Racism in Palestine encompasses all forms and manifestations of racism experienced in Palestine, the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, irrespective of the religion, colour, creed, or ethnic origin of the perpetrator and victim, or their citizenship, residency, or visitor status. It may refer to Jewish settler attitudes regarding Palestinians as well as Palestinian attitudes to Jews and the settlement enterprise undertaken in their name.
Accusations of racism and discrimination have been leveled by Palestinians and Israelis against each other. Racism in Palestine may also be used to refer to prejudice directed at Palestinians of African origin, such as the Afro-Palestinian community, some of whom are descendants of slaves in historical Palestine.Buessow, Johann. "Domestic Workers and Slaves in Late Ottoman Palestine at the Moment of the Abolition of Slavery: Considerations on Semantics and Agency.” Slaves and Slave Agency in the Ottoman Empire (2020): 373–433. Web. It has been claimed that racism on the part of Palestinians against Jewish people has been displayed in the realms of educational curriculum, official government policy, state media, social media, institutional policies regarding such issues as land and housing sales, and in statements issued by both the Palestinian Authority governing the majority of the West Bank, and Hamas government in the Gaza Strip.
Background
Conflict between Jews and Arabs in British Mandatory Palestine The British Mandate in Palestine witnessed the rise in tensions between Palestinians and the vast majority of Zionists, who were reluctant to recognize Palestinian resistance to Jewish immigration as reflecting legitimate concerns, though some Zionist and Yishuv leaders held that Palestinian opposition reflected a genuine reaction to being "invaded". Resistance to this mass Jewish immigration, who to that date had been numerically unimportant compared to the overwhelmingly Muslim population, arose out of feelings of shock at the proposal by the new British authorities to bestow privileges on an exiguous minority of foreigners. The tensions between an emergent Palestinian nationalism and Zionist ambitions for a Jewish state led on several occasions to riots and violence against Jewish immigrants.Elie Kedourie, Arabic Political Memoirs and Other Studies, Routledge 2012 p.218–219 Gudrun Kramer argues that Arab positions and actions were "political in character, aiming to defend Arab social, economic, and cultural, and political interests. It was not racial in character, and neither did it reflect racial concepts rooted in Islam.", and that the idea that one can equate anti-Zionism with anti-Judaism and therefore antisemitism "is itself politically motivated, and must be understood as such." The antisemitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was at times cited in Palestinian sources after an Arabic translation was issued in Cairo in 1925.Norman A. Stillman, The Response of Jews of the Arab World in the Modern Era, in Jehuda Reinharz (ed.),Living with Antisemitism: Modern Jewish Responses, University Press of New England 1987 p.357 After going into exile in 1937 the Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husayni sought support from Nazi Germany and during World War II expressed his opposition to Zionism in antisemitic language. Scholars also disagree on the broader impact of the elements of antisemitism, with Jeffrey Herf arguing that it was influential enough to provide seeds for later Islamist movements, and Krämer and René Wildangel arguing that most Palestinians and Arab nationalists distanced themselves from Nazi ideology. Richard Levy notes that, "Original works of Arabic antisemitic literature did not appear until the second half of the twentieth century, after the establishment of the state of Israel and the defeat of Arab armies in 1948, 1956, and 1967."
1920s–1940s
After the British assumed power in the region, Haj Amin al-Husayni was appointed as Mufti of Jerusalem by High Commissioner Herbert Samuel. He was the principal leader of the Arab national movement in Palestine and a popular personality in the Arab world during most of the years of British rule.The Mufti of Jerusalem: Al-Hajj Amin al-Husayni and the Palestinian National Movement, Studies of the Middle East Institute, Philip Mattar, Columbia University Press, 1992, p. 13 Two decades later, after the outbreak of WW2, he met with Hitler and other Nazi officials on various occasions and attempted to coordinate Nazi and Arab policies to solve the "Jewish problem" in Palestine.The Israel-Arab Reader: A Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict, by Walter Laqueur, Barry M. Rubin 2001, p. 51
Zvi Elpeleg, while rehabilitating Haj Amin from other charges,Eric Rouleau, "Qui était le mufti de Jérusalem ? (Who was the Mufti of Jerusalem?)", Le Monde diplomatique, August 1994. wrote that there is no doubt that the Mufti's hatred was not limited to Zionism, but extended to Jews as such. Amin, according to Elpeleg, knew the fate which awaited Jews, and he was not only delighted that Jews were prevented from emigrating to Palestine, but was very pleased by the Nazis' Final Solution.Zvi Elpeleg, Conclusion of the chapter Involvement in the destruction of the Jews, The Grand Mufti, 1993, p.72 Benny Morris also argues that the Mufti was deeply antisemitic, since he 'explained the Holocaust as owing to the Jews' sabotage of the German war effort in World War I and [their] character: (...) their selfishness, rooted in their belief that they are the chosen people of God."1948, Benny Morris, Yale University Press, 2008, pages 21–22 In contrast, Idith Zertal asserts that 'in more correct proportions, [Husayni appeared] as a fanatic nationalist-religious Palestinian leader'.Idith Zertal, Israel's Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood, 2005, p. 102.
In the 1930s, wealthy Arab youths, educated in Germany and having witnessed the rise of fascist paramilitary groups, began returning home with the idea of creating an "Arab Nazi Party". In 1935, Jamal al-Husayni established the Palestine Arab Party, and used the party to create a half-scout, half-paramilitary al-Futuwwa youth corps;Henry Laurens, La Question de Palestine, Fayard 2002 p.290. briefly designated as the "Nazi Scouts".Armies of the Young: Child Soldiers in War and Terrorism, The Rutgers series in childhood studies, David M. Rosen, Rutgers University Press, 2005, page 106 Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–2001, Benny Morris, Knopf The organization recruited children and youth, who took the following oath: "Life—my right; independence—my aspiration; Arabism—my country, and there is no room in it for any but Arabs. In this I believe and Allah is my witness." The British expressed concern at the situation in Palestine, stating in a report that "the growing youth and scout movements must be regarded as the most probable factors for the disturbance of the peace."
Antisemitism in Palestine
Holocaust denial
According to the US Congress report "Contemporary Global Anti-Semitism": In July 1990, the Palestinian Liberation Organization-affiliated Palestinian Red Crescent published an article in its magazine Balsam claiming that Jews concocted, "The lie concerning the gas chambers." Gradually, throughout the 1990s, Holocaust denial became commonplace in popular media in the Middle East, particularly in the Palestinian Authority.
In August 2003, senior Hamas official Dr Abd Al-Aziz Al-Rantisi wrote in the Hamas newspaper Al-Risala: It is no longer a secret that the Zionists were behind the Nazis' murder of many Jews, and agreed to it, with the aim of intimidating them and forcing them to immigrate to Palestine. In August 2009, Hamas refused to allow Palestinian children to learn about the Holocaust, which it called "a lie invented by the Zionists" and referred to Holocaust education as a "war crime.""Hamas rips U.N. for teaching the Holocaust." JTA. 31 August 2009. 31 August 2009.
Within the Palestinian leadership Hamas Hamas ("Islamic Resistance Movement") is the Palestinian Islamist socio-political organization which won a decisive majority in the Palestinian Parliament in 2006 and currently rules the Gaza Strip.
According to academic Esther Webman, antisemitism is not the main tenet of Hamas ideology, although antisemitic rhetoric is frequent and intense in Hamas leaflets. The leaflets generally do not differentiate between Jews and Zionists. In other Hamas publications and in interviews with its leaders attempts at this differentiation have been made.Webman, Esther. Anti-semitic Motifs in the Ideology of Hizballah and Hamas, Project for the study of Anti-semitism, Tel Aviv University, 1994, p. 22.
The 2017 Hamas charter states, "Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion." But their 1988 founding charter claimed that the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, colonialism and both world wars were created as a Jewish Zionist conspiracy and that the Freemasons and Rotary clubs are Zionist fronts and refers to the fraudulent Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an antisemitic text purporting to describe a plan to achieve global domination by the Jewish people.
Hamas legislator and imam, Sheik Yunis Al Astal, said that "suffering by fire is the Jews' destiny in this world and the next". He concluded "Therefore we are sure that the Holocaust is still to come upon the Jews". Another Hamas cleric, Yousif al-Zahar said that "Jews are a people who cannot be trusted. They have been traitors to all agreements. Go back to history. Their fate is their vanishing."
In the media and education
In its 2009 report on human rights in Palestine, the US State Department asserted that: Rhetoric by Palestinian terrorist groups included expressions of anti-Semitism, as did sermons by many Muslim religious leaders. Most Palestinian religious leaders rejected the right of Israel to exist. Hamas's al-Aqsa television station carried shows for preschoolers extolling hatred of Jews and suicide bombings. See section "Societal Abuses and Discrimination"
According to the report, international academics had concluded that "the textbooks did not incite violence against Jews."
In its 2004 report on global antisemitism, the US State Department reported that: The rhetoric of some Muslim religious leaders at times constituted an incitement to violence or hatred. For example, the television station controlled by the Palestinian Authority broadcast statements by Palestinian political and spiritual leaders that resembled traditional expressions of anti-Semitism. See section "Occupied Territories"
Use of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Sheikh Ekrima Sa'id Sabri appeared on the Saudi satellite channel Al-Majd on February 20, 2005, commenting on the assassination of the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. "Anyone who studies The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and specifically the Talmud," he said, "will discover that one of the goals of these Protocols is to cause confusion in the world and to undermine security throughout the world."The anti-Jewish lie that refuses to die by Steve Boggan, The Times, March 2, 2005
Official policies by the Palestinian Authority
The Palestinian Authority has a prohibition based on a 1973 Jordanian law against selling land to Israelis. The law made such sales, which in the case of Israeli settlers are exclusively to Jews, punishable by death. The Palestinian Authority announced it would enforce the law in 1997, and drafted a replacement for it called the Property Law for Foreigners. The Palestinian Authority describes the law as a response to occupation and illegal settlement.