Ask Haviv Anything - 127: Does Islam hate Jews? With Prof. Meir Litvak

Episode Date: June 30, 2026

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur).And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur).--What’s the real history of antisemitism in the Muslim world?Haviv sits down with Prof. Meir Litvak of Tel Aviv University, one of Israel’s foremost scholars of modern Shi’a Islam, Iran, Islamism and Islamist antisemitism, to trace the story of Muslim hatred of Jews from Muhammad’s encounter with the Jews of Medina to the dhimmi system that arose in early Islam, from the medieval mix of tolerance and discrimination to the modern-day shock of European power, Zionism and the 1948 war.The result of this sweeping survey is neither a comforting myth of Muslim-Jewish harmony nor a simplistic story of eternal persecution. It is a harder, more disturbing picture: a long religious tradition of Jewish inferiority transformed in the modern age -- by European conspiracy theories, Muslim political collapse and the humiliation of defeat by Jews -- into one of the world’s most openly genocidal forms of antisemitism.And the final question is the hardest one: can Muslim societies find a way out?--This episode was sponsored by an individual who chose to remain anonymous but asked us to share this message: “I was invited to hear a former IDF officer, blinded in a Hamas tunnel, speak about the Israel Guide Dog Center. I wish to highlight this incredible organization. It is far more than a place for adorable puppies -- it’s a lifeline for people across Israel.“As the country’s only internationally accredited guide dog and service dog organization, it is transforming the lives of Israelis every day by providing guide dogs that restore independence and safety for the blind and visually impaired, PTSD service dogs that bring stability and healing to IDF veterans, and emotional support dogs that offer comfort to children with special needs and families coping with trauma.”Thank to our sponsor for that dedication. The Israel Guide Dog Center can be found at https://israelguidedog.org.--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [e-mail]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

Hi, everybody. Welcome to a new episode of Ask Haviv Anything. This is going to be a really fascinating one. I'm very grateful to Professor May Litvak for joining us to talk about a burning question, a powerful and profound question. The history of anti-Semitism in Islam, within Islam, especially in the modern age with modern political movements within Islam. Professor Litvac is a professor at the Department of Middle Eastern history and director of the Allian Center for Iranian Studies at Tel Aviv University. And he is one of the foremost scholars, certainly in Israel and beyond, on modern Shia Islam and on Islamist movements and especially Islamist anti-Semitism in the world with many publications in both fields. And we're going to talk about anti-Semitism in that world, from the origins of the Muslim-Jewish encounter all the way into the modern age. Before we do that, I want to share with you

that this episode is sponsored by an individual who asked to remain anonymous, but asked me to share this message. I was invited to hear a former IDF officer, blinded in a Hamas tunnel, speak about the Israel Guide Dog Center. I wish to highlight this incredible organization. It is far more than a place for adorable puppies.

It's a lifeline for people across Israel, as the country's only internationally accredited guide dog and service organization. It is transforming the lives of Israelis every day by providing guide dogs that restore independence and safety for the blind and visually impaired. PTSD service dogs that bring stability and healing to IDF veterans and emotional support dogs that offer comfort to children with special needs and families coping with trauma. Thank you so much to that sponsor and I urge you and encourage you to visit the Israel Guide Dog Center and contribute to the very important work that they do.

I personally know soldiers who were wounded in the last three years of war, whether it's in Lebanon or Gaza, and this is just, it's a wonderful thing to contribute to. And thank you to that sponsor. I'd also love to invite everyone to join our Patreon and subscribe to our substack. If you're interested in asking the questions that guide the topics we choose to talk about, including the questions we'll be addressing today, that's where you do it. Those are communities that are discussing rich, interesting questions, challenging us, you know, congratulating us for episodes they love and challenging episodes they disagree with. We read the comments, we respond to the comments, we learn from those comments. And you get to take part in monthly live streams where I answer your questions live. Join us at www. patreon.com slash ask chaviv-anything or chavivgur.com.

Those links are all going to be in the show notes. how are you? Fine as far as can be these days. I want to start our story at the beginning. And we'll lay this out. We'll go piece by piece right up to the present day. How did early Islam? Really, you know, the origins, the first, the parts of the earliest days of Islam, we don't even know much about because the Quran is a collection set down a little bit after the life of Muhammad. How did early Islam view Jews? What in the Quran, in the Hadith, in the experience of Muhammad's conflict with the Jewish tribes in Arabia, became the foundation for later anti-Jewish attitudes in the Muslim world? Well, when the Prophet Muhammad reached Medina from Mecca,

he encountered three Jewish tribes in Medina. Apparently, at the beginning, he tried to attract them to his mission. He saw himself as one more link in a long historical chains of divine prophets, and he wanted to appeal to the Jews to accept his mission. Therefore, for instance, he adopted or accommodated certain Jewish practices. For instance, he initiated that the first direction of prayer would be taught Jerusalem. He founded the day of fasting to be equivalent to Yon Kippu, that he sat on the Yom Kippu. The Jews of Medina rejected him.

That is, they don't recognize him as a prophet. Because according to Jewish belief, prophecy had ended with the destruction of the temple. So this led to, I would say, alienation and anger by the Prophet Muhammad against the Jews. This was one issue. The other issue was that apparently at least one Jewish tribe controlled the local market in Medina. The Prophet had to sustain his followers. And there was apparently an economic competition between the Prophet and the Jewish tribes. So we had that in self-cooperation, we had now animosity,

complete rivalry or rivalry and immensity, and then the prophet turned against the Jewish tribes. He fought them one by one. He defeated all three Jewish tribes. The first two were, you can say, expelled. The third tribe, Banu Kouriza, which was the largest Jewish tribe, not only were they defeated, but the prophet then decided to slaughter all the Jewish men,

and all the Jewish men and children were sought to slavery. Then another point was the Prophet defeated or conquered the oasis of Haipar, which was inhabited by Jews, and again turned these Jews into, you can say, subservient to Muslims. So what we see under the Prophet Muhammad are two features in the Quran. Early passage of the Quran, the Prophet speaks about the children of Israel, and, of course, the Prophet adopts Jewish prophets, Moses, Abraham, David and Solomon who are regarded as Muslim prophets. But then there's growing more negative attitude toward the Jews as the conflict with the Jews evolves. And now the Quran becomes more hostile to Jews. Let me say that there are apparently more anti-Jewish passages in the Quran than against Christians.

The perception in the Quran against Jews and Christians and Jews is that Christians are mistaken. what in Islamic term called al-Dalien. They simply took the wrong path. Jews are worse. Jews have God's wrath upon them because they, in a way, turned against distorted God's real scriptures. They distorted God's real messages,

and therefore they were destined to be punished by God and because they rejected the Prophet Muhammad. So the attitude told the Jews in the Quran is more hostile than it is taught Christians, and it is more negative. After the death of the Prophet, when the Muslims dominated Arabia, second Caliph Omar, first of all the Jews from the urban peninsula, decided that Jews could not live in the urban peninsula, Because Regia is, again, the land of the two, you know, what's called the Harameh, that is the two holy sanctities of Islam.

So Jews cannot live in this land. At the same time, Omar, when he is the builder of the Arab Empire, decided the rule told non-Muslims, that is Christians and Jews. Basically, they were given security for their life and property. they were allowed to practice their religions freely, except on those issues that say that would provoke Muslims. It is certain limitations that seem to be provoking Muslims, but otherwise they could worship their religions freely. But there were various discriminatory measures against Jews and Christians. They had to pay special texts called Gisia, Poltex. There were originally various limitations.

For instance, they could not build new synagogues. They couldn't, at some point they had to walk with their special cloth to mark them and could not drive horses, etc. This is called the roots of the dima. That is of the people who are under Islamic protection. They enjoy protection, but they are suffer restrictions and certain discriminations. So what you can say is that under Muslim rule, shortly after the prophet, is that Jews enjoy tolerance. not equality, but tolerance. Tolerance,

common position of Muslim superiority. The benevolent Muslims allow the non-Muslims to live, according to the religion, with some discrimination. We do not see, under Islamic rule in these centuries, active persecutions of Jews. The same way we saw, for instance, in Europe. Seventh century, very much what I would say,

until the 18th century, early 19th. All the way. So that's those hundreds of years. Yes, hundreds of things. Well, there were some exceptions, you know. There were, there was a radical Islamic movement in Morocco, the Mourabitun or Mwachidun, that persecuted Jews. That was my next question. I wanted to ask you about that. Let me lay out the question. I am a Jewish philosophy student at Hebrew University.

And we learned the life of Rambam, the greatest of rabbis, And Lambam's story is the story of the son of one of the great rabbis of Muslim Spain. And the Mohidun rise in Morocco, they take Spain. And most of the Jews are fleeing. They're forced, there's forced conversion to Islam. Many Jews flee north to Christian lands to province. And the Maimon family, Rambam's father, goes into the lands of Islam, possibly to take care of the Jews there who are living under intense,

intense discrimination and violence and brutality. There's some possibility that one professor argued that Rambam actually was forcibly studied in a madrasa, to pretend to convert to Islam in his youth, and then finally arrives in the lands of in the kingdom of Saladin in Cairo. In Saladin's empire, there is much more tolerance. And so he is allowed to return to being a Jew, essentially. And so that is a story that for me, Karendon, just because he's the most famous rabbi in the history of the Jewish bookshelf,

that is the story that characterizes an incredibly tenuous fragility where, yeah, Saladin was absolutely that story of tolerance you're describing, not just for Jews, but the Mohedun of Morocco and Spain were the opposite. What is it actually? What is it to be an ordinary Jew in those years? Is Rambam representative? In some ways, yes, some ways not. I would say by and large again.

there was certainly discrimination against Jews. Although we have to say that discrimination varied between countries and periods. Some rulers were more intense on preserving the laws of discrimination. Some cared less. Some could be bribed to relax discrimination. To give an example, the dhiny rules prohibit Jews from building new synagogues. But of course, synagogues were built throughout history under Muslim rule. That is, some rulers were insisted on maintaining this rule, some ignored them.

The same thing with the dress. There were periods of Jews were supposed to have, some, let's say, mark color. In others not, we see, by the way, that some Muslims complain that Jews don't preserve this laws. Now, to give an example, the 14th century Muslim scholar Ibn Taymiya, a very rigid, hardline scholar, very prolific, who lived in Damascus. He fled from Baghdad, from the Mongols, he settled in Damascus. Very important scholar. He complains about the frivolity of Muslim women.

And he found the reason. He said, Muslim women are frivolous because they go to the public bathhouse, where they meet Jewish women, they talk, they become friends, and then we see the bad influence of Jewish women over this Muslim women. Now, you can take it in two ways. even Tenia certainly doesn't like Jews for him of course Jews are at fault if not so say that implicitly he acknowledges

not only coexistence but maybe friendship between Jews and Muslims so you could see both sides now there were tolerance yes was a certain you can say implicit tension or pressure on Jews to convert all the time because converts to see benefits not only did converts could converts fully integrated in Islamic society

and by the way some converts reached the highest positions as viziers. Now in Islam the moment person converted, he was a full fledged Muslim. No one cared about his ancestors. Now, if person converted, he would get the entire inheritance of his parents including his siblings,

who remained Jewish. So there was always some tension and again, there was some discrimination. But you can also see, for instance, to give an example, because Muslim law is a little bit more liberal than Jewish law regarding a lot of inheritance for women, where the situation in the Middle Ages where Jewish women prefer to go to a Muslim court, also under the Ottomans, prefer to go to a Muslim court in order to get some part of the inheritance than to go to a rabbinical court.

So much so that we have Jewish rabbis urging other rabbis, now be much more generous, thought women, so they would not go to the Muslim court. Now, the fact that these women believe that Muslim, the Muslim court was a refuge is an indicator that, again, not all that this was a very mixed picture, with some positive but also negative elements.

Now, the Mwafidun in many ways are the exception, they are the worst of the worst. On the other hand, to describe the Muslim-Jewish relations as a golden age of harmony and brotherhood where they're all singing together with love, this is nonsense. We know today this is not a true story. The worst, by the way, I would say the Muahidun and also in Iran.

Iran is a Shi country, not a Sunni country. Shi Iran from the 16th century until the 19th century was the least tolerant Muslim country in the world. They got to Jews. Can you describe that? Give us details. In Iran, because of the unique elements of Shiism, they insisted the, I would say, they're almost the obsession with ritual purity. Jews were regarded as ritually impure.

which meant not only social discrimination. For instance, in Iran, there was, you know, Jews to distinguish between Jews and non-Jews. Jews were not supposed to wear socks. Okay, they had to, or they could not trim their beards. But Jews could not open stores in the bazaar. Many Jews could work, you know, as peddlers, but not on stores in the bazaar. When a Jew is ritually impure, means that if a Jew touches certain foods, or water, a Muslim

cannot touch this foot. It has to be cleansed. This is Iran under the Safavids starting in, what was it, 501? 1501. But it took while. For how long does this do Jews live like this in Iran? Safavits collapsed in 1722,

but some of these discriminatory measures continued in the 1920s. I can show you some interesting anecdotes from the 1930s. It reached It's two picks. One is that in the 17th century, under the Shah,

under Shah Abbas the second, about a third of the Jewish community in Iran was forced to convert to Islam. They disappeared, they chose. In 1839, the entire Jewish community of Mashhad was forced to convert to Islam because they accused the Jew of slaughtering a dog during a Muslim ritual procession

in order to make the procession ritual impure and therefore invalid. Now, interestingly enough, the Jews in Mashhad lived as crypto Jews for 100 years, living double life. Muslims outwardly, Jews inwardly. By the way, Mergaamak themselves only. Some fled from Mashad, settled in Bukhara and other places, or Afghanistan, but most stayed in Bukhara.

They meant crypto Jews until they were allowed to return to Judaism in the 1930s under the secular reshasa. There was also a mess program against the Jewish community in Tabriz, which disappeared. period, apparently in 1809, or at some point, we under exact the exact dates. It's true, by the way, this obsession with purity that some Muslim clerics ruled that when it trains, Jews should not go outside because if they go and the rain fall on their head and then fall on the coast of the ground, the ground would be contaminated. So Muslims won't be able to walk.

Now, these rulings were issued in the 19th century or 17th century onwards. and they remained invalid until then mid-20th century. I met people who came from Iran and told me that this was practiced when they were children. So Iran was the exception or the worst case, and again, Wahedun in another case. If you look at the Ottomans, for instance, under the Ottomans, again, Jews which enjoyed tolerance. the Ottomans were the only empire that opened its gates to the Jews or expelled from Spain. Was the full equality? No.

Was the major tolerance? Yes. Now, Jews, you could at the same time, Jews spoke Turkey, but they also maintained, of course, their language, their own language, Nadina or in Ottoman Empire in the Balkans. So this was, I would say, the picture. And then in the 19th century, the Ottomans also. give Jews legal equality.

Not necessarily in practice, but it's according to the law. When European imperialism reached the Middle East, the Jews, unlike the Muslims, welcome the European imperialists. For me, it shows that they still felt as a minority.

They felt insecure. They preferred the protection and benevolence of the European imperialists, be it the French in North Africa and or the British in Iraq over the our majority. That shows you that if the Jews in Algeria welcome the French and took wholeheartedly

French citizenship, shows you that they did not feel any solidarity brotherhood with the Muslims. They certainly did not feel that they were like their brethren. They felt like a minority. I was challenged once by somebody trying to lead me into a conversation about a traditional Muslim belief that comes very early on in the Koran that the Jews falsify their scripture, that there's a special, you've touched on this, that there's a special kind of treachery in the Jews, a lying of that they received a revelation. The Christians, you know, misunderstood their revelation maybe, but the Jews received a revelation and then warped it, changed it, made it not

accurate. And so the Jews are kind of prototypical. They're an art. archetype of dishonesty and refusal of divine, of divine truth and divine revelation. There are pogroms. There's a pogrom in Zfat in 1834. There's a pogrom in Rhodes. There's the blood libel of Damascus. There are just again and again and again these spasms of violence. That's in the Ottoman period, which is remembered by Ottoman Jews, remembered by Sephardi Jews, by Turkish Jews, as a period of calm, as a period of course. Toward the end, the empire is toppling. Everybody's suffering. But there is this memory that things were tolerant. And yet, we have the spasms, we have this recurring argument. It's not just Memonides' Rambam's childhood. It's, it's his

letters to Jewish communities that feel under pressure from Islam. It's all these things that you describe, you know, you just described inheritance laws in which if one member of the family converts to Islam, they inherit everybody, everybody's things. And the others are disinherited because they remained Jewish, well, centuries and centuries and centuries of that will ultimately dissolve families and dissolve communities. And that's without the forced conversion, mass force conversion that you saw in Iran under the Safavid. So, and what triggers me to ask the question in that way is your point about colonialism. The Europeans show up and the Jews are immediately excited about it because there's a sense that post-revolutionary France is, is, gives

equality, something that Jews could never even hope for or imagine. Islam is a religion of social order in which the Jews are from the beginning by the great prophet of God himself positioned in a lower class. Was it a good experience or was it a bad experience? Or what in between? It is very politicized today on both sides, by the way. Those who try to present harmony and ideal as a situation and those who want to present a disappearance as a of 14 centuries of constant persecutions. I think both are mistaken. Now, there are, you mentioned before that, yes,

Jews are regarded as those distorting the scriptures, therefore they are evil. Christians are simply mistaken. Even worse, there's a whole theme or genre in Islamic literature called Israeliat. That is of supposed Jews who supposedly converted to Islam, but in fact remain Jewish and they entered Islam

in order to distort Islam from within. So many of the problems that are subdeveloped in Islam are a result of this supposedly Jewish penetration. Now you can also see it in another way, by the way. In every split that happened in Islam, in

history there's this tendency always to find the person who is guilty of the split. There's supposedly one person who was the guilty By and large, 99% of these cases is a Jew. When you have the major split between Sunnis and Shias, of course, it's the fault of a Jew. We have splits within Shizim, it's the fault of a Jew. That is, the fact that you always attribute every bad thing to a Jew shows you there's a problem.

We cannot deny it. Again, at the same time, if you look at most Jewish communities, by the way, were not, you know, massacred or murdered and did not suffer constant persecutions. Yes, there was discrimination. By the way, similar to Christians. Christians were not preferred. By the way, sometimes Jews were preferred under the Ottomans, in the early centuries of Ottoman Empire. Until the 18th century, Jews felt better than Christians. because Christians were suspected of being agents of Europe. Jews were loyal.

And therefore, in fact, they enjoyed more tolerance than Christians under the Ottomans. I would say the picture is mixed. There are positive and negative elements. Now, the change comes, by the way, in the 19th century. This is a different story. And we see the entrance of anti-Semitism into the Middle East. So at what point does tradition, Islamic anti-Judaism, the Dimi system, at what point does that transform into something

that is much closer to modern anti-Semitism? In other words, where we really begin to see the protocols of the elders of Zion is already by the early 20th century translating to Arabic, a kind of European-inflected modern anti-Semitism that is already core to Islamic conversations, Islamic politics, Arab politics, Muslim world. you know, public affairs. Well, the change suddenly takes place in the 19th century, and it is the result of two processes.

One is European influence, cultural influence on the Middle East. For instance, the 1840 blood libel in Damascus was invented by Christian Max and then developed in Damascus. So it was European influence that brought anti-Semitic themes to the Middle East, one process.

The other process, In the 19th century, let go this way. For many centuries, Muslims were tolerant toward Jews and Christians because they were powerful, self-confident. When you are powerful and self-confident, you can afford to be generous toward others, toward people who are weaker than you. In the 19th century, Muslims begin,

from the 19th century until today, by the word, say the Muslim world is indeed weaker, economically, technologically, scientifically, lagging behind the West. It also suffered from military defeats from European powers. From the 17th, from the 17th century, 1683 is the beginning, but then 18th century,

1772, major defeat by the Russians, and from then on, a whole series of defeats by Muslims, of Muslims by Europeans. Muslims feel threatened by the West. The moment they feel threatened, they become less tolerant. Even worse, because of the economic penetration of the European powers of the Middle East, non-Muslim minorities prospered much more than Muslims. Christians much more than Jews, but so did Jews.

Can you explain that? There are the treaties signed between the Ottomans and European powers of capitulations that granted European citizens. subjects of European Empire's legal immunity, in part to bring European trade into the empire. But you're saying people actually living in the empire. In other words, ancient Christian communities in the empire prospered in a way that the Muslims living next to them didn't. What caused that? The capitulations, by the way, were given the 16th century among the Ottomans very powerful. Again, out of generosity, the powerful Ottomans helping this, say, inferior Christians to make

business to do business in the Ottoman Empire. They did not understand the consequences. In the 19th century, it becomes a very powerful economic tool of Europeans. But what we see, that if European companies enter the Middle East, merchants, okay, they purchase things, who would they employ? They would employ Christians, much to that extent. It's easier for them to work with Christians and to less extend with Jews. So, Jews and Christians and Jews prospered from the link with the Europeans, where Muslims did not. But now Muslims see themselves, I would say, under a dual attack.

First of all, we are under attack by the powerful military, European militaries, then by the powerful European economies, and you can say also subject to European cultural and influence. Their self-confidence is shaken. Their tolerance disappears. How do you see it? Eight in 60, there's a large-scale massacre

against Christians in Damascus. Because, by the way, they're also supposed to give Jews of Christians legal equality. That led to fury against the minorities. All you needed was, one economic crisis, and, by the way, the Christians made a mistake, they took the legal equality seriously. So they began to hold processions with crosses and drink church because

they were now allowed. Jews being a much smaller community, much more cautious, did not provoke the Muslims. They knew that, you know, they'd be cautious. So we saw in 1860, large-scale massacre, maybe 5,000 people, Christians were massacred by the Muslims in Damascus, a smaller massacre in Aleppo, another small masseter in Mosul against Christians, because the Christians violated the right order, the right social hierarchy. A very prominent landmark is 1894, before the advent of political Zionism, the first science congress is 1896, but before the advent of political Zionism, the first major anti-Semitic tract was translated from German to erratic. It was called, It is the vicious anti-Semitic book by the German author called Ooling, called Talmud Yude,

which speaks about this evil Talmud that, you know, self-contains various machinations against Christians, etc. And it was translated to Arabic. So now anti-Semitism becomes supposedly scientific, because now it has a scholarly basis. Then the major turning point is the First World War. The last great Muslim empire is destroyed. The Qaeda, the symbol of Islamic unity of unity is abolished. Both than that, European powers now conquer or control the entire Middle East,

and you have the Jewish community or the Zionist movement receiving international recognition first by the Balfour Declaration, then in 1922 by the League of Nations that gives the British a mandate over Palestine to implement the Balthewa Declaration. Now, Muslims in these years find ourselves in a new world which they cannot understand. The whole world, the old world collapsed. Everything, the picture that the period of the world collapsed, shattered completely. How to expand it?

What happened? Now, societies in crisis are prone to conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories make everything clear. Everything better happened to us is a result of a powerful, sinister group of people who are behind the scenes. They dominate everything. They manage. They manipulate everything.

And who are, what better than the Jews to have it? Now, add to that, First World War leads to the Polish Republic Revolution, discussion of the Absburg campaign. That is, all of Europe is sitting with conspiracy theories. and then comes this horrible anti-Semitic track, the protocols of that design that was invented and forged by the Russian secret police in 1905 to explain the upheaval in Russia attributed to the Jews.

What we call a white Russian, that is anti-Bolshevik, Russian anti-Semitism, Sergei Nilos, brought it to Western Europe, and he became a bestseller in Europe in the 1920s. And indeed, during the 1920s, the portals were translated twice to Arabic. And since then, they become one of the, first of all the most popular books all over the world,

but they become extremely popular in the Arab world. In the Muslim world, there are over 59 printed editions of the protocols in Muslim countries, not to mention now they're spread in the Internet, which reaches many millions of people. So here I would say the post-World War period is the turning point. The Muslim world is in distress,

the Muslim world is in a cultural predicament. Now, let me explain also the cultural predicament which I did not do it before. According to Islamic belief, Islam is the superior religion that has superseded all previous religions. It is God's final, most perfect word, a revelation or message to humanity.

One of the theological proofs of Islam's superiority over other religions was it also, it is Islamic civilization was more powerful. Because Islam always had, Islam was in the beginning, a religious community was also a political community, and politics was an important element in Islamic tradition and religion. The success of the Islamic polity in history was a proof of its just cause. Indeed, for many centuries, Muslims could look at the world and say, indeed, we are superior.

We are more powerful, more advanced than Europeans. And that was true. until the 18th century when the tips turn against the scale tip against the Muslims and since the 19th century to this day when Muslims find themselves lagging behind the West being defeated

by the West and later by the Israelis this theological concept is shaken it is challenged how can it be that God's chosen religion God's superior religion is inferior politically, militarily, economically, scientifically,

technologically to the infidious. It is wrong. It is against the right order of things. Add to that, the Jews are more powerful than Muslims. Then, in such a predicament, conspiracy theories provide the answers. We are victims of a very powerful

group of people, again, who dominated the world behind the sins, And everything bad happens to us is their fault, not ours. So what happens in the 20th century? And how does this relationship with the Jews express itself? In the 20th century, Muslims suffer. There was predicaments. And the search for the, what has gone wrong with us?

And how do we get out of our crisis goes back to the 19th century? With Jamal-Din al-Afghani and others. Now, by the way, Afghani did not deal with the truth. You didn't care about the Jews. Is one of it is disciple or friend or Muhammad Abdul, by the way, again, doesn't do so much with the Jews. But although it says, unless we Muslims take care of ourselves, we'll find ourselves in the same situation with the Jews. That is, the Jews are the symbol of being humiliated, miserable group. He warns against it, but he's not, again, he doesn't care so much about the Jews.

Jews are not his problem. They're out to reform Islam. They're out to return Islam to the kind of piety that it would have, that it would have, that it would, need to rise up again. Ironically, Rashid Rida, Abdu's disciple, by the way, supports Dreyfus. When there's the Dreyfus case in France,

Rida publishes articles in support of Dreyfus as a victim of persecution. Again, not that he's a friend of Jews, but he, again, Jews are not a problem for him. As an example of Islamic tolerance, by the way, he says, this Dreyfus thing could never happen in Islam. Again, the change, I would say, is the 20th century with the destruction of Ottoman Empire.

the tremendous sense of loss, I should have said, by the way, there is a statement in Arabic about Islam, which is very powerful. It says Islam should reign supreme. Nothing can be about Islam. Al-Islam y'allu, and la yoreau lae.

This is a theological concept. Now, what happens is when essentially Islam no longer reign supreme on the country, Islam is suffering, is defeated, humiliated, etc. Now, the worst situation is, it is also the Muslims or many Muslims see that in the modern period

Jews are very successful think of Einstein think of Freud Karl Marx who was an anti-Semite himself when he is father converted Carl Marx was an anti-Semite but for anti-Semite he is Jewish the Muslims many Muslims see

modernity associate Jews with modernity too many Jews are successful in modernity and they associate then many aspects of modernity with the Jews. Again, Einstein, Freud. And we see, by the way, in current Muslim, anti-Semitic diatribes, again, the Jews are responsible of many of the evas of modernity.

Zionism adds to it, or I would say is, again, the major turning point, because now Muslims are defeated by Jews. 1948 is a major trauma for many Muslims. How could it be that 600,000 Jews could defeat five other Arab armies? Now, there are two possible answers to this. One is maybe there's something deeply wrong in our society. That is we are disorganized. We are corrupt governments.

We are corrupt systems. Our education is lacking, et cetera, et cetera. Or we are victims of a very powerful force. We were not defeated by 600,000 Jews. We were defeated by a sinister force that actually dominates the world. How can you understand? How can you explain that Communist Soviet Union and capitalist America joined together in 1947 to vote for a partition and for the subjectment of a Jewish state?

It must have been the aftermath of a conspiracy. And 1948, you may... leads to jump in anti-Semitism. It starts before, again, Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim brothers, was anti-Semite. And he founds the Muslim brothers in the 1920s, and he's already reading anti-Semitic literature,

writing about it, yeah. Yes, 1928, he founded it. In 1930s, he becomes the best movement. Certainly, he's vehement anti-Zionist, but also becomes anti-Jewish. By the way, in 1948, brothers, not only pressure the Egyptian government to go to work with Israel, but they wage a pogrom against the Jewish community in Cairo.

Again, why? Because Muslims feel threatened. For Muslims being defeated by the Europeans, it's painful, but it still can be no explained. But being defeated by Jews, who are usually the law of the law, who were under Muslim rule, who were subject to Muslim domination, all of a sudden day. defeat, it's intolerable. Sometimes when I speak to American audiences, I say, okay, no, when the L.A. Lakers lose to the

New York, to the Boston Celtics, painful, but tolerable. But if the L.A. Lakers would lose to a team from a small town in Wisconsin, okay, or Wattosa, that would be major humiliation, okay? And it's exactly what happens in the Middle East.

And then we see after 1948, I would say, again, a major change in the spread of anti-Semitism in the virulence of anti-Semitism and also again in the Islamization of anti-Semitism. Again, it becomes much more intertwined with Islamic Islamist, modern Islamist ideology.

In fact, it becomes an inherent central element of modern Islamist ideology. From them, it starts before, as we mentioned, but it became much worse after 1948. The conflict in this land, the Jewish-Palestinian conflict, Zionist-Palestine conflict, is essentially, originally a national conflict.

Two national movements, two peoples, vying for the same land, both believe that this land is theirs. This is their homeland. It was actually a battle over, again, territory, country, etc. It has released elements. Certainly Jewish longing for the Holy Land

for Earth, Israel, had a very powerful religious foundation. There's no question about it. For Muslims, I mentioned it before, Jewish sovereignty is unacceptable. Jewish sovereignty is in the front against Islam. Jews cannot have sovereignty of a territory. Jews were destined by God to be dispersed and humiliated by the nations.

So Jewish sovereignty is in front against God. Had another element, Jerusalem, a holy city for both religions or peoples. Now, so it is a national conflict but had religious elements which complicated it. Then in the 1920s, the leader of the Palestinian National Movement, Hajimani, who was, by the way, a rabid anti-Semite, uses religion as a force to mobilize the people. He understands that nationalism is still very weak among most Arabs and Palestinians. and the tool that can mobilize people, motivate people for the struggle is religion. And then Hajamim begins to use the slogan, Al-Axa is in danger.

The Jews threaten Al-Aqa-Mas. They want to take over Al-A-Mas. They want to destroy it and transform it into a Jewish temple. He infuses religious elements into the country. That is, this is a conflict now becomes between Islam and Jews. Now, under Hajjama al-Hu Kusaymi, and I will also say, under Yasser-A-A-A-A-A-A-Arafat, It is nationalism using religion. Religion as a tool or religion as the force of popular mobilization.

Yasser al-Arafat uses to quote from the Quran, to describe some of the elements with the Jews, although, again, he always described this as a national crisis. Islamization means that you describe the conflict as between Islam and Jews and Judaism, between Muslim-Muslim Jews. and the struggle wages around the sanctities of the Holy Land, especially Jerusalem, the Jews want to, again, undermine Islam. It is a Jewish fight against Islam.

And this harkens back to the stuff we talked about at the very beginning. In other words, Jews as treacherous, Jews as faking the revelation, Jews as resisting and refusing the truth of God, those come back as immutable traits of Jews. We are dealing the very world that says we have to go back to the Islam of our forefathers if we want to regain geopolitical pre-evidence now says

oh and by the way, their enemy, the Jews are our enemy the Jews. There is something in the Jews had been enemies of Islam from the beginning. This is something here from Hamas all day long. The Jews wanted the prophet Muhammad to and wanted to prevent him from Spanish. By the way, Muhammad died because he was poisoned by his Jewish wife.

This is one of the legends that developed in Islamic tradition. He survived the poisoning effect, but it affected his health. So you see, the Jews were always glad that with sinister. She, you know, this Jewish wife supposedly converted to Islam, but in fact remained vengeance. So she wanted to take revenge against the Prophet. He was not, see, Jews always use this, say, immoral ways to fight to fight Islam. So, yes, the modern Islamic movement say, see, Jewish enmity told Islam goes back then and now.

It is this continuous Jewish enmity toward Islam from the 7th century to this morning. Just to clarify this point, people who argue that Islam is fundamentally set against Jews, that anti-Semitism is core to Islam, that the Jews are innately the opposite of what Islam is, those people are not anti-Muslim Westerners necessarily, those are Hamas themselves. That is an argument made deep within the, you know, Salafist, Islamist, political world, with that is what it is that they are claiming. And that is what we see in terrorism against Jewish communities in Britain, terrorism against Jewish communities

in the United States and all over the world in Bandai Beach. So just, you know, there's this sense in Western conversations about Muslim anti-Semitism that to say that somehow Islam and Judaism are set against each other in some kind of permanent way is an evil version of hatred of Muslims. It is in fact the opinion of Hamas.

Yeah, not only of Hamas, by the way, all Islamist thinkers, all Islamic movements. Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, the ideologue of the Islamic Republic, in the first page of his most important political book, The Rule of the Jews, in the first page, says that Islam

from its beginning was afflicted by the Jews because the Jews conspired against Islam and they wanted to foil the mission of the Prophet Muhammad. First page. Can you take us deep into Iran? So now we're, this is, you know, you're really one of the great experts on this.

You wrote a book, Know Thy enemy. I have it somewhere on my shelf, which is not that we should know our enemy Iran, but in fact, how Iranian Shia thinking about the other, about who the enemy is influences Iranian ideology. The Iranian state, okay, is anti-Semitism, specifically Jews, obsession with Jews and not framed as Israel. Israel is the immediate challenge of the Jews. The Jews are the great challenge. is a pillar of the Islamic identity of the regime.

It is deep. It is foundational. And that's something I learned from you. Can you walk us through that? What are the Jews to Khomeini and to the regime, the last 47 years of the regime that he founded? Yeah, first of all, I would say yes, anti-Semitism is a very important pillar

of the Islamic ideology of the Islamic Republic. Now, if you go back to, as I mentioned, I discussed Shijim before, But let's say that in the 20th century, there were two developments in Iran. On the one hand, the palabies, who were secular, removed many of the legal restrictions against Jews. Jews were allowed to, you know, go to schools and get jobs, et cetera, moved out of the Jewish ghetto. And indeed, the Jewish community in Iran enjoyed unprecedented prosperity under palavi rule. In many ways, you could compare them to the Jewish community in America.

At the same time, there was also anti-Jewish. traditions or strong modern anti-Semitism. If you look at, for example, the most illustrious Iranian author in the 20th century, Sadika Dayat, was a rabid anti-Semite. In all these books or plays, there's always this Jew who is a liar, deceiver, stingy, crook, etc., etc. The same thing we see to many other films and books. So it always existed. Also, like that.

Humaney was an anti-Semite. through and through from the beginning. In the 1950s or 60s, he always complained that Jews are taking over Ivan. He was very hostile to the Shah because of his policies, and he accused again that the Shah was collaborating with the Jews, etc.

When Khomeini now became revolutionary, of course, he integrated this and he was almost interredo Jews into his overall ideology and for instance. And this is, as I mentioned in his book, the first book, first page, he says, Jews conspired against Islam from the beginning. Three pages later, he has spent it in the modern period. The Muslim world has been under an attack by, you can say, an unholy Trinity, the West, the Jews, and Westernized Iranians.

This unholy Trinity wants to destroy Islam. This unholy Trinity wants to prevent Islam for fulfilling its mission. Why? Because they understand that Islam thanks to its moral percepts and laws is the major obstacle against their sinister desires, designs to take over the world. And Khomeini explained that all the calamities that have fallen upon the Muslims in the modern period are the result of this Jewish Western conspiracy. The pick of these conspiracies is Zionism. That is, Khomeini and all other Islamist movements, by the way. Don't make any distinction between Zionism and Judaism. For them, Zionism is the practical implementation of Judaism.

Now, when Khomeini sees power in Iran and became the little of the Republic of Iran, he explained that, in fact, we make a distinction between Jews and Zionism. We're not anti-Jewish. Judaism is a protected religion. In fact, there's a Jewish member in Iran and parliament, who is always anti-Zionist, always attacks Israel on every occasion. You see, he's put there, by the way. not like authentically elected, he's put there by the regime so they can point to

him. At the same time, the Islamic Republic in Iran, in its official publications, I mean, Islamic discourse in Iran, the ruling Islamic discourse in Iran is thoroughly anti-Semitic. The Islamic Republic of Iran published the Protocols of Zayn's in at least two printed publication, not to mention frequent use in Internet by, I know, hundreds of ways. The Islamic Republic of Iran, the seminar is the idea of the blood library. You have in the Islamic, Iranian TV, official TV, supposedly scholars who tell you that, in fact, the Jews do use blood of little Christians for ritual purposes. By the way, why didn't you hear about it in the news? It shows you how the Jews control the media.

That is the fact that there are no evidence of Jewish use, of ritual, of blood, is the proof of the Jewish domination. They are able to hide the truth. The Islamic Republic of Iran is the only country in the world whose official ideology contains Holocaust denial, not only Ahmadinejad, including late Supreme of Khomeini, described the Holocaust as a complete exaggeration. complete exaggeration, again invented by the Jews and by the way, the Americans as well, to hide American atrocities in the war. And not only that, but leading Islamic spokesmen in the Islamic Republic of Iran justified the Holocaust.

There was no Holocaust, but what Hitler did to the Jews were completely justified. A supposedly moderate senior politician like Rafsanjani, former president, number two men under Khomeini explained that in the 19th century the Zionist dominated Europe Germany was under the stranglehold of Zionist organizations and Hitler simply liberated Germany

from this Zionist stranglehold and I said what happened what happened that is something happened not know exactly what it is not a certain or not six million but what you see is Ravsan Jani he speaks about Zionist domination of 19th century Germany

Clearly, he means Jews. He uses the Zionism, but in fact, everyone understands he speaks about Jews. So Iran is the only country in the world again, who sent me the protocols, denies the Holocaust, justifies it to some extent, and now, by the way, we also are also another very important, two other, some other important elements. Describing the Jews as enemies of Shi Islam, particularly, Jews are responsible for many of the calamities that has befallen upon the Shis. there were the force behind the Sunni animosity towards cheese.

Jews are historical enemies of Iran going to antiquity, the genocide the Jews committed against perpetrated against Persians in biblical time under King, Queen Esther. And you also have another element that it is essential not only to destroy Israel, but to fight the Jews, to prepare the ground for the coming of the Messiah. That is, this is what the great, an Israeli historian, Solfinalder,

defined as redemptive anti-Semitism. That is, you redeem the world by persecuting the Jews. And today in modern Israeli-Shi discourse, fighting the Jews is essential to redeem humanity to facilitate the coming of the hidden of the Messiah, of the Mahdi. So I want to just ask this. We have studies of anti-Semitism in the Muslim world. incidentally rare, hard to come by.

I think Pew did something in 2008, ADL, did this huge survey of global anti-Semitic sentiment in 2014. There's a little bit here and there more recent, but people don't like asking the Muslim world what they think of Jews because they don't like the answers. What do the things that we have seen is compared to the Arab world, compared to Indonesia, compared to Malaysia, for example.

Iran has relatively low rates of anti-Semitic sentiment, and by relatively low, I mean half, 47%. So the Iran you're describing is arguably, I'm asking this as a question, half of Iranian society, and then we see in Iran, Iran specifically is very interesting because, of course, we're now in war with Iran, And the other half of Iranian society is, I guess, the half that's producing the protesters, the people who hate the regime, the people who think that anti-Semitism is part of a structure

that oppresses them, much more than it ever oppressed, you know, at least since the Jews left after the revolution, oppressed the Jews. Is that a fair assessment? Is Iranian society split in that way on the question of anti-Semitism? Apparently, yes. I would say probably many Iranians, first of all, they have much more urgent problems than Jews. And secondly, because they hate the regime, they don't believe anything that the regime says. And if the regime is anti-Semitic, then, of course, we maybe...

The Jews must be good. The Jews must be okay. And therefore, yes, we see less open anti-Semitism in a European society than we see in other countries, because there it is, again, anti-Semitism is from below. Some regimes encourage it or tolerate it. others are not engaged in it. Indonesia is a very tolerant Muslim country. So what you have in the inter-Semitism is in Indonesia, by the way, the inter-semitism without Jews, they're not a Jew in their life,

is only of the most radical movements within Indonesian Islam. But Indonesians say things about Jews, like Jews control the world banks at rates of 90%. So it's the Jew, the abstract Jew, the category of a Jew. They've never... Yes. There's nobody pushing back against this in Indonesia, Malaysia. To some, I would must make a distinction between Malaysia, Indonesia.

Malaysia is much worse. But, you know, the president of Indonesia appeared last year in the UN General Assembly and said that we must have peace in the Middle East to ensure Israel's security and the speech with the word shalom in Hebrew. That is something that is not common among Muslim Buddhists. So maybe it doesn't fight anti-Semitism inactively. But he certainly, first of all, you know, who supports peace with Israel. He speaks about the need to ensure Israel's security.

It's something you do not find in any, among any other Muslim leader who speaks about peace with Israel. Yes, they accept Israel. Some of them are willing to live in peace with Israel. They don't stress the need of Israel's security. That is, he went further than others. Yes, he doesn't fight anti-Semitism, probably because he has too many other problems on his plate to simply fighting anti-Semitism. anti-Semitism.

So I want to ask, I guess the last question. And it's a big one. We're seeing a massive rise in anti-Semitic rhetoric, podcasters in the United States, mass marches in England over the Gaza War. I know many decent people who joined the marches because they saw terrible scenes from from a very painful war. But we also have seen Hezbollah flags all over those marches and Hamas flags all over those marches and organizations where there's no doubt, there's no question, they're explicitly and openly genocidal and anti-Semitic. And how shall I put this? You're not

marching against a war or against the genocide if you are explicitly supporting movements that explicitly call for genocides and are anti-Semitic in the insane way that there's, that we're describing here that they borrowed from the West. A lot of that, a lot of those ideas have come from Muslim immigrant groups, a lot of the core activist groups that push a lot of the anti-Semitic ideas, not anti-Israel, explicit anti-Jewish. And the levels of anti-Semitic sentiment, we have polls of British Muslims. We have polls in the United States. They're again, hard to come by. But every time they happen, they always tell us the same thing. Rates of of negative sentiment against Jews

and of conspiratorial thinking of Jews are through the roof. And a lot of the conspiracies that you get from the Tucker Carlson's and the Candace Owens, who are borrowing from, you know, mid-20th century Europe, but where has that stuff gone to hibernate

so that it can come back into the world? It went to the Muslim world to hibernate explicitly, literally translating from German to Arabic, from Russian to Arabic, putting it in the major libraries of the Muslim world, and now it's coming back into the West. And third worldists people who, you know, from the progressive deep left,

who feel that you have to listen to the Muslim world, you have to listen to the third world, they're exposed to this constantly because a lot of what the Muslim world says on these issues is deeply, classically, European, 19th, 20th century, anti-Semitic. Where is anti-Semitism in the Muslim world going in the future? Do you see it getting much, much worse? Is there any reason for, for optimism of any kind? Well, let me just mention one thing, which I didn't say before. Islamist anti-Semitism today is the most openly genocided anti-Semitism.

It is the most openly movement that says openly the need to exterminate the entire Jewish people. By the way, they don't use, they don't mean sworese, they don't use euphemisms, okay? They don't speak about the final solution, resettlement, et cetera. They speak openly and explicitly about the need to exterminate the entire Jewish people. Who, for example? Who, for example? Who, for example? Said Qutub, Hamas, and many other Islamist thinkers.

The need to start to exterminate the Jewish people. This is the first time after the Holocaust, and by the way, now anti-Semitism is popular, that movements say openly, speak openly about the need to exterminate the entire people. Now, I have to say I'm very pessimistic. about this spread of anti-Semitism, partly because, again, of the demographic growth and the political empowerment of Muslims in Europe, in the U.S., and other societies. partly, I would say, because of what is happening in my year, I'm not an expert on European anti-Semitism, but I believe that what we had in Europe

was a 70 years yetus in anti-Semitism that after the Holocaust, it became, let's say, unfashionable, but now it can re-emerge. But what specifically about Muslim communities? Is there, for example, we just dealt with the British Muslim community because of the attacks on Jews there and we looked at polls

and it turns out several things one there is a huge problem of deep anti-Semitism in the British Muslim community and not you know Lebanese and Palestinian and Jordanian expats in Britain

but in fact Pakistanis in Britain it's an Islamic thing it's not borrowed directly from some kind of experience with Israel And it's immense. It's immense. It depends what question you ask. It'll range from a third to two thirds. But then there's also a data point that says that the more integrated they feel in British society, the more British they say they are, the lower the levels of anti-Semitism dramatically. If 97% of Algerians say the Jews control the world through the banks, then Algerian immigrants are going to bring anti-Semitism to your country. That is simply part of their culture at this point. it's an almost universal perspective of Algerians. But more importantly than that, can Muslim societies end this? Can they fight this?

Can they tackle this? Is there any chance that these Muslim communities in the West or Muslim communities in Islam in the lands of Islam overcome this stuff? We see, for example, the Abraham Accords, the Emirates, the Somaliland. I just interviewed the ambassador of Somaliland was here. There is no anti-Semitism there. There is, you know, they have all the problems in the world. They are an amazing success story despite those problems.

But they're just, they're not obsessed with the Jews. Is there a way for the Muslim world to find a path out of the conspiratorial thinking that you've traced in great detail from the 19th century till today, which has a lot of roots all the way back to the very beginning and which they're bringing in these immigrant waves to the West explicitly? It's the data. if you don't like it, you know, you're arguing against data, not against a Zionist, Jewish, evil Israeli podcast.

Is there a way of hope, a reason to think, a path forward in which, I guess I'm saying, Islam cures itself of this. The people who can fight anti-Semitism, are first and foremost Muslims. The way to fight anti-Semitism is to somehow explain or convince them that, yes, you have many problems. But the solution is not anti-Semitism.

The solution is addressing you deep socioeconomic political cultural problems. Your patriarchal systems, your bad, certain authoritarian traditions, or corrupt systems. You want to solve your problems, don't blame you. This is the easy solution. This is the way out of indeed addressing your problems. Now, it is done, but it is done. some Muslims today, unfortunately small minority. It has to be done by them and I would say also by Western governments who should not tolerate it.

Who should not tolerate Islamist anti-Semitism in the name of pluralism or being open to know to third world cultures or in the name of multiculturalism. Multiculturalism does not justify the theory you can advocate. the killing of another people or you can justify rape against others. Now, I would say, you know, also Europeans and others, Jews are the first, you'll be the second, you know. We have always been the first victims.

We are the canary in the coal miner, okay? We are the first victims of intolerance or rapid movements. You will be next, you will be next, unless you address it. Now, is it easy? No. Does it have a chance? Yes. Is it,

am I certain of success? I'm not very optimistic, but I hope. Mayor Litvach, thank you so much for joining me. We know a little bit more, and, you know, you didn't end with, everything's going to be fine, don't worry. But that's our situation. Yeah, unfortunately.

Thank you for joining me. You're most welcome.