The Ottomans were Turks, and their heartland was in what is now Turkey. However, they ruled over a large part of the Arab Middle East as well, from Egypt to the borders of Iran (and of course much of south-east Europe).
They were Turkish.
Te Ottomans were Turks, who are not Arabs. Similarly, Iran is Persian, not Arab. What is now Iraq was not, originally, Arab, but became Arab(at least culturally (not sure about the genetics) during the first wave of Muslim expansion.
There is no single answer to this question. Many opposed sharing the land with the European “thieves” and “invaders.” (In response to your question, they would have responded that they wanted to “take back” the land for themselves.) Many believed the rhetoric of the surrounding Arab states, that Israel was doomed. Many who lived in what became Israel wanted to stay on their own land and yet not be ruled by Jews. Some wanted to see a pan-Arab state established (as the United Arab Emirates attempted shortly thereafter). There are probanly several other views that I am forgetting.
They didn’t want a Jewish state in Palestine. read the previous posts for the motives.
Yes. Except that they certainly would have say keep the land for themselves rather than take the land for themselves.
They weren’t offered such a choice after 1948 (which would have been the first time when they could have “realized it wasn’t likely to happen”) . Palestine was shared between Israel and its neighbors (Jordan, Egyptia). Assuming it would have been offered, they wouldn’t have signed up, since they thought that the other half of the loaf had been stolen from them. Anyway, they obviously didn’t realize it for a long time, since other wars were fought over this issue.
!
A few hundred million is more like it.
I’d wager to say that most of Jordan, most of Egypt, most of Syria and most of Iran’s population are opposed to the existence of Israel.
Please, chaps, let’s not argue about the “whether” or “to what extent” and concentrate on the “why.” I don’t want this thread to end up in Great Debates (" . . . a sound and fury, signifying nothing . . .") much less the threatened “or worse.” As the Great And All-Powerful Mod(s) decide, however; as in all Board things, their will be done.
I’m still curious as to why anti-semitism, if largely imported from Europe in the '20s, found such fertile ground in the Middle East. It seems odd that it would be embraced so quickly, and so whole-heartedly. Was it truly a situation of tabula rasa, or were their existing religious and/or cultural prejudices that were inflamed/exploited by the establishment of Israel? This is getting complicated enough, however, that I’m forced to ask my stock question: Can you recommend a good book I could read on the subject?
Thanks to everyone posting, including TOM, who remains the smartest man I’ve never met. 
I certainly do not have a clear answer on this. Various speculative guesses would include:
The absence of many Jews in the Middle East made it easier to view them as “other”;
The success of the Zionist movement (in recruiting immigrants and in holding off British interference on the occasions when Britain was in opposition) would have given conspiracy theorists much to wave about;
The success of Hitler in demonizing Jews throughout Europe would have been seen as supportive of the anti-Jewish rhetoric.
Originally, the Arabs were the people who lived in the Hijaz and the tribes of the surrounding deserts, roughly modern Saudi Arabia and some of the area surrounding it.
After the expansion in the seventh century AD, Arab gradually came to apply to all people who spoke Arabic as their mother tongue and who didn’t have a more powerful alternate identity (eg many Jews). It wasn’t really a positive form of identity until the 20th century, when Arab nationalism gathered force - indeed it was often used disrespectfully, and especially used for the Bedouin etc. So nowadays it’s a cultural and linguistic unity of a sort, and there’s never been any type of genetic unification.
Nitpick - The United Arab Republic. A union of Egypt and Syria under Nasser, which lasted only a couple of years, though it had lip serivce paid to it for a few years more. The United Arab Emirates was never intended to be a pan-Arab state, just a fairly loose union of powerful Gulf emirates working together for pragmatic reasons, a bit like Switzerland.
!!!
Seven massive Arab armies of seven massive Arab countries are defeated in SIX DAYS by the JEWS?!?! The Jews were the world’s doormat! Until then they had no reputation as warriors or soldiers; they were thought to be the weakest, wimpiest, most cowardly people in the world. The Jews were shopkeepers and junk-men and bums, not soldiers. Their only experience in the world had been persecution, and they never stood up for themselves as a group. And suddenly they defeat almost the whole Arab world in SIX DAYS?!?!
Think about this: If the New York Yankees were defeated in the upcoming World Series by the Padres, how do you think New Yorkers (those of them with red blood in their veins, at any rate) would feel about the Padres from that point on?
How about “resentment, shame and anger?”
PAUL FITZROY, while I am of course impressed as all get out by your use of explamation points, italics, and caps, if you are talking about the Six Days War, I believe that was fought in the late '60s, not the '20s. So my question still stands. I’ll have to think about it some more later, but your comparison of the Arab-Jew / Arab-Israeli conflict to the Yankees-Padres frankly has fritzed out my brain for the night.
Anybody want to recommend a book on the subject? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
First of all, I don’t think that the Arab world was as anti-Semitic as it is now in the 20’s. I don’t think anti-Semitism was imported from Europe in the case of the Arab world.
My best guess is that the Arab Muslims before the '67 war that were against Jews were against them for religious reasons: they were Muslims, the Jews were Jews, Muslim doctrine=Jews=Pigs & Dogs, and most of these people weren’t college-educated seculars.
As Israel grew larger and stronger the resentment became religious combined with nationalist/anti-Semitic aka against the Jews as a people and not just a religion, culminating in the 6 day war victory which pretty much established the attitudes currently held by many Arab Muslims.
And Jodi, thanks for making fun of me.
The “why” of this is the question I’m asking. And it was not my intention to make fun of you, but neither was it my intention to allow you to imply that my inquiry was stupid. ("!!!") Pax between us for GQ, I hope.
First of all I’ll recommend Bernard Lewis’ book The Jews of Islam for a more comprehensive look at the history of this issue.
Next I’ll just add a small correction to tomndeb’s posts - the erosion of attitudes towards Jews started a bit earlier as the Ottoman state in particular began to decay badly in the 18th-19th century. Where tom is correct is that it became ingrained in the Muslim consciousness more firmly in the early twentieth. Allow me to quote an illustrative point from the aforementioned book:
*Several aspects of this affair call for comment. One of them was the blood libel itself. The charge of using human blood for ritual purposes first appears to have been leveled by pagans against the early Christians. It was then used by Christians themselves against the Jews, and has been a familiar theme of Christian anti-Semitism from the earliest times to the present. In classical Islamic times, this particular form of anti-Jewish calumny would seem to have been unknown. Its first appearance, under Islamic auspices, was during the reign of the Ottoman sultan Mehmed the Conquerer, and it almost certainly originated among the large Greek-Christian population under Ottoman rule. Such accusations had been common in the Byzantine empire. They occurred at infrequent intervals under the Ottomans, and were usually condemned by the Ottoman authorities.
The blood libel recurs in epidemic proportions in the nineteeth century, when such accusations, somtimes followed by outbreaks of violence, appear all over the empire. The Damascus affair of 1840 may have been the first. It was very far from the last…In Iran and Morocco, in contrast, despite the general hostility toward Jews, this particular accusation for long remained virtually unkown, presumably because the Christian presense was smaller and the European influence later.
Four features are worth noting. First, the libel almost invariably originated among the Christian populace and was often promoted by the Christian press, especially the Greek press; second, these accusations wrre sometimes supported and occasionally even instigated by foreign diplomatic representatives, especially the Greek and French; third, the Jews were usually able to count on the goodwill of the Ottoman authorities and on their help, where they were capable of providing it. Finally, and to an increasing extent, Jewish communities endangerd by such accusations could often call on the sympathy and even the active support of British representatives, and sometimes also Prussian and Austrian representatives.
Although these accusations seem to have started in the Christian comminities, they did not remain confined to them. By the early twentieth century they figured as part of an Anti-Jewish campaign in some Egyptian Muslim newspapers, and have since become a common theme in Muslim anti-Jewish literature, in the Middle East and elsewhere…*
In general, as Lewis at least describes it, pre-modern Muslim attitudes towards Jews are probably best summed up as quiet contempt rather than active hostility. Contempt because they chose not to be Muslim, but little of the actual hatred seen in contemporary Christian anti-Semitism because a) Islam’s theology mandates a certain respect, but b) more practically because the Jews were “safe” subjects. They did not represent potential hostile third columns as could Christian subjects - to the contrary, as noted the lot of Jews was distinctly superior under Muslim regimes until the early modern period. Indeed their unique ( and very exposed and precarious ) status mean that they could often be useful to the Muslim governments in a variety of ways. When anti-Jewish sentiment arose in pre-modern times, it generally wasn’t in the form of government pogroms ( with some notable exceptions ) but rather was more often associated with the Christian underclass and/or the Muslim lower classes during periods of disruption or hardship - the equivalent of poor whites providing the bulk of the support for organizations like the KKK.
With the decay of the Muslim world in the 18th century and the grave weakening of Muslim central government ( particularly in the sprawling Ottoman state, but really everywhere ), disruptions and anarchy multiplied and the Jews were a convenient scapegoat for local frustration. As Britain and other countries began to assert increasing quasi- and even outright colonialism and were seen or perceived to be favoring the Jews ( as well as Christians - a series of treaties led to various European powers actually exercising authority within the boundaries of the Ottoman state in the name of various Christian minorities ), this hostility fed on itself and went off the charts. To quote ole Bernie again:
*…That resentment increased with the advance of Russian, French, British and later also German penetration in the Middle East and North Africa, and the growing number of former dhimmis who in one capacity or another served the European great powers. Loss of power led to loss of confidence, and this in turn to a loss of tolerance…
…But if the Jew was not the principal malefactor, he was certainly the easiest victim. The Christians were numerous and well protected; the Jews were few, and enjoyed at best a slender and intermittent protection from outside powers. At a time of general, often undirected fear and resenment, it was natural that hostility should turn against the Jewish as well as the Christian dhimmis, and that attacks should be directed to that quarter where there was the least chance of either immediate defense or subsequent retribution.*
That started things - the situation in Palestine/Israel steadily hardened already damaged attitudes. Why weren’t the Jewish settlersa welcome? As tom noted they were seen ( and in all fairness de facto were ) as outside colonizers ( and unthinking Muslim bigotry topwards what had formerly regarded as second-class citizens didn’t help ). Never mind they were paying for the land - a handful of wealthy Arab landowners, many based outside Palestine in places like Beirut, made a fortune, while the intinerant farmers that had essentially sharecropped the land for generations, were displaced ( especially as the well-meaning Jewish settlers, communally-oriented and opposed to exploitation of laborers, required and wanted none of this peasant Arab workforce ).
- Tamerlane
I blame Abraham. It’s clearly a “Daddy always liked you best” situation, in the worst possible way.
You appear to be incorrect, as I noted in part above. Muslim dislike of Jews was not imported ( they were always regarded as a distinct underclass and among some of the Shi’a ideas about ritual purity often generated even more dislike ). But anti-Semtism in the sense of open hatred, as opposed to disdain, does seem to have originally been a Christian/European import.
No, the religious aspects were pretty secondary. Then Christian-run Lebanon invaded Israel in 1948 and was vocally supportive as a member of the Arab League in 1967. Many Palestinian terrorist leaders were ( and some still are ) Christian. The PLO was an explicitly secular organization as were the Nasserists in Egypt and the Ba’ath in Syria.
No, the major issues were tribal and territorial, rather than religious. Pro-Arab, but not necessarily pro-Muslim.
Really the religious issue in terms of militant and apocolyptic Islamism is a very modern develoment dating back only a couple of decades.
The first part I’ll agree with, but as to the second I only half-agree as while 1967 was a political watershed in the Arab world in many ways, I think you may overrating its particular impact in connecting to the roots of this issue just a tad.
- Tamerlane
The dominant thread of thought among Arabs in the Middle East before 67 was Arab Nationalism, the opposite of Islamist fervour. Similarly, arguments against the Jews were likely to be nationalist ones. If you have any evidence for your “guess”, please let us know.
I’d also like a cite for your claim that “Muslim doctrine=Jews=Pigs & Dogs”. Or better yet, take a look at Tamerlane’s long post referring to the status of Jews in the Muslim world. Try these wikipedia articles on the concepts of dhimmis and the ahl al-kitab.
Well there is Vatican City. Remember that the King/Queen of England was the head of the church until recently. Then there was that little problem with Spain and the Inquistion.
From Campusprogram.com and originally from Wikipedia: An interesting summary of this in a historical as well as recent context.
Your cite does not talk about Muslim doctrine. We’ve got a few fuckwits from a millenium ago, and a few Hamas members. I wouldn’t trust a Hamas member to give me a good description of the role of Jews in Muslim society.
I’m not saying that a few Muslims don’t hate Jews, and I’m sure a few call them pigs and dogs. But this is not the religious doctrine. Can’t you see the difference?
A possible reference: Cecil’s column, “Why is so much of the Islamic world backward and ignorant?” Cecil doesn’t expressly address anti-Semitism, but one could make an deduction based on this excerpt:
If you tie into what tomndebb was saying above about the perception of the “wealthy European Jews” buying the land out from under the Arabs, it’s believable that the general animosity towards Europeans fomented anti-Semitism in a specific sense. Ultimately, it’s just speculation on my part, but the decline of Arab influence on the world probably isn’t a small factor.