Description

A compelling and detailed historical study of the Jews, the Arabs and the Holocaust. Unlike Germany, France and other European countries, whose role during the Holocaust has been exhaustively investigated, little attention has been devoted to the attitude of the Arab world towards the Jews during the Second World War. This book attempts to fill that gap by exploring Arab behaviour towards the Jews before and during the Holocaust, and Arab approval of Nazi policy regarding the Jewish question. Arab anti-Semitism acquired a distinct affinity with Nazi ideology at this time. The main assertion by the Arabs is that they bear no responsibility for the extermination of six million Jews in the Holocaust. This work asserts that Arab pressure upon the British to prevent entry of refugees, combined with violence against the Jews in Palestine, was the cause of the deaths of many who could have been saved. Another common assertion is that, prior to the advent of Zionism, Jews and Arabs lived peacefully side-by-side. The truth is that the Jews were always a minority in hostile surroundings. Little had been said about the persecution and massacres of Jews committed over centuries by Arabs from the dawn of Islam, in places like Yemen, Morocco, Persia and Iraq. Today, the Arabs have transformed traditional anti-Semitism into anti-Zionism. Arab anti-Semitism today is manifested inside the Arab world through anti-Israel literature, school curricula and internet sites which are indistinguishable from anti-Semitic discourse. The hatred of Jews, in its form and intensity, recalls the worst moments of European anti-Semitism.