Anyone keeping abreast of the ongoing global jihad carnage—from Somalia to Stockholm— would not be surprised that “white supremacist” killings remain a marginal epiphenomenon. The most recent U.S. Department of State (USDOS) “Country Reports on Terrorism”, published September 2018, illustrates this truth, as summarized by City Journal’s Seth Barron:

“…[A]lmost all the world’s extremist violence is concentrated in a handful of regions, where very few white people live…[T]he record indicates that of the nearly 20,000 people killed in thousands of extremist killings in 2017, white supremacists were responsible for very few.”

Blithely ignoring the worldwide context, which includes the intimate connection between jihadism, and Islamic Jew-hatred, Tuesday, April 9th, the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing entitled, “Hate Crimes and the Rise of White Nationalism.”

Much to the chagrin of the majority Democrats who organized the hearing, one witness, Zionist Organization of America President Morton Klein, refused to abide their willful blindness. Mr. Klein emphasized the disproportionate occurrence of hate crimes against Jews in America—a consistent phenomenon for over two decades based upon hard FBI data (1996–2017).

Indeed, despite the Committee’s hand-wringing about “Islamophobia”—notwithstanding 53 jihadist attacks which have caused 158 deaths in the U.S., since the cataclysmic 9/11/2001 jihad carnage, and zero, remotely comparable depredations by Jews—hate crime rates targeting Jews, between 2015 and 2017, remained 2.2 to 3.1-fold higher, relative to the rates of hate crimes against Muslims. 

Mr. Klein’s greatest “offense,” however, was to expose the moral perversity of focusing on “Islamophobia,” or worse still equating it with Antisemitism, when Jews are being subjected to a global pandemic of Muslim Jew-hatred, which includes the attitudes of U.S. Muslims.

Klein’s evidence-based presentation featured, appositely, unique data compiled by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Between 2014 and 2017, the ADL conducted global and regional surveys which captured the prevalence of those who agreed with six or more of eleven Antisemitic stereotypes, i.e., an index of extreme Antisemitism. The results demonstrated a remarkable, if depressing uniformity:

There is a 2 to 4.5-fold excess of Muslim Jew-hatred, relative to any other major religious affiliation, or atheism/agnosticism, and this association with Islam persists amongst the Muslim diaspora populations in Western Europe, and the U.S.

Specific findings, included:

• The world’s 16 most Antisemitic countries are all in the Muslim Middle East, where 75% to 93%  exhibit extreme Antisemitism—Judea-Samaria/Gaza 93%; Iraq 92%; Yemen 88%; Algeria 87%; Libya 87%; Tunisia 86%; Kuwait 82%; Bahrain 81%; Jordan 81%; Morocco 80%; Qatar 80%; United Arab Emirates 80%; Lebanon 78%; Oman 76%; Egypt 75%; Saudi Arabia 75%
• The prevalence of extreme Antisemitism in Western Europe—Belgium, 68% of Muslims vs. 21% of the general population; Spain, 62% of Muslims vs. 29% of the general population; Germany, 56% of Muslims vs. 16% of the general population; Italy, 56% of Muslims vs. 29% of the general population; United Kingdom, 54% of Muslims vs. 12% of the general population; France, 49% of Muslims vs. 17% of the general population
• The prevalence of extreme Antisemitism in the U.S., 34% of Muslims vs. 14% of the general population
• The prevalence of extreme Antisemitism, globally, by religious affiliation—Muslim, 49%; Christian, 24%; No religion, 21%; Hindu, 19%; Buddhist, 17%

Mort Klein further shattered an even more profound taboo: He made plain how Antisemitic themes from canonical Islam—the Koran, and the traditions of Islam’s prophet Muhammad (the “hadith”)—as preached, most importantly, by Sunni Islam’s Vatican, Al-Azhar University, and its Grand Imam Papal equivalents, were responsible for inculcating these Jew-hating attitudes in the global Muslim masses.

The late Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi (d. 2010), was singled out by Klein—appropriately. Tantawi was one of the most revered modern authorities on Koranic exegesis, or “tafsir,” having edited a massive 15-volume modern Koranic commentary, and helped create the largest online website of such analyses. He also authored what can be aptly described as modern Islam’s Koranic Kampf on the Jews, entitled “Banū Isrāʼīl fī al-Qurʼān wa-al-Sunnah,” or “Jews in The Koran and The Traditions”. Tantawi’s magnum opus, a 766 page Muslim academic religious treatise, includes this summary Koranic rationalization for Muslim Jew-hatred:

“The] Koran describes the Jews with their own particular degenerate characteristics, i.e. killing the prophets of Allah [see Koran 2:61/ 3:112 ], corrupting His words by putting them in the wrong places, consuming the people’s wealth frivolously [4:161], refusal to distance themselves from the evil they do [3:120; 5:79], and other ugly characteristics  caused by their deep-rooted (lascivious) envy [2:109]…only a minority of the Jews keep their word…[A]ll Jews are not the same. The good ones become Muslims [Koran 3:113], the bad ones do not.”

More ominously, as Klein noted in his opening statement, Tantawi’s exhaustive modern analysis of Islam’s defining, canonical sources concluded by sanctioning bigoted—even violent—Muslim behaviors towards Jews.

“[T]he Jews always remain maleficent deniers….they should desist from their negative denial…some Jews went way overboard in their denying hostility, so gentle persuasion can do no good with them, so use force with them and treat them in the way you see as effective in ridding them of their evil. One may go so far as to ban their religion, their persons, their wealth, and their villages.”

As Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Tantawi’s public statements on “dialogue” (January 1998) with Jews, the Jews as “enemies of Allah, descendants of apes and pigs” (April 2002; from Koran 5:60), and the legitimacy of homicide bombing of Jews (April 2002), made his personal Muslim Jew-hatred eminently clear. Tantawi’s comments on dialogue, which were issued shortly after he met with Israel’s Chief Rabbi, Israel Meir Lau, in Cairo, on December 15, 1997, re-affirmed his ongoing commitment to the views expressed in “Jews in The Koran and The Traditions”.

Tantawi’s successor, current Al-Azhar Grand Imam Ahmed al-Tayeb, whom Klein also alluded to, shares Tantawi’s Jew-hating virulence. Al-Tayeb has dubbed the Jews eternal Koranic enemies (per Koran 5:82), blamed Jews for the rise of ISIS and other jihadist groups, and claims “the issue of Antisemitism is a lie.”

Kudos to Mort Klein for courageously shattering the prevailing, enforced silence of our national political class regarding the global pandemic of Muslim Jew-hatred, rooted in mainstream Islam. It remains an open question whether being informed will prompt these timorous souls to overcome their “Islamophobia phobia,” and forthrightly acknowledge and confront this ugly problem.

Click here to view the House Judiciary Committee hearing in its entirety. 

Click here for access to Morton Klein’s complete written testimony.