Anti Semitism in Egypt

[question everything]

The subject line, below, no doubt was given by the WSJ editorial board in order to flame. But the content is worth noting.

OCTOBER 29, 2009

Why Are Egypt's 'Liberals' Anti-Semitic?

By AMR BARGISI And SAMUEL TADROS

Cairo

(snip)

Yet, at least in Egypt, there's a dirty little secret about these self-described liberal parties: They are, for the most part, virulently anti-Semitic. Consider the case of Sekina Fouad, a well-known journalist who also serves as Al-Gabha, or Democratic Front Party DFP's vice president. In an article published earlier this year, Ms. Fouad dismisses any distinction between Jews and Israelis, the reason for which is "the extremity of the doctrine of arrogance, distinctiveness and condescension set out from and seek to achieve by all means, and on top of which blood, killing, terrorizing and frightening." She corroborates this argument with an alleged statement by "President" Benjamin Franklin, asking Americans to expel Jews since they are "like locusts, never to get on a green land without leaving it deserted and barren." Needless to say, Franklin never made any such statement.

Nor is Ms. Fouad some kind of outlier. Take Ayman Nour, who contested the 2005 presidential election under the banner of his own party and was subsequently jailed for nearly four years. Immediately after his release earlier this year, he attended a celebration organized by opposition groups—including the Muslim Brotherhood — in the northern city of Port Said, commemorating "the first battalion of volunteers from the Egyptian People setting off to fight the Jews in 1948." The word "Jews" was stressed in bolded black lettering on the otherwise blue and red banner hanging above the conference panel. Yet far from trying to distance himself from that message, Mr. Nour got into the spirit of the conference, talking about "the value of standing up to this enemy, behind which lies all evils, conspiracies and threats that are spawned against Egypt."

Then there is the case of Egypt's oldest "liberal" party, Al-Wafd, whose eponymous daily newspaper is one of Egypt's most active platforms for anti-Semitism. Following President Obama's conciliatory Cairo speech to the Muslim world, columnist Ahmed Ezz El-Arab faulted Mr. Obama for insisting that the Holocaust was an actual historical event.

These examples are, sadly, just the tip of an iceberg. What makes them all the more remarkable is that, contrary to stereotype, they do not have particularly ancient roots in Egypt. Until Egypt's Jews were expelled by Gamal Abdel Nasser in the 1950s and '60s, Egypt had a millennia-old, thriving Jewish community. As late as the 1930s, Jewish politicians occupied ministerial posts in Egyptian governments and participated in nationalist politics. But all that changed with the rise of totalitarian and fascist movements in Europe, which found more than their share of imitators in the Arab world. When Egypt's monarchy was overthrown in 1952 by a military coup, anti-Semitism became an ideological pillar of the new totalitarian dispensation.

Since then, Egypt has evolved, coming to terms (of a sort) with Israel and adopting some market-based economic principles. But anti-Semitism remains the glue holding Egypt's disparate political forces together. This is especially true of the so-called liberals, who think they can traffic on their anti-Semitism to gain favor in quarters where they would otherwise be suspect. Westerners, who tend to treat Arabs with a condescension masked as "understanding," may be quick to dismiss all this as a function of anger at Israeli policies and therefore irrelevant to the development of liberal politics in the Arab world. Yet a liberal movement that winds up espousing the kind of anti-Semitism that would have done the Nazis proud is, quite simply, not liberal.

—Messrs. Bargisi and Tadros are senior partners with the Egyptian Union of Liberal Youth.

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A19

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704335904574497143564035718.html

[sui generis]

1. Egypt is no different than anywhere else

We all love a good boogeyman to put a face to our personal miseries, and the social leadership that benefits from this "glue" is happy to keep those fires stoked.

Here on DU, it's the conservative republicans (I'll buy that), but there are plenty of people who will assault you verbally and personally merely for not agreeing with them, and tinge their replies with intimations of violence. The funniest ones are the ones who say "you lie" whenever you disagree with them. Not so different.

The problem is when views like that become ideological pillars built on irrational soil. My mother is German, and my grandfather and uncle went to Dachau. My uncle, 14 at the time, did not survive. My partner's family has no jewish heritage, and dozens of his family were sent to various concentration camps from Slovakia and Hungary. The holocaust was not just a jewish holocaust. Entire regions of settlers in areas of Europe were casually wiped off the face of the earth, and whatever fledgling gay sub-culture was in Europe was nearly exterminated as well. I for one am tired of it being referred to as anything but "The Holocaust", and cringe every time I hear it referred to as the "Jewish Holocaust", because that is only a partial truth.

And yet, these stupid madrassa children who have never had the tiniest skin in the game are being manipulated to babble about no holocaust existing, and using jewish culture as a feeble excuse for acting on hatred - they are becoming the norm in much of the middle east. I don't think it's happening in a vacuum though. You can only hear so many reports of Palestinian living conditions, and of bad Israeli public policy before the line between Judaism and the policies of the state of Israel get confused, and there are predators standing by ready to stir that pot once it starts bubbling.

Who is responsible? The news, or the events that make the news? Maybe a little of both . . .

[question everything]

2. You raised many excellent points, all true

First, yes, DU is often the mirror image of freerepublic. Or, of Bush: "you are either with us or against us." And, it appears, DU bans people almost as quickly as FR does - from descriptions.

There were 11 million on-combat people killed by the Germans and their allies, including the six million Jews, as I have recently posted on a different thread. However, the "Final Solution" plan, engineered by Adolph Eichmann, was specifically about Jews. The Nuremberg Laws were aimed specifically at Jews and the Evian conference was to show the world that no other country was willing to take the German Jews.

Of course, there have been acts of mass killing all over the world, including Stalin's Gulag, Cambodia, Rwanda, but none was as specific and systemic - dare I refer to German efficiency? - as the Jewish Holocaust.

And, yes, you are right that governments, mostly, need a boogeyman. There were about 600,000 Jews who fled Arab countries and a similar number of Palestinians who fled what became the State of Israel. Yet, while the Jews were absorbed by Israel and became regular citizens, the Palestinians were left to fester in miserable refugee camps and used as a diversion by many Arab governments to divert any questions about their regimes.