Tarek Fatah - The Jew is Not My Enemy: Unveiling the Myths that Fuel Muslim Anti-Semitism

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR THE JEW IS NOT MY ENEMY

This is fascinating, thorough and, sadly, often deeply disturbing reading. Fatah knows and writes the truth and has managed to convey its complexities and nuances in a highly readable and compelling manner. Should become an essential work for anybody interested in the contemporary political and religious situation.

Michael Coren

Tarek Fatah boldly goes where few committed Muslims have the courage to follow. Delivered in crisp, accessible prose, The Jew Is Not My Enemy is a compelling blend of investigative journalism and scholarly interrogation of the religious texts, historical events and ideological currents propelling virulent Judeophobia in the Islamosphere. In this thoughtful blueprint for Islamic reform, Mr Fatah, a personal role model for his vision, offers hope to those stranded on the lonely path towards peace among the Israelite and the Ishmaelite.

Barbara Kay, columnist, National Post

As a Muslim member of the Danish parliament, I am aware of the role of Islamism in whipping up anti-Semitism and hatred towards Europe and the West. Tarek Fatah has run the gauntlet of hate and come out victorious as he does a brilliant expos of the myths that sustain Jew hatred in the Muslim World. This book is a must-read for any Jew and Muslim who wishes to honour the memory of Averroes and Maimonides.

Naser Khader, Member of Parliament (Folketinget), Denmark

A difficult undertaking considering todays political and intellectual stage, but Fatahs personal narrative and critical inquiry takes the reader to the historical roots of Muslim anti-Semitism. Fatah challenges Muslim myths that feed Judeophobia while urging Israel to abandon policies that help inflame these feelings. The Jew Is Not My Enemy uncovers novel stories from Jewish and Muslim scholars, politicians, and intellectuals that encourage Jewish-Muslim understanding. This book is essential reading for those interested in the overlapping of Muslim-Jewish history, politics, religion, and identity.

Dr. Mehnaz M. Afridi, Adjunct Professor, Islam, Judaism
and Holocaust Studies, Antioch University, California

It is courageous people like Tarek Fatah who will build bridges of understanding between Muslims and Jews. His new book is an important contribution towards this goal.

Shlomo Avineri, Professor of Political Science
at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Copyright 2010 by Tarek Fatah

All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency is an infringement of the copyright law.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Fatah, Tarek, 1949
The Jew is not my enemy : unveiling the myths that
fuel Muslim anti-Semitism / Tarek Fatah.

Issued also in electronic format.
eISBN: 978-0-7710-4785-5

1. Islam Relations Judaism. 2. Judaism Relations Islam. 3. Jews in
the Koran. 4. Jews in the Hadith. 5. Antisemitism Islamic countries.
6. Antisemitism in literature. 7. Muslims Attitudes. I. Title.

BP173.J8F37 2010 297.282 C2010-902282-3

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010934188

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v3.1

For Noor Inayat Khan
better known as Nora Baker (1914-1944)
George Cross, MBE, Croix de Guerre with Gold Star

The forgotten Muslim Indian Princess who died as Agent Madeline
in the Dachau Concentration Camp at the hands of
a Nazi execution squad.

Morality is doing what is right,
regardless of what we are told;
Religious dogma is doing what we are told,
no matter what is right.

E LKA R UTH E NOLA

Just after the end of the Second World War, an English scholar and cleric, James Parkes, wrote a succinct little book on anti-Semitism called An Enemy of the People. With the discovery of the Nazi death camps came an ever wider recognition of the end game of two thousand years of Jew-hatred: Hitlers plan to eliminate the Jewish people from the face of the earth.

Many scholars since that time have documented the Holocaust and traced its origins in Christian theology, medieval torture and expulsions, Tsarist pogroms, and racial theories given new life by bowdlerizing Darwin. We now understand that what seemed a catastrophic illness in Hitlers Germany and occupied Europe is in fact a chronic disease that has erupted in quite disastrous ways from time to time. Any idle exploration of the Internet, any scratching of the underbelly of politics today, would remind us that the eruptions of this terrible chronic condition continue.

Tarek Fatah opens our eyes to a world with which we are less familiar, but whose importance is critical for the times in which we live. Never one to pull his punches, he wades into debates about Islamic theology and politics and reminds us of the ugliness of Jew-hatred within parts of the Muslim tradition. It is, he argues, both alarmingly widespread and a deep offence to Islams humanistic traditions.

No doubt the book will arouse debate and controversy. To those of us who have known Tarek for a long time, that comes as no surprise. But it is a debate that needs to happen, because if Jefferson was right when he said that democracy is an infectious idea, so too is hatred. And no hatred has been more widespread and pernicious than hatred of the Jews.

What Tarek Fatahs critics will miss is that he speaks as a Muslim who refuses to allow his religion to become an exercise in propaganda. He points out the moments in human history when enlightened Muslim leaders welcomed Jews in their midst and encouraged scholars to understand the depth of what is common to great religious traditions. The golden age of Maimonides in al Andalus can come again.

There are passages in the Torah, the Bible, and the Quran that speak of death to infidels and the necessary slaughter of others for the survival of people chosen by God. Those who seek theological support for the narrowest of hatreds can, and have, found it in sacred texts.

But what Tarek Fatah points out is how toxic this has become in todays world, and that a demonization of the Jews, and Israel, is a particular feature of extremism that needs to be exposed.

The book combines history, theology, and politics. It shows that far from being anti-Semitic in its early years, Islam stressed its common heritage with the people of The Book, and that it is a return to this deeper understanding that could be a basis for hope.

No doubt Fatahs exposure of the futility of singling out Israel for all the troubles in the Middle East will earn him much predictable criticism, but readers should also recognize that Israeli settlement policy also comes in for criticism as he points out that a two-state policy requires a viable Palestine. He is nobodys patsy and calls it as he sees it. It is his independence of spirit and his willingness to engage in debate and discussion that have always marked his life. He criticizes freely and accepts the rules of the arena in return.