When Palestinian Jews Were Under Muslim Rule

 

Originally posted May 15, 2007

In a post from December, 2005, Chardal writes about Life Under Muslim Rule in general, and has a section focusing on what life was like in then-Palestine for Jews.

THE HOLY LAND UNDER MUSLIM RULE

Since the Arabian invasion of Palestine in the seventh century, Jews and Christians were allowed to remain alive, between attacks, to be a source of funds obtained by special taxes and extortions, and to serve as helpless scapegoats for the Muslim masses. This policy continued under successive waves of other Muslim non-Arab conquerors of the Holy Land, as well.

The lawful humiliation of the non-Muslim was a fact of life. The degree of harshness of the persecution depended on the whim of the particular ruler.

Arab dominion over non-Muslims was reminiscent of the nation of Amalek of biblical infamy:

"Amalek represents that principle which judges the dignity of men and nations solely in terms of visible power and domination. It is willing to condone any act as long as it results in successful conquest. It will tolerate only that which it fears or that which it can safely despise" (Rabbi S.R. Hirsch, Collected Writings II, p.414).

From the beginning of Muslim Turkish rule in 1516, Jews had to pass Muslims on their left side, the side of Satan (David Landes, "Palestine Before the Zionists." Commentary, February 1976). Sultan Murad III decreed death for all Jews of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, but later commuted the sentence (Jacob de Haas, History of Palestine, New York, 1934).

In 1586, the famous Ramban Synagogue of the Old City of Jerusalem was seized by the Muslim authorities. This had been the last synagogue in Jerusalem remaining in Jewish hands (Ben Gurion, Israel, Tel Aviv, 1971).

One single Jew survived the Muslim massacre in the holy city of Safad in 1660 (Jacob de Haas, History of Palestine, New York, 1934).

In 1775, Muslim mob violence against the Jews of Hebron was incited by the infamous blood libel (Samuel Katz, Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in Palestine, New York, 1973).

The Albanian born Mamluk "Arab", called "the Butcher", terrorized the land with his sadistic exploits through the late 1700's (Jacob de Haas, History of Palestine, New York, 1934).

To be permitted to pray by the Wailing Wall, the Jews paid a high annual rent to the Arab whose property adjoined it. They paid protection money to Muslim officials, already paid by the Turkish Government, for fear of desecration of the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives, and of Rachel's Tomb (David Landes, Palestine Before the Zionists, 1976).

In the 1830's, during the brief Egyptian reign over Palestine, the Jews found themselves caught between the ravages of the Egyptian soldiers and the multi-ethnic Muslim rebels who fought them:

"Forty thousand fellahin rushed on Jerusalem... The mob entered, and looted the city for five or six days. The Jews were the worst sufferers, their homes were sacked and their women were violated" (Jacob de Haas, History of Palestine, New York, 1934).

News of the Damascus blood libel of 1840 brought heightened waves of persecution and murder of Jews throughout Palestine (Moshe Ma'oz, ed., Studies in Palestine During the Ottoman Period, Jerusalem, 1975).

In 1914, after returning from his heinous mass slaughter of the Armenian people, Turkish commander Baha-ud Did threatened to do the same to the Jews if he ever got the chance. Fierce persecutions ensued. Use of the Hebrew language was banned. Entire Jewish families were thrown in prison. Jewish males were forced into labor battalions. Farm carts and animals were confiscated just before harvest time. The entire Jewish population of Jaffa was expelled on Passover, 1915. Resistors were hanged. Thousands wandered helplessly on the roads, starving (Martin Gilbert, Exile and Return, New York, 1978).

During the last few years of Muslim rulership over Palestine, torture for a Jew was the norm upon arrest. By the time the British routed the Turkish Ottomans from Palestine in 1917, the entire country, including the new Jewish settlements, had been plundered.

The documented Muslim excesses committed during the corrupt Turkish rule over Palestine from 1516 to 1917, are too hideous and numerous to record (See Joan Peters; From Time Immemorial p.190 et seq.).

Something to keep in mind when Palestinian apologists hearken back to the good old days when Jews were subservient to Muslims.

Life under muslim rule

 

DB claims that unlike Jewish life in christian Europe, life for Jews under muslim rule was just dandy. While it is true that christian Europe was historically the most violent towards the Jews, this by no means means that life under the Arabs was good. Here is a brief overview of the Jew in Islam and under the rule of Arab society:

JEWISH LIFE UNDER ARAB RULE

According to Arab propagandists, the main issue of the Arab-Israel conflict is "the Palestinian state". This is a myth. As will be clearly demonstrated, the main issue is, rather, the deep, traditional and religious hatred of the Arab for the Jew.

In 1948, before 800,000 Jews fled, 990,000 Jews lived throughout the Arab world. Many Jewish communities had been established 2,400 years before. Some, such as the Yemenite Jewish community, date back from the time of the destruction of the First Jewish Temple by the Babylonians, in the fifth century before the common era.

Arab propaganda would have the world believe that there exists a long tradition of Arab tolerance. In the words of the late King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, in 1973: "Before the Jewish state was established,there existed nothing to harm good relations between Arabs and Jews."

And, according to former PLO head, Yasser Arafat: "We are not against the Jews. On the contrary, we are Semites and we have been living with each other in peace and fraternity, Muslims, Jews and Christians for many centuries."

But numerous scholarly works and eye-witness reports document the long history of violence, oppression and humiliation suffered by Jews and Christians in the Arab lands from the rise of Islam in the seventh century, until the present day.

THE RISE OF ISLAM

In the Arabian city of Medina, Islam's founder, Muhammad, at first courted the favor of the long-respected Jewish community. He even adopted several Jewish practices, such as the fast of Yom Kippur and prayer in the direction of Jerusalem, in the hope of acquiring Jewish converts for his new religion.
When it became clear to him that the Jews were not interested in trading their faith, his attitude toward the Jews soured. Muhammad's resentment was canonized in Islam's holy book, the Koran. Although also containing some earlier, benign references to Jews, the Koran remains decidedly anti-Jewish:

"The most vehement of mankind in hostility are the Jews and the Idolaters... 
distorting with their tongues and slandering religion...
the greediest of mankind...
desire nothing but your ruin...
commit evil and become engrossed in sin...
Allah hath cursed them for their disbelief.
Taste ye the punishment of burning.
Those who disbelieve our revelations, we shall expose them to the fire.
As often as their skins are consumed, we shall exchange them for fresh skins that they may taste the torment."

Thus, the holy book of Islam, the Koran, presents the Jewish people as inherently evil, treacherous, and as infidels of their prophet, Muhammad, Islam's founder.

Furthermore, from among other statements of Muhammad in the Hadith: 

"The resurrection of the dead will not come until the Muslims will war with the Jews and the Muslims will kill them... The trees and rocks will say, "O Muslim, O Abdulla, here is a Jew behind me, come and kill him."

ISLAMIC ATTITUDES BEAR BITTER FRUIT

Muhammad's new attitude was expressed in practical deed. Upon the thriving Jewish oasis community of Khaibar, north of Mecca and Medina, Muhammad inflicted inhuman atrocities (Israel Ben Zeev, Jews in Arabia). Furthermore, he hideously annihilated the Quraizan Jews of Arabia -- adults and children.

It was Quraizan Jews who had established the prosperous town of Yathrib that attracted an infiltration of the pagan Arabs before the rise of Islam. (This pattern of Jewish industriousness attracting an Arab work force was to repeat itself over and over during the present century.) The Moslem Arabs, now united under Muhammad, eliminated the Jews and expropriated their wealth. The town's name was changed to Medina -- Islam's second-holiest city (Bernard Lewis, Arabs in History, New York, 1966).

This pattern of plundering the possessions of Jews under Arab control was to continue into this century. It is justified by the Koran:

"Some you slew and others you took captive. Allah made you masters of the Jews' land, their houses, and their goods..." (the Koran, Surah 33, Dawood translation).

"Make war... until they pay tribute in a state of humiliation" (the Koran 9:29).

Muhammad's fame spread; the pagan Arabs flocked to him; the Arabian Muslim creed gathered an earth-shattering momentum (Alfred Guillaume, Islam, Baltimore, 1954).

That momentum propelled the Arabs into control of vast territories, far beyond the Arabian peninsula. The Arab conquests constituted a further fulfillment of the biblical verses:

"And he [Ishmael, father of the Arab people] will be a wildman. His hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him, and in the face of all his brethren will he dwell" (Genesis XVI, 12), "...and I will make him into a large nation" (Genesis XXI, 18).

THE JEW IN ISLAMIC LAW

Muhammad's successor, Omar, codified the twelve laws under which a non-Muslim, or dhimmi, would be suffered to exist in the Arab world. Calculated to impoverish and humiliate, these Islamic laws were enforced on pain of death.

Among other restrictions, Jews were forbidden to touch the Koran, practise Judaism in public, or own a horse. Jews were forced to wear particular clothing, including a piece of yellow cloth as a badge. Expressions of grief at Jewish burials were not to reach the ears of Muslims.

By Islamic law, Jewish or Christian testimony was meaningless against a Muslim. On the other hand, the dhimmi lived in constant fear of the Muslim, for there would be no way of defending himself against an accusation of cursing Islam.

Although a Muslim was subject to capital punishment for the murder of a fellow Muslim, the murder of a dhimmi would, at most, cost him a fine.

For this Arab "tolerance", the infidel dhimmi paid extra taxes as prescribed in the Koran:

"Fight against those who believe not in Allah... until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low."

And they did fight; with a brutality that has become a trademark. The helpless Jews in Arab lands repeatedly tasted Arab savagery. Those typical hatchet-and-knife pogroms were visited with regularity also upon the dhimmi Jews of the Holy Land.

THE HOLY LAND UNDER MUSLIM RULE

Since the Arabian invasion of Palestine in the seventh century, Jews and Christians were allowed to remain alive, between attacks, to be a source of funds obtained by special taxes and extortions, and to serve as helpless scapegoats for the Muslim masses. This policy continued under successive waves of other Muslim non-Arab conquerors of the Holy Land, as well.

The lawful humiliation of the non-Muslim was a fact of life. The degree of harshness of the persecution depended on the whim of the particular ruler.

Arab dominion over non-Muslims was reminiscent of the nation of Amalek of biblical infamy:

"Amalek represents that principle which judges the dignity of men and nations solely in terms of visible power and domination. It is willing to condone any act as long as it results in successful conquest. It will tolerate only that which it fears or that which it can safely despise" (Rabbi S.R. Hirsch, Collected Writings II, p.414).

From the beginning of Muslim Turkish rule in 1516, Jews had to pass Muslims on their left side, the side of Satan (David Landes, "Palestine Before the Zionists." Commentary, February 1976). Sultan Murad III decreed death for all Jews of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, but later commuted the sentence (Jacob de Haas, History of Palestine, New York, 1934).

In 1586, the famous Ramban Synagogue of the Old City of Jerusalem was seized by the Muslim authorities. This had been the last synagogue in Jerusalem remaining in Jewish hands (Ben Gurion, Israel, Tel Aviv, 1971).

One single Jew survived the Muslim massacre in the holy city of Safad in 1660 (Jacob de Haas, History of Palestine, New York, 1934).

In 1775, Muslim mob violence against the Jews of Hebron was incited by the infamous blood libel (Samuel Katz, Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in Palestine, New York, 1973).

The Albanian born Mamluk "Arab", called "the Butcher", terrorized the land with his sadistic exploits through the late 1700's (Jacob de Haas, History of Palestine, New York, 1934).

To be permitted to pray by the Wailing Wall, the Jews paid a high annual rent to the Arab whose property adjoined it. They paid protection money to Muslim officials, already paid by the Turkish Government, for fear of desecration of the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives, and of Rachel's Tomb (David Landes, Palestine Before the Zionists, 1976).

In the 1830's, during the brief Egyptian reign over Palestine, the Jews found themselves caught between the ravages of the Egyptian soldiers and the multi-ethnic Muslim rebels who fought them:

"Forty thousand fellahin rushed on Jerusalem... The mob entered, and looted the city for five or six days. The Jews were the worst sufferers, their homes were sacked and their women were violated" (Jacob de Haas, History of Palestine, New York, 1934).

News of the Damascus blood libel of 1840 brought heightened waves of persecution and murder of Jews throughout Palestine (Moshe Ma'oz, ed., Studies in Palestine During the Ottoman Period, Jerusalem, 1975).

In 1914, after returning from his heinous mass slaughter of the Armenian people, Turkish commander Baha-ud Did threatened to do the same to the Jews if he ever got the chance. Fierce persecutions ensued. Use of the Hebrew language was banned. Entire Jewish families were thrown in prison. Jewish males were forced into labor battalions. Farm carts and animals were confiscated just before harvest time. The entire Jewish population of Jaffa was expelled on Passover, 1915. Resistors were hanged. Thousands wandered helplessly on the roads, starving (Martin Gilbert, Exile and Return, New York, 1978).

During the last few years of Muslim rulership over Palestine, torture for a Jew was the norm upon arrest. By the time the British routed the Turkish Ottomans from Palestine in 1917, the entire country, including the new Jewish settlements, had been plundered.

The documented Muslim excesses committed during the corrupt Turkish rule over Palestine from 1516 to 1917, are too hideous and numerous to record (See Joan Peters; From Time Immemorial p.190 et seq.).

List of massacres in Palestine

Palestine is a name, among others, for the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands.^[1] The region is also known as the Land of Israel and the Holy Land.^[2][3]

List of killings and massacres committed in Mandate Palestine[edit]

See also[edit]

1980s[edit]

1989 (1 attack)[edit]

Name	Date	Location	Death toll	Notes
Bus 405 suicide attack	July 6, 1989	Near Kiryat Yearim	16	Carried out by Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

1990s[edit]

1993 (2 bombings)[edit]

Name	Date	Location	Death toll	Notes
Mehola Junction bombing	April 16, 1993	Mehola junction	1	Hamas claimed responsibility.[6] Carried out together with Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Beit El car bomb	October 4, 1993	Near Beit El	29 injured	Hamas member Sulayman Idan was responsible.[7][8]

1994 (5 bombings)[edit]

Name	Date	Location	Death toll	Notes
Afula Bus suicide bombing	April 6, 1994	Afula	8	Hamas claimed responsibility. Carried out together with Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Hadera bus station suicide bombing	April 13, 1994	Hadera	5	Hamas claimed responsibility. Carried out together with Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Dizengoff Street bus bombing	October 19, 1994	Tel Aviv	22	Attributed to Hamas.
Netzarim Junction bicycle bombing	November 11, 1994	Netzarim	3	Hamas claimed responsibility. Carried out together with Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Jerusalem Binyanei Hauma suicide bombing	December 25, 1994	Jerusalem	13 injured	Attributed to Hamas.

1995 (4 bombings)[edit]

Name	Date	Location	Death toll	Notes
Beit Lid massacre	January 22, 1995	Beit Lid Junction	21	Two bombers. One detonated at rescue party. Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
Kfar Darom bus attack	April 9, 1995	Vicinity of Kfar Darom	8	Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
Ramat Gan bus 20 bombing	July 24, 1995	Ramat Gan	6	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Ramat Eshkol bus bombing	August 21, 1995	Jerusalem	4	Police Chief Noam Eisenman was killed. Hamas claimed responsibility.

1996 (4 bombings)[edit]

Name	Date	Location	Death toll	Notes
Ashkelon bus station bombing	February 25, 1996	Ashqelon	1	Hamas claimed responsibility.
First Jerusalem bus 18 suicide bombing	February 25, 1996	Jerusalem Central Bus station	26	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Second Jerusalem bus 18 suicide bombing	March 3, 1996	Jaffa street, Jerusalem	19	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Dizengoff Center suicide bombing	March 4, 1996	Tel Aviv	13	Attributed to Hamas. Carried out together with Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

1997 (3 bombings)[edit]

Name	Date	Location	Death toll	Notes
Café Apropo bombing	March 21, 1997	Tel Aviv	3	Hamas claimed responsibility.
1st Mahane Yehuda Market attack	July 30, 1997	Jerusalem main market	16	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Ben Yehuda Street Bombing	September 4, 1997	Jerusalem Ben Yehuda Street	5	Hamas claimed responsibility.

1998 (2 bombings)[edit]

Name	Date	Location	Death toll	Notes
1st Kfar Darom bombing	October 29, 1998	Gaza Strip	1	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Jerusalem bombing	November 6, 1998	Jerusalem	2	20 wounded. Two Islamic Jihad suicide bombers.[9]

1999 (2 bombings)[edit]

Name	Date	Location	Death toll	Notes
Egged bus 960 bombing	September 5, 1999	Tveria	None	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Haifa Central Bus Station bombing	September 5, 1999	Haifa	None	Hamas claimed responsibility.

2000s[edit]

2000 (5 bombings)[edit]

Name	Date	Location	Death toll	Notes
Gaza bombing	October 26, 2000	Gaza Strip	1 injured	Youth suicide bomber on bike. Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
2nd Mahane Yehuda Market attack	November 2, 2000	Jerusalem	2	Booby-trapped car. Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
2nd Kfar Darom bombing	November 20, 2000	Gaza Strip	2	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Hadera main street bombing	November 22, 2000	Hadera	2	Booby-trapped car. Hamas claimed responsibility.
Mehola bombing	December 22, 2000	Mehola Junction	3 injured	Hamas claimed responsibility.

2001 (40 bombings)[edit]

Name	Date	Location	Death toll	Notes
Netanya centre bombing	January 1, 2001	Netanya	60 injured	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Tayibe Bridge bombing	January 30, 2001	Tayibe	2 injured	Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
Beit Yisrael bombing	February 8, 2001	Jerusalem	2 injured	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Mei Ami junction bombing	March 1, 2001	Vadi Ara	1	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Netanya bombing	March 4, 2001	Netanya	3	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Talpiot industrial zone bombing	March 27, 2001	Jerusalem	7 injured	Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
Egged bus 6 bombing	March 27, 2001	French Hill, Jerusalem	28 injured	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Mifgash Shalom attack	March 28, 2001	Mifgash Shalom gas station, Kfar Saba	2	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Kfar Saba bombing	April 22, 2001	Kfar Saba	1	Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
Or Yehuda bombing	April 23, 2001	Near Ben Gurion Airport	8 injured	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Nablus school bus bombing	April 29, 2001	Nablus, West Bank	None	Hamas claimed responsibility.
HaSharon Mall suicide bombing	May 18, 2001	HaSharon shopping mall, Netanya	5	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Hadera Mall bombing	May 25, 2001	Hadera	None	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Hadera bus station suicide bombing	May 25, 2001	Central bus station, Hadera	65 injured	2 Palestinians within a car bomb. Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
Jerusalem Center bombing	May 27, 2001	Jerusalem	None	PFLP claimed responsibility.
Jaffa Road bombing	May 27, 2001	Jerusalem	30 injured	Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
Netanya school bombing	May 30, 2001	Netanya	8 injured	Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
Dolphinarium discotheque suicide bombing	June 1, 2001	Tel Aviv	21	Hamas claimed responsibility.[10]
Dugit bombing	June 22, 2001	Gaza Strip	2	Booby trapped car's explosion. Hamas claimed responsibility.
Yehud suburb bombing	July 2, 2001	Tel Aviv	6 injured	Explosion of two separate bombs. PFLP claimed responsibility.
Kissufim bombing	July 9, 2001	Southern Gaza Strip crossing point	None	Explosion of two separate bombs. Hamas claimed responsibility.
Binyamina train station suicide bombing	July 16, 2001	Binyamina	2	Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
Moshav Beka'ot bombing	August 8, 2001	Northern Jordan Valley	1 injured	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Sbarro restaurant suicide bombing	August 9, 2001	Downtown Jerusalem	15	Carried out by Hamas together with Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Wall-Street Restaurant bombing	August 12, 2001	Kiryat Motzkin	21 injured	Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
Russian Compound bombing	August 21, 2001	Downtown Jerusalem	1 injured	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Jerusalem car bombings	September 3, 2001	Jerusalem	3 injured	Series of car bombs.
Hanevi'im street bombing	September 4, 2001	Jerusalem	20 injured	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Nahariya train station suicide bombing	September 9, 2001	Nahariya train station	3	Suicide bomber was an Arab Israeli citizen. Hamas claimed responsibility.
Beit Lid junction bombing	September 9, 2001	Near Netanya	17 injured	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Talpiot neighborhood bombing	October 1, 2001	Jerusalem	None	Hamas claimed responsibility.
1st Erez Crossing attack	October 7, 2001	Erez Passage near Gaza	None	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Kibbutz Shluhot bombing	October 7, 2001	Kibbutz Shluhot	1	Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
2nd Erez Crossing attack	November 26, 2001	Gaza Strip	2 injured	Hamas claimed responsibility.
1st Egged bus 823 bombing	November 29, 2001	Wadi Ara Junction	3	Carried out by Palestinian Islamic Jihad together with Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades.
Ben Yehuda Street Bombing	December 1, 2001	Downtown Jerusalem	11	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Haifa bus 16 suicide bombing	December 2, 2001	Haifa	15	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Hilton Mamilla bombing	December 5, 2001	Mamilla, Jerusalem	11 injured	Carried out by Palestinian Islamic Jihad together with Hamas.
Check Post Junction bombing	December 9, 2001	Check Post Junction in the direction of Tel Hanan (Haifaarea)	30 injured	Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
Neve Dekalim bombing	December 12, 2001	Neve Dekalim	4 injured	Hamas claimed responsibility.

2002 (47 bombings)[edit]

Name	Date	Location	Death toll	Notes
Tel Aviv outdoor mall bombing	January 25, 2002	Tel Aviv	25 injured	Double Suicide attack, carried out by Palestinian Islamic Jihad together with Fatah.
Jaffa Street bombing	January 27, 2002	Jerusalem	1	First female suicide bomber in Al-Aqsa Intifada, Wafa Idris. Hamas claimed responsibility.
Tayibe bombing	January 31, 2002	Tayibe	None	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Karnei Shomron Mall suicide bombing	February 16, 2002	Karnei Shomron, West Bank	3	About 30 injuries (6 seriously). PFLP claimed responsibility.[11][12]
Maale Adumim - Jerusalem road bombing	February 18, 2002	Jerusalem	1	Soldier killed by an explosive that was detonated by the driver of the car he was checking. Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claimed responsibility.
Efrat supermarket bombing attack	February 22, 2002	Efrat, West Bank	1 injured	Suicide bomber in supermarket.
Maccabim bombing	February 27, 2002	Maccabim	3 injured	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Yeshivat Beit Yisrael massacre	March 2, 2002	Yeshiva in Jerusalem	11	Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claimed responsibility.
2nd Egged bus 823 bombing	March 5, 2002	Afula	1	Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.[12]
Ariel hotel lobby bombing	March 7, 2002	Ariel, West Bank	15 injured (1 seriously)	PFLP claimed responsibility.[12]
Café Moment bombing	March 9, 2002	Rehavia, Jerusalem	11	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Egged bus 22 bombing	March 17, 2002	Jerusalem	25 Injured	Hamas claimed responsibility.
3rd Egged bus 823 bombing	March 20, 2002	Vadi Ara, Muzmuz Junction	7	Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
King George Street bombing	March 21, 2002	Jerusalem	3	Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claimed responsibility.
Passover massacre	March 27, 2002	Netanya	30	Suicide attack on Passover seder in Park Hotel. Carried out by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Kiryat HaYovel supermarket bombing	March 29, 2002	Kiryat Yovel in Jerusalem	2	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Allenby Street coffee shop bombing	March 30, 2002	Tel Aviv	1	Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claimed responsibility.
Baqa al-Gharbiyah bombing	March 30, 2002	Baqa al-Gharbiyah	1	Booby-trapped vehicle that Palestinians tried to sneak into Israel.
Matza restaurant suicide bombing	March 31, 2002	Haifa	15	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Efrat Medical Center	March 31, 2002	Efrat, West Bank	4 injured (1 seriously)	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Jerusalem Roadblock bombing	April 1, 2002	Jerusalem	1	Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claimed responsibility.
Yagur Junction bombing	April 10, 2002	Yagur	8	Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
3rd Mahane Yehuda Market attack	April 12, 2002	Jerusalem	6	Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claimed responsibility.
Rishon LeZion bombing	May 7, 2002	Rishon LeZion	15	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Netanya Market bombing	May 19, 2002	Netanya	3	Carried out by Hamas together with PFLP.
Afula road bombing	May 20, 2002	Afula	None	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Rothschild Street bombing	May 22, 2002	Rishon Lezion	2	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Pi Glilot bombing	May 23, 2002	North of Tel Aviv	None	A bomb exploded underneath a fuel truck. The truck burst into flames, but the blaze was quickly contained.
Studio 49 Disco bombing	May 24, 2002	Tel Aviv	5 injured	The security guard opened fire on a Palestinian attempting to detonate a car bomb. The Palestinian was killed, but the bomb exploded prematurely, injuring bystanders.
Petah Tikva Mall bombing	May 27, 2002	Petah Tikva	2	Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claimed responsibility.
Megiddo Junction bus bombing	June 5, 2002	Megiddo Junction	17	Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
Herzliya shawarma restaurant bombing	June 11, 2002	Herzliya	1	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Patt Junction Bus Bombing	June 18, 2002	Jerusalem	19	Hamas claimed responsibility.
French Hill Junction massacre	June 19, 2002	French Hill, Jerusalem	7	Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claimed responsibility.
Immanuel bus attack	July 16, 2002	Emmanuel-Bnei Brak bus 189	9	Detonation of an explosive device and shooting. Hamas claimed responsibility.
Neve Shaanan Street bombing	July 17, 2002	Southern Tel Aviv	5	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Nevi'im Street bombing	July 30, 2002	Jerusalem	5 injured	Apparently the bomb exploded prematurely.
Hebrew University massacre	July 31, 2002	Hebrew University, Jerusalem	9	Included American and French casualties. Bomber was from East Jerusalem. Hamas claimed responsibility.
Meron Junction Bus 361 attack	August 4, 2002	Meron Junction	9	Arab bomber with Israeli citizenship. Hamas claimed responsibility.
1st Umm al-Fahm bombing	August 5, 2002	Umm al-Fahm Junction inWadi Ara	1 injured	The Palestinian exploded in a taxi killing himself and wounding an Israeli-Arab driver from Nazareth.
2nd Umm al-Fahm bombing	September 18, 2002	Umm al-Fahm Junction inWadi Ara	1	Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
Allenby Street bus bombing	September 19, 2002	bus 4, near the Great Synagogue, Tel Aviv	6	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Geha road bombing	October 10, 2002	Bar-Ilan interchange, Geha road	1	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Karkur junction suicide bombing	October 21, 2002	Carcur Junction	14	2 Suicide bombers used a booby-trapped jeep with 100 kg TNT. Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
Sonol gas station bombing	October 27, 2002	Ariel, West Bank	3	Victims killed while trying to prevent the Palestinian from detonating the bomb. Hamas claimed responsibility.
Kfar Saba shopping mall bombing	November 4, 2002	Kfar Saba	2	Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
Kiryat Menachem bus bombing	November 21, 2002	Kiryat Menahem, Jerusalem	11	Hamas claimed responsibility.

2003 (23 bombings)[edit]

Name	Date	Location	Death toll	Notes
Tel-Aviv central bus station massacre	January 5, 2003	Southern Tel Aviv	23	Carried out by two members of the Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, with the help of Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Haifa bus 37 suicide bombing	March 5, 2003	Carmeliya neighborhood, Haifa	17	Carried out by Hamas member and attributed to Hamas, yet never acknowledged.
London Cafe bombing	March 30, 2003	Netanya	54 injured	Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
Kfar Saba train station bombing	April 24, 2003	Kfar Saba	1	13 injured (2 seriously). PFLP claimed responsibility jointly with Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades.[12][13]
Mike's Place suicide bombing	April 30, 2003	Mike's Place pub, Tel Aviv	3	Carried out by Hamas using a British Muslim citizen of Pakistani descent and together with al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades.
Gross square attack	May 17, 2003	Gross square, Hebron, West Bank	2	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Jerusalem bus 6 bombing	May 18, 2003	Jerusalem	7	Hamas claimed responsibility.
3rd Kfar Darom bombing	May 19, 2003	Gaza Strip	3 injured	A Palestinian suicide bomber riding a bicycle blew up himself next to a military jeep. Hamas claimed responsibility.
Afula mall bombing	May 19, 2003	Afula shopping center	3	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Netzarim bus bombing	May 22, 2003	Netzarim, Gaza Strip	9 injured	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Davidka Square bus bombing	June 11, 2003	Downtown Jerusalem	17	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Sdei Trumot bombing	June 19, 2003	Moshav Sdei Trumot	1	Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
Kfar Yavetz bombing	July 7, 2003	Kfar Yavetz	1	Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
Ariel bus station bombing	August 12, 2003	Ariel, West Bank	2	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Rosh HaAyin bombing	August 12, 2003	Rosh HaAyin	1
Shmuel HaNavi bus bombing	August 19, 2003	Shmuel Hanavi, Jerusalem	23	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Tzrifin bus stop attack	September 9, 2003	Bus stop near Tzrifin army base	9	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Café Hillel bombing	September 9, 2003	Hillel Cafe, Jerusalem	7	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Maxim restaurant suicide bombing	October 4, 2003	Haifa	21	Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
Tulkarem bombing	October 9, 2003	Tulkarem, West Bank	3 injured	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Beit Hanoun Junction bombing	October 15, 2003	Gaza Strip	3	The victims were part of a US diplomatic convoy.
Azzoun bombing	November 3, 2003	Azzoun, West Bank	1 injured	Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claimed responsibility.
Geha Interchange bus stop bombing	December 25, 2003	Geha Junction	4	Over 20 injured. PFLP claimed responsibility.[12][13]

2004 (17 bombings)[edit]

Name	Date	Location	Death toll	Notes
3rd Erez Crossing attack	January 14, 2004	Gaza Strip	4	Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade and Hamas claimed joint responsibility.
Gaza Street bus bombing	January 29, 2004	Rehavia, Jerusalem	11	Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade and Hamas claimed responsibility.
Liberty Bell Park bus bombing	February 22, 2004	Liberty Bell Garden, Jerusalem	8	Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade claimed responsibility.
4th Erez Crossing attack	March 6, 2004	Gaza Strip	3	The victims were Palestinian policemen who died in a shooting spree and suicide car bomb attack. Two of the vehicles exploded on the Palestinian side of the crossing. Four Palestinians were killed. There were no IDF casualties. Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the military wing of Fatah claimed responsibility.
Ashdod Port massacre	March 14, 2004	Port of Ashdod	10	Double suicide bombing. Carried out by Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade together with Hamas.
5th Erez Crossing attack	April 17, 2004	Erez Crossing, Gaza Strip	1	Carried out by Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade together with Hamas.
Deir al-Balah suicide attack	April 26, 2004	Gaza Strip	2	The victims were Palestinians killed when a suicide bomber detonated himself on the way to carry out an attack in Israel.
Beka'ot checkpoint bombing	May 22, 2004	Beka'ot checkpoint,Jordan Valley, West Bank	1 injured	PFLP claimed responsibility.[12][14]
Tel Aviv bus stop bombing	July 11, 2004	Tel Aviv	1	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Kalandia checkpoint attack	August 11, 2004	Kalandia, West Bank	2	The victims were Palestinian bystanders. 18 people (including six Border Policemen) were injured.
Beersheba bus bombings	August 31, 2004	DowntownBeersheba on buses 7 and 12	16	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Baka al-Sharkiyeh checkpoint attack	September 8, 2004	Near the Green Lineborder with the West Bank	None	Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claimed responsibility.
Kalandia Gate suicide bombing	September 14, 2004	South of Kalandia,West Bank	2 injured	A suicide bomber riding on a bicycle blew himself up near an armored IDF jeep at an agricultural gate.
French Hill Junction bombing	September 22, 2004	French Hill, Jerusalem	2	Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claimed responsibility.
Sinai bombings	October 7, 2004	Sinai peninsula,Egypt	34	Suicide bombing at two Sinai holiday resorts frequented by Israeli tourists: thirty-one died at the Taba Hilton and three at Ras a-Satan. Among the dead were 12 Israelis; over 120 were wounded. The attack was masterminded by Iyad Saleh and carried out by a Palestinian group.
Carmel Market bombing	November 1, 2004	Tel Aviv	3	Over 30 injured. PFLP claimed responsibility.[12][15]
Karni Crossing attack	December 7, 2004	Karni Crossing, Gaza Strip	1	An IDF soldier of the Oketz canine unit was killed by a bomb, along with his dog, when a booby-trapped chicken coup exploded northwest of the Karni Crossing. Four soldiers were wounded in the exchange of fire while evacuating him. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.

2005 (9 bombings)[edit]

Name	Date	Location	Death toll	Notes
Morag attack	January 12, 2005	Morag, Southern Gaza Strip	1	One Israeli civilian was killed and three IDF soldiers wounded when a bomb was detonated against a military vehicle patrolling the route near Morag. Two Palestinians were killed by IDF forces. The area was booby-trapped with explosive devices, in addition to the bomb that exploded. Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
Karni border crossing attack	January 13, 2005	Karni crossing, Gaza Strip	6	Carried out together by Hamas with Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades and Popular Resistance Committees.
Gush Katif checkpoint attack	January 18, 2005	Gush Katif, Gaza Strip	1	Hamas claimed responsibility.
Stage Club bombing	February 25, 2005	Tel Aviv sea promenade	5	Carried out together with Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades and with Hizballah involvement.
1st HaSharon Mall suicide bombing	July 12, 2005	Netanya	5	Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
Beersheba central bus station bombing	August 28, 2005	Beersheba	50 injured, 2 critically	Carried out by Palestinian Islamic Jihad together with Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades.
Hadera Market bombing	October 26, 2005	Hadera	7	Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
2nd HaSharon Mall suicide bombing	December 5, 2005	Netanya	5	Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
Tulkarem roadblock bombing	December 29, 2005	NearTulkarem,West Bank	3	One Israeli soldier was killed when a Palestinian en route to carry out an attack in Israel was discovered and detonated himself at a checkpoint. A second intended suicide bomber was also killed in the blast as well as the driver and a third passenger. Three soldiers and seven Palestinians were also wounded.

2006 (3 bombings)[edit]

Name	Date	Location	Death toll	Notes
1st Rosh Ha'ir restaurant bombing	January 19, 2006	Near Tel Aviv old central bus station	31 injured	Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
Kedumim bombing	March 30, 2006	Kdumim, West Bank	4	Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claimed responsibility.
2nd Rosh Ha'ir restaurant bombing	April 17, 2006	Near Tel Aviv old central bus station	11	68 injured. Carried out by Palestinian Islamic Jihad together with Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades.

2007 (1 bombing)[edit]

Name	Date	Location	Death toll	Notes
Eilat bakery bombing	January 29, 2007	Eilat	3	Both Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claim joint responsibility.

2008 (2 bombings)[edit]

Name	Date	Location	Death toll	Notes
Dimona bombing	February 4, 2008	Dimona	1	9 injuries. Carried out by Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades together with Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).[16]
Kerem Shalom suicide bombing	April 19, 2008	Kerem Shalom border crossing, Gaza Strip	13 injured	Three Palestinian suicide bombers broke through the border fence to attack the Kerem Shalom IDF post, blowing themselves up and wounding several Israeli soldiers. Hamas claimed responsibility.

Total number of fatalities, by year

Religious Persecution of Jews by Arabs

Since the rebirth of Israel, hundreds of thousands of Jews from Arab lands have swarmed into the new state. In 1948 more than 850,000 Jews lived in the Arab world. Today there are fewer than 29,000, a shadow of the former ancient community. Most of those Jewish refugees fled to Israel. Where did they come from with such urgency -- and why?

Contrary to the myth that Jews lived in harmony with the Arabs before the Zionist state, innumerable authoritative works document decisively the subjugation, ppression, and spasmodic anti-Jewish eruptions of violence that darkened the existence of the Jews in Muslim Arab countries.

In truth, before the seventh-century advent of the Prophet Muhammad and Islam, Jews and Arabs did have harmonious relations, and words of praise regarding the noble virtues of the Jews may be found in ancient Arab literature.¹

Before the Arab conquest, in fact, some rulers of Arabia "had indeed embraced Judaism," as Muslim historians attest.

The Koran itself has been witness to the Jewish nature of the "Israelite communities of Arabia": Koranic references appear about the rabbis and the Torah which they read, and the prestige and reverence with which the earlier community viewed them.²

The Koran contains so many legends and theological ideas found in Talmudic literature that we are able to draw a picture of the spiritual life of the Jews with whom Mohammad must have come into contact.³

It was the Prophet Muhammad himself who attempted to negate the positive titage of the Jew that had been prevalent earlier. According to historian Bernard Lewis, the Prophet Muhammad's original plan had been to induce the Jews to adopt Islam;⁴ when Muhammad began his rule at Medina in A.D. 622 he counted few supporters, so he adopted several Jewish practices-including daily prayer facing toward Jerusalem and the fast of Yom Kippur-in the hope of wooing the Jews. But the Jewish community rejected the Prophet Muhammad's religion, preferring to adhere to its own beliefs, whereupon Muhammad subsequently substituted Mecca for Jerusalem, and dropped many of the Jewish practices.

Three years later, Arab hostility against the Jews commenced, when the  Meccan army exterminated the Jewish tribe of Quraiza.⁵ As a result of the Prophet Muhammad's resentment, the Holy Koran itself contains many of his hostile denunciations of Jews⁶ and bitter attacks upon the Jewish tradition, which undoubtedly have colored the beliefs of religious Muslims down to the present.

Omar, the caliph who succeeded Muhammad, delineated in his Charter of Omar the twelve laws under which a dhimmi, or non-Muslim, was allowed to exist as a "nonbeliever" among "believers." The Charter codified the conditions of life for Jews under Islam -- a life which was forfeited if the dhimmi broke this law. Among the restrictions of the Charter: Jews were forbidden to touch the Koran; forced to wear a distinctive (sometimes dark blue or black) habit with sash; compelled to wear a yellow piece of cloth as a badge (blue for Christians); not allowed to perform their religious practices in public; not allowed to own a  horse, because horses were deemed noble; not permitted to drink wine in public; and required to bury their dead without letting their grief be heard by the Muslims.⁷

As a grateful payment for being allowed so to live and be "protected," a dhimmi paid a special head tax and a special property tax, the edict for which came directly from the Koran: "Fight against those [Jews and Christians] who believe not in Allah ... until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low."⁸

In addition, Jews faced the danger of incurring the wrath of a Muslim, in which case the Muslim could charge, however falsely, that the Jew had cursed Islam, an accusation against which the Jew could not defend himself Islamic religious law decreed that, although murder of one Muslim by another Muslim was punishable by death, a Muslim who murdered a non-Muslim was given not the death penalty, but only the obligation to pay "blood money" to the family of the slain infidel. Even this punishment was unlikely, however, because the law held the testimony of a Jew or a Christian invalid against a Muslim, and the penalty could only be exacted under improbable conditions-when two Muslims were willing to testify against a brother Muslim for the sake of an infidel.⁹

The demeanment of Jews as represented by the Charter has carried down through the centuries, its implementation inflicted with varying degrees of cruelty or inflexibility, depending upon the character of the particular Muslim ruler. When that rule was tyrannical, life was abject slavery, as in Yemen, where one of the Jews' tasks was to clean the city latrines and another was to clear the streets of animal carcasses-without pay, often on their Sabbath.

The restrictions under Muslim law always included the extra head tax regardless of the ruler's relative tolerance. This tax was enforced in some form until 1909 in Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Turkey; until 1925 in Iran; and was still enforceable in Yemen until the present generation. The clothing as well as the tax and the physical humiliation also varied according to whim. Thus, in Morocco, Jews had to wear black slippers,¹⁰ while in Yemen, Jewish women were forced to wear one white and one black shoe.¹¹*

[* The edict set by the Sultan of Morocco in 1884 varies somewhat, as did most interpretations of the dhimma law. His restrictions also included insistence that Jews work on their sacred day of rest; carry heavy burdens on their backs; work without pay; clean foul places and latrines; part with merchandise at half price; lend beasts of burden without payment; accept false coinage instead of negotiable currency; take fresh skins in return for tanned hides; hold their beds and furniture at the disposal of government guests, etc.]

Jews were relegated to Arab-style Jewish ghettos -- hara, mellah, or simply Jewish Quarter were the names given the areas where Jews resided -- recorded by travelers over the centuries, as well as by Jewish chroniclers. A visitor to four-teenth-century Egypt, for example, commented in passing¹²on the separate Jew-quarter, and five hundred years later another visitor in the nineteenth century verified the continuation of the separated Jewish existence: "There are in this country about five thousand Jews (in Arabic, called 'Yahood'; singular, 'Yahoodee'), most of whom reside in the metropolis, in a miserable, close and dirty quarter, intersected by lanes, many of which are so narrow as hardly to admit two persons passing each other in them."¹³

In 1920, those Jewish families in Cairo whose financial success had allowed them out of the ghetto, under relatively tolerant rule, had been replaced by "poor Jewish immigrants." Thus, although the character of the population may have changed, the squalor and crowding remained. As one writer, a Jew, observed:

Our people are crowded and clustered into houses about to collapse, in dark cellars, narrow alleys and crooked lanes choked with mud and stinking refuse, earning their meagre living in dark shops and suffocating workshops, toiling back to back, sunscorched and sleepless. Their hard struggle for existence both inside and outside the home is rewarded by a few beans and black bread.¹⁴

Throughout the centuries, the Jews were the first to suffer persecution in times of economic turmoil or political upheaval,¹⁷ and the cumulative effect of the sporadic mass murders left their mark on the Jews even in periods of relative quiescence. In Syria, the infamous blood libel of 1840 brought about the death, torture, and pillage of countless Jews falsely accused of murdering a priest and his servant to collect the blood for Passover matzoth!¹⁸ Before the Jews were finally vindicated of this slander, word of the charges had spread far from Damascus, causing terror in numerous Jewish communities.

The scurrilous blood libel has not been purged from Arab literature, however. In fact, the Arabs seem in the past two decades to have seized upon this primitive old calumny with renewed vigor. In 1962 the UAR (Egyptian) Ministry of Education published "Human Sacrifices in the Talmud" as one of a series of official "national" books. Bearing on its cover the symbol of the Egyptian Institute for Publications, this modem book is a reprint of an 1890 work by a writer in Cairo.¹⁹ In the introduction, the editor shares his discovery: "conclusive evidence ... that this people permits bloodshed and makes it a religious obligation laid down by the Talmud." The editor's description becomes more vile as it purports to become more explicit regarding the "Indictment."²⁰

Two years later, in 1964, a professor at the University of Damascus published his own affirmation of the nineteenth-century blood libel, stating that the wide attention given the story served a valid purpose: to wam mothers against letting their children out late at night, "lest the Jew ... come and take their blood for the purpose of making matzot for Passover."²¹Still another version, also published in the 1960s, "The Danger of World Jewry to Islam and Christianity," alleges that thousands of children and others disappear each year, and all of them are victims of guess who?²²

They've even dramatized the infamous canard for the theater. In November 1973, a former minister in the Egyptian Foreign Service published a play based on the 1840 blood libel in Damascus-replete with gory descriptions-in a widely circulated Egyptian weekly.²³  During the same month the late Saudi Arabian King Faisal stressed the importance of the blood libel of 1840 in Damascus as a requisite to understanding "Zionist crime."²⁴ And in 1982, shortly after Israel transferred its much coveted Sinai territory to Egypt for a more coveted peace, the Egyptian press (govemment-run) dredged up inflammatory variations on the horrible theme. Two examples: ". . . The Israelis are Israelis and their favorite drink is Arab blood... ."²⁵and "A Jew ... drinks their blood for a few coins."²⁶

The departure of European colonists in the twentieth century brought into being a highly nationalistic group of Arab states, which increasingly perceived their Jews as a new political threat.* The previous Arab Muslim ambivalence -- an ironic possessive attitude toward "their" Jews, coupled with the omnipresent implementing of the harsh dhimma law -- was gradually replaced by a completely demoniacal and negative stereotype of the Jew. Traditional Koranic slurs against the Jews were implemented to incite hostility toward the Jewish national movement. The Nazi anti-Semitism in the 1930s and 1940s flourished in this already receptive climate.

[* The Arab reaction seems not dissimilar to that of a Ku Klux Klansman in the United States, responding vehemently to the question I once asked about his attitude toward integration: "They're our 'Niggers,' and we've taken good care of'em, but I'll be damned if I'll let 'em take over.... Our 'Niggers' don't really wanna vote, y'know." (The epithet is his.) Chicago Daily News, April 10, 1965.]

Although Arabs themselves frequently speak of "anti-Semitism" as synonymous with anti-Jewishness -- before the 1947 partition, for example, Egyptian UN Representative Haykal Pasha warned the General Assembly that partition would bring "anti-Semitism" worse than Hitler's²⁷ -- frequently they justify or obscure an anti-Jewish action by saying, "How can I be anti-Semitic? I'm a Semite myself." According to Professor S. D. Goitein, "the word 'semitic' was coined by an l8th-century German scholar, concerned with linguistics.... The idea of a Semitic race was invented and cultivated in particular in order to emphasize the inalterable otherness and alien character of the Jews living in Europe."²⁸

Another eminent Arabist, Bernard Lewis, dates the invention of the term "anti-Semitism" to 1862, although "the racial ideology that gave rise to it was already well established in the early 19th century. Instead of -- or as well as -- an unbeliever ... the Jew was now labeled as a member of an alien and inferior race... "²⁹]

As early as 1940 the Muffi of Jerusalem requested the Axis powers to acknowledge the Arab right "to settle the question of Jewish elements in Palestine and other Arab countries in accordance with the national and racial interests of the Arabs and along lines similar to those used to solve the Jewish question in Germany and Italy."³⁰*

[* For a discussion of Jewish-Arab relations in Palestine, see The Myth of Palestinian Nationalism, narrowly defined, anti-Semitism]

Hitler's crimes against the Jews have frequently been justified in Arab writings and pronouncements. In the 1950s, Minister Anwar Sadat published an open letter to Hitler, hoping he was still alive and sympathizing with his cause. Important Arab writers and political figures have said Hitler was "wronged and slandered, for he did no more to the Jews than Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, the Romans, the Byzantines, Titus, Mohammed and the European peoples who slaughtered the Jews before him." Or that Hitler wanted to "save ... the world from this malignant evil..." ³¹

Arab defense of the Nazis' extermination of the Jews has persisted: prominent Egyptian writer Anis Mansour wrote in 1973 that "People all over the world have come to realize that Hitler was right, since Jews . . . are bloodsuckers . . . interested in destroying the whole world which has . . . expelled them and despised them for centuries ... and burnt them in Hitler's crematoria ... one million ... six millions. Would that he had finished it!"³²

Mansour alleged at another time that the vicious medieval blood libel was historical truth: "the Jews confessed" that they had killed the children and used their blood; thus he justifies persecution and pogroms of "the wild beasts."³³ That article was followed by a "report," after Mansour returned from representing Egypt at the Fortieth International PEN (writers') Conference in 1975 in Vienna. In it, Mansour continued the theme: "The Jews are guilty" for Nazism; ". . . the world can only curse the Jews ... The Jews have only themselves to blame." Mansour was angry that "the whole world" protested "all because" a "teacher" told the Jewish waiter serving him in Vienna that      Hitler committed a grave error in not doing away with more of you ....'"³⁴

It was from such a climate that the Jews had escaped, seeking refuge in Israel. 
 

1. Bernard Lewis, The Arabs in History, 4th rev. ed. (New York, Evanston, San Francisco, London: Harper-Colophon Books, 1966), pp. 31-32; S.D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vols. I and 11 (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: 197-1), p. 28; see also H.Z. Hirschberg, The Jews in Islamic Lands, 2nd rev. ed. (Leiden, 1974).

2.S.D. Goitein, Jews and Arabs, Their Contacts Through the Ages, 3rd ed. (New York: Schocken Books, 1974), p. 49.

3. Ibid., p. 50.

4.Lewis, Arabs in History, p. 42; also see Norman A. Stillman, The Jews ofArab Lands.- A History and Source Book (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1979), pp. 113-114. For further information and fascinating reading, the Stillman work provides new and in-depth insights into the "Jewish social history in the Arab world, spanning 1500 years," with original translations from Arabic and other languages.

5. Lewis, Arabs in History, p. 45, pp. 38-48. See Chapter 8.

6.See examples in Chapter 4; also see Stillman, The Jews, "Some Koranic Pronouncements on the Jews," pp. 150-151.

7.Andre Chouraqui, Between East and West, A History of the Jews of North Africa, trans. from French by Michael M. Bernet (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1968), pp. 45-46; D.G. Littman, Jews Under Muslim Rule in the Late Nineteenth Century, reprinted from the Weiner Library Bulletin, 1975, vol. XXVIII, New Series Nos. 35/36 (London, 1975), p. 65.

8.The Meaning of the Glorious Koran, Surah IX, v. 29, Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall, ed. (New York: Mentor Books, 1953).

9.Chouraqui, Between East and West, p. 46. Also see Hayyim Cohen, The Jews of the Middle East 1860-1972 (New York, 1973); S.D. Goitein, Jews and Arabs.

10. World Jewish Congress, The Jews ofFrench Morocco and Tunisia (New York, 1952).

11. Saul Friedman, "The Myth of Arab Toleration," Midstream, January 1970; Goitein, Jews and Arabs, p. 67T

12. Ibn Battuta, Ibn Battuta Travels in Asia and Africa 1325-1354, trans. and selected with introduction and notes by H.A.R. Gibb (London, 1929), p. 125.

13. Edward William Lane, Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians 1833-1835 (London, New York, Melbourne: 1890), p. 512.

14. The visit to Harat al-Yahud, Cairo's Jewish Quarter, was recorded in letters from a journalist in Arabic dated June I I and June 18, 1920, cited by Jacob M. Landau, Jews in Nineteenth Century Egypt (New York, 1969), pp. 30-31.

15. Hayyim J. Cohen, The Jews ofthe Middle East 1860-1972 (Jerusalem, 1973), pp. 1-3.

16. See interviews in Chapter 6.

17. Goitein, Jews and Arabs, pp. 6-7, 87, 88, for examples.

18. Heinrich Graetz, History of the Jews, 5 vols. (New York, 1927), vol. 5, pp. 634-639.

19. By Habib Faris, 1890, original title in newspaper, 1890: "The Cry of the Innocent with the Trumpet of Freedom," originally published in Egyptian newspaper al-Mahrusa, then as 1890 book, Human Sacrifices in the Talmud Book republished in 1962 as one of a series of information pamphlets, "National Books," no. 184, 1962, 164 pages, listed as one of the publications by UAR Ministry of Education, # 393 1, edited by Abd a]-Ati Jalal, introduction dated June 16, 1962. Cited by Y. Harkabi, Arab Attitudes to Israel (Jerusalem, 1971), pp. 270-271.

20. Ibid., cited in Harkabi, Arab Attitudes, p. 271.

21.Abd al-Karim Gharayiba, Suriyyafi al-Qarn al-TosiAshar 1840-1876 (Cairo, 1961-62), p. 47, cited by Moshe Ma'oz, The Image of the Jew in Official Arab Literature and Communications Media (Jerusalem, 1976), p. 21.

22. 'Abdallah al-Tall, The Danger of World Jewry to Islam and Christianity (in Arabic) (Cairo, 1964), p. 104, cited by Harkabi, Arab Attitudes, pp. 273-274.

23. Mustafa Sa'adani, "The Tragedy of Good Father Thomas," Akhir Saah, November 28, 1973, cited by Ma'oz, The Image of the Jew, p. 22.

24. AI-Soyyad, November 29, 1973, as cited by Ma'oz, The Image of the Jew, p. 23.

25."Sanctifying War and Hating Peace," by Salem al-Yamani, Al-Gumhuriya, June 22, 1982.

26."The Arabs and the Jews-Who Will Destroy Whom?" by Dr. Lutfi Abd Al-Azim, AI-Ahram Iktisadi, September 27, 1982.

27. Official Records of the Second Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations. Summary Record of Meetings 25 September-25 November, 1947, p. 185. During the proposed partition of Palestine, in November, 1947, Egyptian Representative in the United Nations General Assembly, Haykal Pasha, declared that "The Arab governments will do all in their power to defend the Jewish citizens in their countries, but we all know that an excited crowd is sometimes stronger than the police. Unintentionally, you are about to spark an anti-Semitic fire in the Middle East which will be more difficult to extinguish than it was in Germany." The Egyptian spokesman's threat made clear that the Arab world has interpreted the term "anti-Semitism" correctly -- in the only sense it has been used historically -as a definition of anti-Jewish attitude and action. Arabs do not, as Egypt's President Sadat and others have occasionally claimed, use it themselves as a term connoting both Arabs and Jews.

28. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, vol. II, p. 283.

29.Bernard Lewis, Islam in History: Ideas, Men and Events in the Middle East (New York: The Library Press, 1973), p. 136.

30. Fritz Grobba, Manner und Machte im Orient (Zurich, Berlin, Frankfurt, 1967), p. 194-197, 207-208. Bernard Lewis notes that "this draft was an Arab request to the Germans, not a German offer to the Arabs." Also see: Jon Kimche, The Second Arab Awakening (London, 1970); L. Hirszowicz, The Third Reich and the Arab East (London, 1966), particularly regarding Mufti's 1937 contact with the Nazis: p. 34.

31. Sadat's letter, AlMusawwar, No. 1510, September 18,1953, cited in D.F. Green, ed., Arab Theologians on Jews and Israel (Geneva, 1976 ed.), p. 87. Quoted also by Gideon Hausner, November 16, 1971, at New York. Also see Harkabi, Arab Attitudes, pp. 276-277, for other examples.

32. Al-Akhbar, August 19, 1973.

33. Akhar Saah, Cairo, April 10, 1974, cited by Ma'oz, The Image of the Jew, p. 22.

34. Akhar Saah, Cairo, December 3, 1975.

This page was produced by Joseph E. Katz 
Middle Eastern Political and Religious History Analyst  
Brooklyn, New York  
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Source: "From Time Immemorial" by Joan Peters, 1984
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The Niggers Of Palestine

Originally posted October 21, 2007

Like the miserable dog without an owner he is kicked by one because he crosses his path, and cuffed by another because he cries out--to seek redress he is afraid, lest it bring worse upon him; he thinks it better to endure than to live in the expectation of his complaint being revenged upon him. Brought up form infancy to look upon his civil disabilities everywhere as a mark of degradation, he heart becomes the cradle of fear and suspicion--he finds he is trusted by none--and thee he lives himself without confidence in any
British Counsel Young, describing life for Jews under Muslim rule in Palestine in 1839, quoted by Joan Peters in 'From Time Immemorial', p. 187

In one chapter in her book, From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine, Joan Peters writes about the countless attacks and massacres suffered by the Jewish community in 'Palestine' at the hands of the Muslims over the centuries before the reestablishment of the state of Israel. At one point, Peters writes:

The Jews under siege were as defenseless as their counterparts in the Arabic-speaking Muslim "Arab" world and as powerless as perhaps the black slaves called "Niggers" by the Southern whites--they too "knew what was good for them," and any attempt at redress for their grievances would only result in more extreme persecution. Both had to "keep their place." [p. 183]

This reminded me of Condoleezza's comment comparing Palestinian Arabs with African Americans in the old South. Before addressing Rice's comparison, here are some of the events that Peters mentions in her book that form the basis for her comparison:

1491: Bohemian pilgrim writes about Jerusalem that "There are not many Christians but there are many Jews, and these the Moslems persecute in various ways. Christians and Jews go about in Jerusalem in clothes considered fit only for wandering beggars....in spite of all the troubles and sorrows inflicted on them by the Moslems, they refuse to leave the Land." [p. 176]

1576: Ottoman Sultan Murad III enacts legislation to uproot and deport 1,000 of Safed's Jews to Cyprus to boost the economy. [p. 178]

1586: Last remaining synagogue in Jerusalem is expropriated. [p. 178]

Early 17th century: A pair of Christian visitors to Safed describe life for Jews that "life here is the poorest and most miserable that one can imagine...[and] pay for the very air they breathe" [p. 178]

1660: Jewish community in Safed is massacred. [p. 178]

1742: A rabbi is allowed to settle in Tiberias and his arrival "brought back the Jewish community of Tiberias, which had been virtually purged of Jews for seventy years" [p. 179]

1775: Blood libel is spread against Jews in Hebron, resulting in mob violence. [p. 179]

1783: Rise of El Djezzar ("the butcher"). He increases--by 25,000 piastres--the required taxes. He is known for torture, mutilations, and had an executioner travel with him. [p. 179-180]

1799: Safed's Jewish Quarter "was completely sacked by the Turks" [p. 179]

1801: Djezzar sends troops to destroy crops in Nazareth while in Ramleh "during the three days of pillage, the local Latin Christians were either murdered, or lost all their property and fled" [p. 180]

1830's: During Egyptian reign of Palestine, Pasha Mehmet Ali "oppressed the inhabitants of these countries more severly even than those of his own pashalic [district] in order to fill his coffers." [p. 182]

1830's "One book reported the game 'Burn the Jew,' a Christian-Arab children's pastime at Lent in Jaffa. [p. 1888]

1834: Egyptian ruler Ibrahim Pasha levies conscription and when those in Eastern Palestine cross the Jordan to join in a revolt, "forty thousand fallahim rushed on Jerusalem...the mob entered, and looted the city for five or six days. The Jews were the worst sufferers, their homes ewere sacked and their women violated." [p. 183]

1834: Jews in Hebron are massacred by "Egyptian soldiers who came to put down a local Muslim rebellion" [p. 183]

1834: In Safed, the Jewish community is "brutally attacked by Muslim and Druzes" [p. 183]

1834: In Safed, Muhammed Damoor 'prophesies' that on the 15th of June "the true Believers would rise up in just wrath against the Jews, and despoil them of their gold, and their silver, and their jewels"--this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. [p. 185-6]

1837: Safed is hit by an earthquake which results in another attack by the Muslims on the Jews. [p. 183]

1840: Blood libel in Damascus has repercussions in Palestine. [p. 183]

1840: British Foreign Secretary Palmerston writes that "reports from Sidon, Tyre, Acre and Caiffa [Haifa] complain of bigotry and outrages toward Christians: Confirmed by what is observed here in Jerusalem towards Christians and Jews." [p. 189]

1847: Charge of ritual murder is brought against the Jewish community in Jerusalem. [p. 190]

1847: Jewish visitor to Palestine writes about the Jewish community "They do not have any protection and are at the mercy of policemen and the pashas who treat them as they wish...they pay various taxes every now and then...their property is not at their disposal and they dare not complain about an injury for fear of the Arabs' revenge. Their lives are precarious and subject to daily danger of death" [p. 190-1]

1848 Hebron plundered. [p. 191]

1848-1878: Reports from the British Consulate in Jerusalem document scores of anti-Jewish violence. Example--"July, 1851: It is my duty to report to YOur Excellency that the Jws in Hebron have been greatly alarmed by threats of the Moslems there at the commencement of Ramadan..."

1858: Muslim in Hebron is confronted with his theft and vandalism of Jews and responds that "his right derived from time immemorial in his family, to enter Jewish houses, and take toll or contributions at any time without giving account" [p. 173]

Rice's comments are found in an article in Haaretz, which currently seems to turn up as a blank page [update:view article here], but which is quoted by Israel Matzav:

When Condoleezza Rice talks about the establishment of a Palestinian state next to Israel, she sees in her mind's eye the struggle of African Americans for equal rights, which culminated in the period of her Alabama childhood.

Rice is very aware of political sensitivity, and avoids making such comparisons in public speeches and interviews, where she keeps to the official list of talking points. But in private, she talks about the segregated buses of her childhood.

One can guess that the settlements, the checkpoints and the separation fences created by Israel on the West Bank bring back unpleasant memories of Jim Crow racial separation in the South.Her empathy for the suffering of the Palestinians under occupation goes beyond the strict interests of the administration in promoting the status of the United States in the Middle East and has the touch of her personal experience.

...Now, Rice is comparing Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and his prime minister, Salam Fayad, to Martin Luther King. [emphasis added by Israel Matzav]

Why Rice would want to degrade the memory by comparing him to someone like Abbas I do not know, but to compare Palestinian Arabs with the situation of African Americans in the US--even in the 1960's? Rice, who has erroneously claimed that Palestinian Arabs controlled Gaza and the West Bank prior to 1967, obviously is ignorant of other aspects of the lives of Palestinian Arabs as well--

As Efraim Karsh recounts:

The larger part, still untold in all its detail, is of the astounding social and economic progress made by the Palestinian Arabs under Israeli "oppression." At the inception of the occupation, conditions in the territories were quite dire. Life expectancy was low; malnutrition, infectious diseases, and child mortality were rife; and the level of education was very poor. Prior to the 1967 war, fewer than 60 percent of all male adults had been employed, with unemployment among refugees running as high as 83 percent. Within a brief period after the war, Israeli occupation had led to dramatic improvements in general well-being, placing the population of the territories ahead of most of their Arab neighbors.

In the economic sphere, most of this progress was the result of access to the far larger and more advanced Israeli economy: the number of Palestinians working in Israel rose from zero in 1967 to 66,000 in 1975 and 109,000 by 1986, accounting for 35 percent of the employed population of the West Bank and 45 percent in Gaza. Close to 2,000 industrial plants, employing almost half of the work force, were established in the territories under Israeli rule.

During the 1970's, the West Bank and Gaza constituted the fourth fastest-growing economy in the world-ahead of such "wonders" as Singapore, Hong Kong, and Korea, and substantially ahead of Israel itself. Although GNP per capita grew somewhat more slowly, the rate was still high by international standards, with per-capita GNP expanding tenfold between 1968 and 1991 from $165 to $1,715 (compared with Jordan's $1,050, Egypt's $600, Turkey's $1,630, and Tunisia's $1,440).By 1999, Palestinian per-capita income was nearly double Syria's, more than four times Yemen's, and 10 percent higher than Jordan's (one of the better off Arab states). Only the oil-rich Gulf states and Lebanon were more affluent.

Under Israeli rule, the Palestinians also made vast progress in social welfare. Perhaps most significantly, mortality rates in the West Bank and Gaza fell by more than two-thirds between 1970 and 1990, while life expectancy rose from 48 years in 1967 to 72 in 2000 (compared with an average of 68 years for all the countries of the Middle East and North Africa). Israeli medical programs reduced the infant-mortality rate of 60 per 1,000 live births in 1968 to 15 per 1,000 in 2000 (in Iraq the rate is 64, in Egypt 40, in Jordan 23, in Syria 22). And under a systematic program of inoculation, childhood diseases like polio, whooping cough, tetanus, and measles were eradicated.

No less remarkable were advances in the Palestinians' standard of living. By 1986, 92.8 percent of the population in the West Bank and Gaza had electricity around the clock, as compared to 20.5 percent in 1967; 85 percent had running water in dwellings, as compared to 16 percent in 1967; 83.5 percent had electric or gas ranges for cooking, as compared to 4 percent in 1967; and so on for refrigerators, televisions, and cars.

Finally, and perhaps most strikingly, during the two decades preceding the intifada of the late 1980's, the number of schoolchildren in the territories grew by 102 percent, and the number of classes by 99 percent, though the population itself had grown by only 28 percent. Even more dramatic was the progress in higher education. At the time of the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, not a single university existed in these territories. By the early 1990's, there were seven such institutions, boasting some 16,500 students. Illiteracy rates dropped to 14 percent of adults over age 15, compared with 69 percent in Morocco, 61 percent in Egypt, 45 percent in Tunisia, and 44 percent in Syria.

All this, as I have noted, took place against the backdrop of Israel's hands-off policy in the political and administrative spheres [emphasis added].

In the aftermath of the intifada and terrorist attacks by which Palestinian Arabs have brought about their current situation--in addition to the Muslim members of the Israeli Knesset (whose membership is not revoked after meeting terrorists), the rights of Palestinian Arabs are protected by the Israeli Supreme Court. Here are some of its recent rulings:

Israel high court orders partial re-routing of West Bank security barrier

Israel high court overturns blanket Palestinian student entry ban

Israel high court allows Palestinians injured by IDF to sue for compensation

Israel orders full review of security barrier after high court ruling

Israeli police evacuate illegal West Bank settlement after high court ruling

Of course, if Condoleezza Rice is really interested in the struggle for the equal rights of unprotected minorities,she can always talk to her friends:

The Arab or Middle Eastern slave trade continued into the early 1900s^[84], and by some accounts continues to this day. As recently as the 1950s, Saudi Arabia had an estimated 450,000 slaves, 20% of the population.^[85] [86]

The situation is not black and white, but it might help if the person leading delicate negotiations between Israel and Palestinian Arabs--leading to a state adjacent to Israel--at least had some grasp of the history of the area.

Condoleezza Rice is clearly not that person.

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