

radicalism.

On May 7, 2002, a program was broadcast on the Egyptian TV station IQRAA, which is

financed by Saudi money (among others, Prince Al Waleed bin Talal supports it)(. The program

was directed at Moslem women. A charming TV personality, Ms. Doua Amer, asked little

Basmallah, a 3-1/2 year old girl, 'Do you know who the Jews are?' "Yes". 'Do you like them?'

"No." 'Why?' "Because they are monkeys and swine ... and also because they tried to poison the

Copyright © 2003 Yehuda Bauer

 8

wife of our prophet."

A whole world is being influenced by such teachings. There are today some 1.2 billion

Moslems in the world, a sizable percentage of humanity. We talk about international terror, but

we rarely think of what lies behind it. Yet it is obvious that what I would call radical Islam, or

Islamism, is a developing ideology, and that it is that ideology that fuels international terrorism.

Rarely do people ask what the aims of that ideology are, where it comes from, what the historical

context is which made it grow, and how widespread it is. The usual response to it, in the US but

also in some other places, including Israel, is that it should be fought by armed force: one should

find the terrorists, smash their organizations, confiscate their funds, arrest or kill their leaders. Is

that the only correct answer?

Most people refer to radical Islam as being fundamentalist. I would beg to differ.

Fundamentalism is an American concept relating to evangelical Protestantism. It was introduced

here in the nineteenth century by William Danby, an English expatriate preacher who demanded

that Christians return to the fundamentals, by which he meant a literal interpretation of the Bible,

and a preparation for the return of the Savior; his ideology implied that all the other religions

were false and the work of Satan, and that anyone not following the evangelical interpretations

and calls to action would roast in hell. By extension, fundamentalism is any religious ideology

based on literal interpretations of whatever is seen as holy texts, on calls of action in line with

the most radical of these interpretations, and the belief that anyone who does not believe in your

holy texts and their literal interpretations is destined for eternal damnation. All religious belief

systems include fundamentalist trends. The Catholic Church still believes that extra ecclesiam

Copyright © 2003 Yehuda Bauer

 9

non est salus (there is no salvation outside the Church)(, the Protestants are convinced that only a

belief in Jesus will save the soul lux perpetuam donna eis; orthodox Jews believe that God talks

to Jews only, and that the Hebrew Bible and its exegesis is the true and only word of God;

Moslems believe that Mohammed is the last and only true prophet, and that the Kor'an, the

Hadith (the interpretations and legends that were written down after the Kor'an)(, and the Shari’a

(the Islamic legal code of the Middle Ages)( are the only true revelations of the deity; Buddhists

believe that unless you follow the way prescribed by the Buddha you will end in an infinite cycle

of rebirth, and may find yourself a frog next time around. This may sound better than the hell

and damnation of the monotheistic religions, but is not really that much different. However, all

these and other belief systems also contain milder versions that will acknowledge that there may

be a point in what the others are saying, and that one can interpret one's holy texts away from a

literal understanding. Jews are experts in reinterpretations of the Scriptures to take into account

contemporary sensitivities, but Christians are now following suit. Radical Islam is also

fundamentalist, but its outstanding features go far beyond fundamentalism.

One has to say, first of all, that Islam and radical Islam are not necessarily the same thing

—though many experts of Islam will disagree with this statement. One can say that the literal

interpretation of Islam leads to radicalism, but that can be said of Christianity and Judaism and

other religions as well. Islam is as capable of developing a more liberal, non literal, milder

religious approach, that will recognize the validity, or at least partial validity, of other religions,

or other belief systems, as others are. Thus, for instance, there is the very large Sufi movement, a

pietistic, peace loving Islamic direction; there are moderate Moslems in the West, and some very

Copyright © 2003 Yehuda Bauer

 10

courageous liberals in the Moslem world itself.

What does radical Islam believe in, and where does the difference lie between it and

non radical Islam? The crucial, central element in radical Islam is the conviction that Western

civilization has passed its peak, that it is declining into corruption and weakness, and that the

future lies with radical Islam. The aim must be, says radical Islamic ideology, the conquest not

just of the Middle East or Asia, but the world, and the acceptance of Islam by the whole world.

The second element is the desire to abolish politics as such. God Allah has told the world,

through his prophet, the Hadith traditions and the Shari'a how men (women don't count)( should

govern themselves, and what laws they should follow. Any human intervention, whether through

parliamentary democracy or through any type of autocracy is blasphemy, because it means that

men decide what they should do, whereas God has already decreed what should be done. The

world will be run by men trained in Islamic law, and national and territorial boundaries will be

simply a matter of convenience. Hence also comes the third point: radical Islam aspires to the

abolition of national states, first and foremost Arab national states. Thus, Hamas and Islamic

JIhad in Palestine do not demand a Palestinian national state, but an Islamic state of Palestine,

which will be almost as anti Christian as it will be anti Jewish: Christians, and those Jews who

will submit to Islamic rule and will survive the genocide that is planned for Israeli Jews, will be

subject peoples in Islamic Palestine, with no political rights whatsoever. Lastly, it is clear from

what has just been said that Islamism is both a utopian, and an apocalyptic, ideology. It promises

a wonderful, peaceful world, ruled by God Himself, through Islam, and thus aspires to the end of

history as we know it—because obviously, there can be no history after the establishment of the

Copyright © 2003 Yehuda Bauer

 11

rule of God. I have said it many times, with an apology to Lord Acton of blessed memory, all

utopias kill, and radical, universalistic and apocalyptic utopias kill radically and massively.

Radical Islam is not identical with the fundamentalist trends of the 18th century in the

Arabian peninsula, where Abdul Wahab developed a conservative approach to Islam which

became the guiding ideology of the Sa'udi monarchy. The actual behavior and life styles of the

Sa'udi royal family and their allies may be somewhat different from the puritanism demanded by

the Wahabbi teachings, but in theory this is the ruling theology. Radical Islam is different, and

new. It was founded by Hassan el Banna in Egypt in 1928, in the form of the Moslem

Brotherhood, and developed as a result of its social policies into a major force in Egyptian

society. Moslem governments, then and now, were and are incapable of providing the

wherewithals to a population that is growing by leaps and bounds. The resulting destitution and

despair was answered in Egypt by the Brotherhood establishing village clinics, building sewage

systems and schools, the famous madrassas. Where did they get the money to do that? They

reinstituted a major principle of religious social policy, namely the tithe. Even the poorest were

asked to give a few pennies each week for the upkeep of these institutions, and of course richer

members of the Brotherhood had to chip in with substantial sums. The same principle is

followed today by Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Gaza strip and elsewhere. The trade off for

them lies in the way children and adults are being taught to accept the literal interpretation of

Islam, and the anti American and anti Jewish phobias developed by the radicals.

What are the sources of radical Islam? I accept the main argument put forward by Bernard

Lewis, in his writings. The Moslem civilization—and not just the Arab—which was the main

Copyright © 2003 Yehuda Bauer

 12

world cultural center in the early Middle Ages, did not develop parallel to the West because it

did not develop individualism and a middle class that would struggle for supremacy against the

forces of conservatism and feudalism. Very importantly, it was crucially hampered by a religious

ideology that preached opposition to change. This happened in Christianity and Judaism, too, but

there countervailing elements arose that slowly forced back the ultra conservatives. In the

Moslem countries, autocratic regimes could rely on a reactionary clergy that had a mass basis in

the population, and fought successfully against Moslem intellectuals and entrepreneurs that did

seek to change Moslem society, especially in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Today, the catastrophic growth of Moslem populations, which results from the lack of growth of

democratic capitalism, has to contend not only with the West, but with Japan, India, Taiwan,

South Korea, or Singapore, and soon China as well, which is why radical Islam is fighting these

countries as well, and the struggle is global, because these Asian countries are developing their

own version of the civilization developed in the West. One has to conclude that radical Islam is

fighting not just against the West, but against civilization as such, and when you read what they

have to say about Hindus, for instance, you realize that here you have a megalomaniac intention

of elimination of all pagan beliefs, such as those of the Hindus and the Buddhists.

The backwardness of the Moslem world has been a major cause of the terrible

socio economic situation there. It has been exacerbated by the policies of greed and exploitation,

of suppression and humiliation, practiced by the colonial powers. The result is that today most

Moslems live in abject poverty, and have no chance to rise from vegetating in the gutters. They

are ruled by corrupt and brutal dictatorships that are in most cases supported by the West.

Copyright © 2003 Yehuda Bauer

 13

Turning to a radical religious belief is their only way of regaining some self esteem and feeling

of identity. The result is that the only viable alternative to the rule of Moslem autocracies is

radical Islam, because there is no middle class that could offer an alternative. We are therefore

threatened by a combination of forces, some of them of the West's own making.

I would go further than that. We have seen three major ideologies emerging during the

twentieth century, and in many ways continuing into the present: Soviet Communism, National

Socialism, and Islamism. There are of course vast differences between them, but there are also

some parallels which I would like briefly to explore. All three aspired to world supremacy, to

world rule—I don't have to detail this, as it is well known. With all three the idea was or is to

establish a dictatorial regime that would suppress all other belief systems. All three were or are

religious or quasi religious ideologies. St. Marx, the Manchester industrialist Friedrich Engels,

the great Lenin, and the Sun of the Nations, Comrade Stalin, wrote the ultimate texts that people

had to believe in, or else. Mein Kampf, Hitler's speeches, texts that were spread and taught in

Nazi Germany, were all to be believed in unconditionally, as are the Koran and the Hadith

among Moslems. All three sought to abolish politics as such, and the normative state. Lenin

talked of the dying away of the state, and the establishment of a classless society, a utopia with

clear apocalyptic elements, because of course when the state will have died away, and a classless

society established, historical dialectics will no longer be operative, and an end of time will

come. In a utopia you don't need laws, or parliaments that make laws. The Nazi regime sought to

emasculate the national liberal Prussian state with its bureaucratic norms based on Christian

principles. The judicial system was in practice abolished with the agreement signed in

Copyright © 2003 Yehuda Bauer

 14

September, 1942, between Himmler and Nazi Justice Minister Thierack, according to which all

more serious criminal cases, and of course all political cases, would be handed over to the SS.

Hitler never summoned a German Cabinet meeting after 1938, and there was no organized

system of consultation except for occasional meetings of the Nazi Party chiefs, who listened to

speeches of the Fuehrer, and not much more. In Stalin's USSR, there was the wonderful,

democratic constitution of 1936, which was sheer window dressing, whereas the real

decision making process was in the hands of the 'vozhd', Stalin, executed through his minions in

the Party apparatus. The state bureaucracy was there to obey and do the menial tasks. In both

cases, there was an antinormative norm, and that is exactly what radical Islam is trying to

establish today. In all three cases, nationalism was or is to be opposed, in favor of a

universalistically totalitarian tendency.

All three ideologies saw or see the Jews as the main enemy, or at least a main enemy. We

all know about National Socialism. Stalin's Communism saw the Jews as the spearhead of

Western imperialism, and wanted to deport all the Soviet Jews into the Siberian Taiga and

Tundra, where most of them would have perished. His death prevented the execution of this

policy. Radical Islam says, basically, the same thing: the Jews are the spearhead of Western

civilization, and they are traditionally the enemies of Islam.

The anti Jewish ideology has been a part of the development of radical Islam since the late

twenties of the last century. The chief ideologue of the movement was the Egyptian Sayid Qutb,

an Egyptian official who spent some years in New York and became convinced that the West is

decadent and dying. In 1950 and the following years he wrote a number of brochures that are, to

Copyright © 2003 Yehuda Bauer

 15

this day, the guiding texts of radical Islam. One of them was devoted to the Jews—two years

after the establishment of Israel. Traditional Kor'anic elements intermingled with the legacy of

European antisemitism, very much influenced by Nazi antisemitism. In the Ko'ran, Jews are

called apes and swine, because they did not obey their own traditions and their God. They are

also branded as the most determined opponents of the spreading Moslem faith, an accusation

which is essentially true, because apparently the Jewish tribes of the Arabian desert saw Islam,

rightly, as an existential danger to themselves. There are also more friendly statements in the

Islamic holy texts, so that one can choose, and the radical Islamists chose the more vitriolic ones.

In the contemporary world, the Jews are seen, as I have already said, as the spearhead of the

West. However, they are seen also as more than that—in line with modem European

antisemitism, Jews are seen as the actual rulers of the West, especially of the US, through the

media controlled by them, and through direct political influence. Thus, Islamistic antisemitism

sees the fight against the Jews as the first and central piece in their program, and it is preceded,

or paralleled, only by their desire to eliminate the present corrupt Arab and Moslem

governments, and replace them with Islamic states. The language used by Moslem media,

increasingly under Islamicist influence, is clearly and unmistakably genocidal. Radical Islam

wants to annihilate the Jews, contrary to the medieval Islamic principle of seeing them as the

People of the Book, who were granted an inferior, but guaranteed status in Islam. Whether the

Holocaust is seen as an inspiration, and whether this is done consciously or unconsciously, I

cannot tell. All I can see is that the ideology of Naziism, which led to the Holocaust, is repeated

here, albeit in a different dress.

Copyright © 2003 Yehuda Bauer

 16

How far is this antisemitic ideology influenced by the Israeli Palestinian conflict? Sayid

Qutb wrote his antisemitic brochure seventeen years before the Israeli occupation of the West

Bank and Gaza, so obviously this is not a cause of the rise of this ideology. But he wrote it two

years after Israel was established, and from his point of view the occupation of a piece of land

liberated for Islam by its original conquest in the seventh century, and its successful defense

against the Crusaders later on, was an outrage and a blasphemy. The more so, since the despised

Jews did it. In 1967, with the occupation of Jerusalem, and the rest of the territories, this became

the sign of a further terrible defeat that could only be reversed by a total elimination, and

annihilation, of the offending people and forces, as the Jews had rebelled not only against a

stable order of things as established in Islamic tradition, but theirs was a rebellion against God

himself. A compromise reached with the Palestinians, and accepted by them, would undoubtedly

reduce the rhetoric and with it the danger, but it would not eliminate it. However, a compromise,

as I said, is prevented, at the moment, by the ruling elites on both sides. The maximum each side

would be willing to offer falls far short of the minimum demanded by the other.

Radical Islam is of Egyptian inspiration. Sayid Qutb was executed by the Nasserist

regime in 1966. Gamal Abdul Nasser had been a Moslem Brother himself, but turned against the

Brotherhood in favor of an Arab-Egyptian nationalism and a policy of establishing Egyptian

supremacy in the Arab world. Qutb's anti nationalist ideology was viewed as a great danger by

the Nasserist regime. Qutb was followed by other Egyptian Brotherhood members—Sheikh

Yussef Karadawi, who preaches in Qatar, an ally of America, Mohamed Salih al 'Awa in Egypt,

and of course Osama Bin Laden's ideologue and deputy, Dr. Ayman al Zawahiri, an Egyptian

Copyright © 2003 Yehuda Bauer

 17

pediatrician. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder of Hamas, was a member of the Brotherhood.

The only outstanding non Egyptian figure was Abul 'Alah el-Maududi, a Pakistani who died in

1979.

There is no way of estimating the strength of the radicals in the Moslem world. First,

because you cannot conduct polls in places like Pakistan, Indonesia or Saudi Arabia; second

because the situation is in constant flux. What we know is that in most Moslem countries there is

a growth of radical sentiment, that finds its expression in official media outlets, government

newspapers and TV stations, sermons that are broadcast by radio and TV, and a great deal of

literature. There are also opposing trends of a more liberal, or moderate, or open kind, but they

appear to be a distinct minority.

This, then, is the major danger that confronts us, as defenders of a universalist civilization

embodied in the legacy of the French and American revolutions, the British democratic tradition,

and the concept of groups of people being entitled to develop their specificity in the context of

some kind of democratic world order. We are faced with a genocidal threat to the Jewish people,

and then to others, as part of another attempt at a universal totalitarian dictatorship, under

religious auspices.

What can be done? The Americans appear to think, as pointed out already, that the main,

if not only, way is to use force. I am not against the use of force, but you cannot defeat an

ideology only by such means. Even in world war II, propaganda on the part of the allies was a

crucial part of the war waged against the Nazis. So the first point must be a mass effort at

propaganda to the Moslem world, by radio, TV, cassettes, newspapers, etc. This will be

Copyright © 2003 Yehuda Bauer

 18

unsuccessful if done only by non Moslems. Therefore an essential step must be to persuade

non radical Moslems to lead such a propagandistic effort. As mentioned before, there are such

people and such groups, but a concentrated effort must be made to find them and convince them.

The US has experience in such campaigns; Radio Free Europe and Voice of America were

important tools in the fight against Stalinism, and one should learn from the success of the

Khomeini revolution: it was achieved to no small degree by the massive distribution of cassette

tapes on which Khomeini's sermons were recorded.

The second point should be a well thought out program of economic investments. The

Marshall plan cannot be repeated here, because that was a plan making use of the nascent

democratic governments of post World War II Europe. In the Moslem world it is exactly existing

governments that must be avoided, because any investment through them would not only land in

the pockets of the ruling autocrats, but would be interpreted by many in the population as

another capitalist trick to maintain the rule of the West over them. Rather, help should come in

the form of pinpointed investments in projects that would develop an infrastructure and

encourage local entrepreneurship. The Investments should be made through an international

agency directly, without being channeled through local governments.

The third point could be a series of formal political alliances throughout the world against

Islamic radicalism, involving not only developed countries, but also third world countries, and

especially the non radical Moslem states of the former Soviet Union. Intelligence agencies

should not be granted independent status, as they have at the moment, but be controlled by a

political superstructure of formal inter governmental alliances that engage also in what has been

Copyright © 2003 Yehuda Bauer

 19

suggested above as the two first points.

Finally, force must be used wherever that is inevitable, and wherever there are concrete

targets of direct terrorist activity based on radical Islamist ideology.

These are interdependent suggestions, and one will probably not work without the others.

The guiding thought should, I think, be that we are faced with a genocidal ideology that

produces genocidal programs and genocidal forces. They are directed towards the Jews, but

ultimately, and quite explicitly, against Christians, secularists, Hindus, Buddhists, animists,

Confucians, and anyone who does not accept Islam. One of the characteristics that differentiate

radical Islam from Naziism and Communism is the lack of a centralised structure and, Bin Laden

apart, the absence of a uniting charismatic figure that would combine ideological leadership with

political authority. Radical Islamic movements are many and varied; thus, there are at least 17 in

Algeria, and a larger number in Kashmir, two in Palestine, and so on. The differences between

them are minuscule, and they aid and support each other, quarrelling over local leadership and

tactics, but united in purpose. It is much more difficult to combat a movement like that than it

was to face a centralised hostile bureaucracy.

Finally, there is a threatening background to all that. Sayid Qutb was not totally mistaken

—the West indeed is faced with problems of decadence and regression. The populations of

Europe and North America are not growing, or growing only through massive immigration, as in

the United States. In the latter case, there may be some reason to assume that the Hispanics

immigrating into the US will become part of the civilization developed over the past couple of

hundreds of years. But the 18 million Moslems who immigrated into Western and Central

Copyright © 2003 Yehuda Bauer

 20

Europe over the past decades are a different story. There are different groups among them, and

most of them are not radical Islamists—yet. But they do not integrate culturally, and the local

nationalities are decreasing. In Eastern and Southern Europe, there is a regression of local

populations, in Russia and Italy for example. The number of Jews in the world is static, below

the 13 million mark, and is destined to decline markedly in the next half century. Radical Islam

does have a chance, and world civilization must defend itself against that threat. To repeat—the

threat is genocidal, and we have been in that scenario before. We must not repeat past mistakes.

Copyright © 2003 Yehuda Bauer