Saudi Columnist: We Must Discuss Why We Hate the Jews

In the London Arabic-language daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Saudi columnist Hussein Shubakshi discusses the Arab world's hatred of Jews. The following are excerpts from the article: [1]

"…The extent of tremendous hatred of the Jews is baffling. Therefore we ask, 'Why do we hate the Jews?'

"The immediate answer will be: 'No, we don't hate the Jews, we hate the Zionists.' [But] this is nonsense. We don't hear [preachers saying in their sermons,] 'Oh Allah, destroy the Zionists, the Zionist enterprise, the offspring of Herzl, and the Basel plan.' Is our current hatred of the Jews the result of the political situation in general and the Palestinian problem in particular? This is a pivotal and important question, and must be answered honestly.

"A few days ago, one of the Saudi newspapers did a nice inquiry on vestiges of Jews in the Al-Ahsaa region in the Arab Peninsula [in eastern Saudi Arabia]. Is it possible that there were traces of Jews in the Arab Peninsula, and that they lived amongst us? The answer is, of course, yes. There is much evidence proving that in more than one Arab country, [Muslims] lived normally alongside Jews, and that [the Jews] studied and worked like the rest of the residents of that country."

"Therefore, the matter requires another explanation. This is particularly true since the Prophet Muhammad's relations with the Jews were clear. He made agreements with them, stood [in respect] at the funeral of one of them, maintained relations with them, married a Jewess, and entrusted his armor to his Jewish neighbor and asked about this Jew when he was missing and sick.

"Our religion permits us to eat the Jews' food, trade with them, and marry them. So what is the issue? If we know the scope of the problem, and the true reason why the Jews have become this great monster, and [if we understand] how this has spread to the point where they have become the reason for every catastrophe, then we will be able to understand the idea of dividing [human beings] into groups …

"There are Saudis who studied with Jews, were taught by Jewish teachers, and were treated by Jewish doctors. They tell good and normal stories about relations with the Jews – relations that broke the emotional barrier built long ago regarding relations with the Jews.

"It should suffice us to hear a Saudi saying: 'My son was treated for cancer by a Jewish doctor, nobly and morally, and there is someone who wants me to hold hatred and animosity [against this Jew] in my heart, and to curse him at night. I will never do this. There is a huge difference between the contaminated Zionism that abuses Palestine and its sons and carries out atrocities and crimes, and [this] divine religion and its sons.'

"Once, the Muslims knew it, and treated the Jews according to [Koranic] verse [7:159]: ' And of Moses's people there is a party who guided (people) with the truth, and thereby do justice. ' Jews attained top posts in the Umayyad state – like [Rabbi Moses] Ben Maimon, who attained the post of first minister to the caliph [sic].

"I know that a subject like this launches a debate – but, with Allah's help, it is a debate whose aims are good. There is great benefit for us in such a reexamination – and an answer to the question of why we hate the other."

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well if you read the history of Mohammad from non Muslim and non Jewish sources, some of the first followers of Mohammad in Medina were in fact Jewish rabbis and in fact it was the pagans that was the mutual enemy of both the Jews and Mohammad's very small sect at the time, of course in those days, everyone was attacking everyone, tribal territorial thing you see........

however after about 10 years, Mohammad's sect was not growing very fast at all and according to one history I read, the rabbis were beginning to rethink whether Mohammad was indeed a prophet or even the Messiah so theoretically, the Jewish rabbis turned on Mohammad, either they abandoned him or the Muslims will claim the Jews breached their agreements with Mohammad and thus the Jews aren't so favoured anymore - then you have text in either the hadith or the Koran, I think it is the hadith where Mohammad says something like drive all the Christians and Jews out of the Arab peninisula - now some Muslim scholars will tell you that the Wahhabis take this out of context, Mohammad said this in the context of the war being waged at that precise time in history because supposedly the Christians and Jews were attacking Mohammad and friends [arguable, sounds like Mo man was doing a lot of offensive attacks on his own, after he decided to convert by the sword and go into the bandit business when persuasion wasn't working] but guys like Bin Laden say this means there are to be no Christians and Jews ever living in the Arab peninsula, dhimmitude be damned......

so the poor Jews have the multiple whammy, they betrayed Mohammad and they killed Jesus, according to some.....

the reality is also that under the Islamic Empire, the Ottoman Caliphate, which wasn't as religious as most people might think, that Jews were treated better in Muslim countries, perhaps with the exception of Arabia, certainly as compared to European countries and the colonies in North America, and in fact some historians, again of the non Jewish and non Muslim variety, said that the Christians and Jews living under early Muslim rule were able to find a way to leverage their dhimmi status to their advantage, to a "special" status and many Jews and Christians become quite wealthy despite having to pay the dhimmi tax, they tended to be the merchant class in these countries, now no doubt there were exceptions to even this, there are cases of Jewish massacres all through the history of Islam at various points - at what point, dhimmitude began to mean true second class citizenship, I don't know,

it is argued by Jewish historians that the Dome of the Rock was in fact built by an Arab ruler for the Jews to replace their destroyed temple but was coopted by later Muslims
they argue that the Dome of the Rock in no way resembles a mosque, mosques having had and still have very certain definable characteristics, which the Dome does not have any.......

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