The Formation of Prejudice and Stereotypes in the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Anti-Judaism and antisemitism accompany Christian-occidental history right from her beginnings. The Center for Research on Antisemitism has addressed this phenomenon in the recent European history and sponsored a series of scholarly conferences on the current developments since the collapse of the Communist nations in Central and Eastern Europe [International Conferences: Antisemitism in Europe (1992), conferences on antisemitism and the Holocaust in Latvia (1949), Lithuania, (1996) Slovakia (1997) Poland (1998) and Romania (1999)]. These investigations have identified an overly ideological harsh rejection of Israel (anti-Zionism) primarily among West European leftists and in the policies of the former eastern bloc nations, which supported the Arab side of the Middle East conflict, and which often escalated to world conspiratorial antisemitic thinking. For the most part, scholars in Oriental and Islamic Studies or Middle East history and Israeli scholars of antisemitism are the ones examining the extreme forms of hostility towards Israel and Jews in general. That has made clear how much the European traditions of antisemitism have been adopted and spread by Arab anti-Zionism. Meanwhile, on the Internet a network has been established between European right wingers and Arabic anti-Zionists. As a result of the contact and the migration of Muslims to Europe, there exists the possibility today of a kind of re-importation of parts of the original Christian occidental tradition of antisemitism that had been borrowed by the Arabs.

The planned conference should bring together scholars of different disciplines (Islamic studies, history, political science, sociology) from Germany, Europe and other countries to address the development since the end of the 19th century of an anti-Jewish/anti-Israeli hostility in the Arab world in connection with the Palestinian conflict. In order to draw connections between the conflict and prejudice/discrimination and to understand the historical origins and forms, a complementary construction of an anti-Arab prejudice and hostility from the side of the Zionists/Israelis must also be included in the analysis. On the basis of this approach, the planned conference has been designed according to the following:

Unlike Christian anti-Judaism, Islam did not experience an anti-Judaism that was similarly based on a religious justification, although Jews in society were relegated to a lower social status (dhimmi). The conference, for this reason, should begin with a lecture that addresses the relationship between the triangle of Moslems-Jews-Christians in the pre-colonial period. If there was never an indigenous Islamic anti-Judaism, and antisemitism in the Arab history does not present an important problem, then the next step must be the reception of Christian antisemitism in the Arab world as part of the European powers' influence in the Arabic sphere since the 19th century. This intervention to the advantage of the Christians destabilized the Moslem-Christian-Jewish relations. Legends of ritual murder since the Damascus affair (1840) and the accusation against Jews as traitors in the French Dreyfus Affair were used to spread parts of the antisemitic ideology throughout the Arabic-Christian population. The topic therefore is also to be approached as reception history.

This applies certainly also in part to the current situation, since prejudice and hostility towards Jews in the Arab states in content are strongly conditioned by the repertoire of European antisemitism and function primarily as an ideological instrument in the conflict with Israel. The fundamental anti-Zionistic position of the Arabs, who early on turned against the Zionistic settlement projects in Palestine, determined the attitude toward European antisemitism and the Holocaust. On the other

hand, from the beginning one finds the formation of anti-Arab stereotypes in the Zionist movement. Correspondingly, the development throughout the various phases of the Middle East conflict should be addressed in a diachronic perspective. From Bernard Lewis, one can distinguish four phases: 1) the beginnings of the Zionistic settlements, as of 1882, in what at the time was still the Ottoman Reich; 2) the period of the British mandate from 1918, which presents a decided change to an anti-Zionist position and establishes a complementary hostile image of Arabs from the point of view of the Zionists, 3) the phase of violent conflict setting in with the founding of Israel in 1948, 4) the phase following the defeat of the neighboring Arab states in the Six Day War of 1967. One could also see a fifth phase in the breakthrough of Islamification which begins with the Iranian Revolution of 1979; signifying a turning away from western politics and western values, as well as explicitly against Israel and also influencing radical movements like the Hamas, Hisbollah and Intifada. The final phase could be seen in the situation since the peace process began as it differs from previous periods.

In each phase, the Arab anti-Zionist propaganda follows the current prefigured ideologies in Europe: the Zionist settlers are attacked for being conspiratorial and revolutionary communists; the phase of the Second World war to the end of the 1950s is determined by the reception of National Socialist antisemitism, partially imported by National Socialist immigrants (like Johannes von Leers). This is a phase in which Arab states turn away from Socialism, and comparisons are made between Jews and Nazis. In the Islamic movements, elements of an anti-western thought can be detected in which anti-American attitudes are mixed with anti-Zionist /anti-Jewish sentiment. To analyze this subject one should look at the pictures drawn in the literature and visual art on the Israeli as well as on the Arab side. Moreover, the different positions found in selected Arab countries and the various movements and organizations belonging to Israel and the Jews must be synchronically regarded. The connection to Europe must also be taken into consideration here. This entails for one, the connection of Arab anti-Zionism to the European radical Right, particularly over the Internet, and secondly, its re-importation by immigrants from Islamic states. If one sees the real core of the production of hostile images in the Arab-Israeli conflict, then one has to direct attention to the Jewish-Zionist side where complementary, even anti-Arab-anti-Moslem hostile images have existed since the end of the 19th century. An analysis of "Islamic and Arabic images" should illucidate the historical depth and also address the current hostile images in the Israeli public and in specific political movements and groups in Israel.

We would like to invite you to our conference "The Formation of Prejudice and Stereotypes in the Arab-lsraeli Conflict". It would be very helpful if could register in advance. You will find the complete conference program on the next pages.

Conference start: Wednesday, September 6, 2000, 10:00 a.m.

Conference place: Technische Universität Berlin, Main Building, Straße des 17. Juni 135, room H 3010, 10623 Berlin

The lectures will be held in English, French and German and will be translated simultaneously into English and German. The conference is supported by the German Research Community, the Federal Central Office for Political Development and the Foundation Preussische Seehandlung.