Anti-semitism and Islamophobia posted by Richard Seymour

Via Normblog, I come across a Ha'aretz story alleging that a radical Muslim group was behind the arson attack on a Jewish community centre in Paris yesterday. They cite a report on Army Radio which suggests that a Muslim site based in Paris claimed that radical Islamists were behind the attacks. They also report that French investigators were "skeptical" about the claim of responsibility.

I should point out, for those who haven't yet clicked on the link, that the headline of Ha'aretz's story, "Report: Radical Muslim group behind arson of Jewish center", actually concerns only two very short paragraphs at the beginning of a story that is 25 paragraphs long (although they later mention that the wave of anti-semitic attacks in France is possibly related to the course of the Arab-Israeli "peace process"). You also need to know that Army Radio in Israel is owned by the Israeli Defense Ministry. It was created by David Ben-Gurion to help mobilise reserve troops and preserve cohesion among soldiers, but has since come to be regarded as vaguely anti-establishment (unlike its elder twin, Israel Radio). It is run by soldiers and civilian army employees, and is apparently widely listened to. It has been sourced by hundreds of news organisations across the world from Fox News to The Guardian. Reuters also carry a similar story, suggesting that a group known as Jamaat Ansar al-Jihad al-Islamiya accepted responsibility for the attack, although it is not clear whether their source is Army Radio. For my part, I can find no mention of this group anywhere else. If there is a website in Paris containing a statement from such a purported group, I can't find it. (Methods ranged from various word combinations in search engines to rummaging round Muslim websites based in France).

That's the set-up. Where am I going with this? Well, the argument from Israel its Prime Minister has been that the rise in anti-Semitic incidents in Europe is the result of its growing Muslim population. According to The Guardian:

The Israeli Forum to Coordinate the Struggle Against Anti-semitism - a group of Israeli intelligence and foreign ministry officials - defines anti-semitism in three forms: classic, new and Muslim.

The forum asserts that the most dangerous strand has its roots in Islam and that the rising number of Muslims in Europe is responsible for fuelling terror attacks, street violence and general harassment of Jews.

Muslims are also blamed for the spread of anti-semitism to countries such as Denmark, previously renowned for its efforts to save Jewish lives during the Holocaust. Mr Sharon described the growing Muslim population in Europe as "endangering the life of Jewish people."

"Of course the sheer fact that there are a huge amount of Muslims, approximately 17 million in the EU, this issue has also turned into a political matter. I would say, in my opinion, EU governments are not doing enough to tackle anti-semitism," he said.

There is an almost automatic ideological response which is inclined to see anti-semitism as somehow imported into a recently civilised Europe by Muslims. Usually, this is seen as having somehow been accomodated by the Left and their public hostility to Israel. Recently a flutter of books have been published in America which advance different variations of this thesis. Of course it is perfectly true that many recent anti-semitic attacks have been carried out by Muslims. It is probably true that some of this is motivated by hostility to Israel and its behaviour in the occupied territories. But let's be clear on one thing - anti-semitism in Europe is largely the territory of the far right, which usually doesn't get on very well with Muslims either.

A report issued this year by the European Monitoring Commission on Racism and Xenophobia identified those responsible as "young, disaffected white Europeans" ... followed by North African or Asian Muslims. Indeed, while a large percentage of anti-semitic attacks in France have been attributed to Muslims, it is also a country in which the Islamophobic, anti-Semitic politician Jean Marie Le-Pen can get almost 20% of the vote. Eastern European countries are experiencing a rise nationalist, anti-semitic sentiment, with hard right politicians accusing the Jews of having been the cause of Bolshevism etc. On the other hand, Portugal has a reasonable Muslim population, (about 36,000, far larger than the number of Jewish citizens) but has showed no particular signs of increased anti-semitism. Belgium has 410,350 Muslims living in it, but again there has not been the increase in anti-semitic attacks reported in France. Germany has 2,840,228 Muslims, almost double the number of France, but there is little evidence of growing anti-semitism there. As The Economist notes, there has been increasing criticism of Israel within the mainstream, but "though far-right violence has risen in the past few years (and dropped a bit last year), it is mainly directed against Muslims from North Africa and Turkey, not against Jews."

There is no clear correlation between the numbers of Muslims in European countries and the subsistence of anti-semitism there. Anti-semitism is certainly a growing problem in France, but anti-semitic attitudes seem to be spreading universally (although are still vastly stronger on the far right than anywhere else).

I don't know whether the attack on a Jewish centre in Paris was carried out by Muslims or non-Muslims. There are good grounds for being sceptical about the story emanating from Israel Army Radio, but it could equally prove to be accurate. The point is to decouple the serious and necessary fight against anti-semitism, from whichever quarter, from the Islamophobic connotations that have often come with it. Clearly, certain extremist Islamist groups nurture a very old-fashioned kind of anti-semitism which is also leavened by hostility to Israel. But hostility to Israel is not anti-semitism, the presence of large numbers of Muslims does not guarantee that anti-semitism will persist, and the fight against Jew hatred, intimidation and violence has to be allied with another struggle that is of equal import and even more urgent - that against the gathering storm of anti-Muslim prejudice across Europe today.

Update: Jonathan Derbyshire draws my attention to a story in Le Monde which corroborates Ha'aretz's story. Noting that I also link to a Reuters piece that does the same, he wonders: "since, as you observe, the Ha'retz piece itself acknowledges that French investigators have cast doubt over the veracity of the Islamist link, why mention Ha'aretz and Army Radio at all?" The only honest answer is, it was an ill-conceived gesture based on little more than suspicion. I'm not above folly, and not beneath admitting to it. It has diverted from my point rather than adding to it, so although I note the vaguely hostile tone of Derbyshire's intervention, I am glad he gave me the opportunity to clear this up. A Google translation of Le Monde's story can be found here .