20
PARTISAN REVIEW
Right have a lot to do with the world of Hitler and of Arab extremists
was hardly mentioned. The assertion repeatedly made by the over–
whelming majority of Islam scholars the media now (naturally) consults
(both in the United States and in Germany) to offer the public some kind
of explanation for this outrage is all about what a peace-loving, inclusive,
and tolerant religion Islam is. When then asked how these terrorists jus–
tify their actions exclusively in accordance with Islam, we often hear a
combination of two factors. First, we are dealing with a perversion of
Islam among an infinitely small group that is completely unrepresenta–
tive of both Islam and the Arab world, just as "Christianity" espoused
by the Ku Klux Klan is not representative of Christianity. Secondly, ana–
lytically this is a comprehensible (though normatively reprehensible)
reaction on the part of these groups and of the Islamic and Arab world
to the West's (and especially America's) failed policy of globalization
and to the general disadvantages and inequalities suffered by poor
Southern countries vis-a.-vis (and on account of) the wealthy North. One
can certainly appreciate the Islamic cholars' view that Islam "in and of
itself" has a broad scope for tolerance and-in practice too, at least his–
torically speaking-was way ahead of other religions that exercised
state power.
Few, if any, of the Islam experts in the United State or in Germany
since September
I
Ith mentioned in any meaningful manner the animos–
ity toward Jews that extends far beyond any aversion to Israel that
exists in modern, and especially Arab, Islam. None of the following
were mentioned: the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (which already in
1929
exhorted the Arab world to take up arms against "crusaders and
Jews"); not a word about the vile anti-Semitic writings of Sayyid Qutb,
one of the Brotherhood's main authors whose works today are widely
read and very well known in the Arab world; the Jerusalem Mufti's
notorious love for Hitler; top-level Nazis like Alois Brunner continuing
to enjoy complete political asylum in Syria; Gamal Abdel Nasser, who
hired German rocket designers in order to destroy Israel; Arab countries
that have become the largest purveyors of anti-Semitic literature; not a
word about how "Stiirmer"-like caricatures of Jews have become stan–
dard fare in established Arab newspapers like Cairo's
at Ahram;
ser–
mons in mosques that have degenerated into murderous anti-Jewish
tirades; the UN's anti-racism conference in Durban, where the old anti–
Semitic forgery of the Czarist secret police "The Protocols of the Elders
of Zion" was openly-and, according to credible reports, successfully–
served up to the attending public. There was complete silence on these
Issues.
