#HitlerWasRight for Palestine

It is often asserted that anti-Zionism is not necessarily antisemitism, but whenever Israel has to defend itself against Hamas rockets and Islamist terrorism, plenty of “anti-Zionists” drop all pretenses and reveal themselves as fervent Jew-haters. In recent days, many have noted the use of hashtags like #HitlerWasRight and #KillJews on Twitter. CNN’s Jake Tapper criticized in a tweet the “vile stuff out there via hashtags #HitlerWasRight & #HitlerDidNothingWrong, many from ppl who don’t seem to get what Hitler thought of Arabs.” The implication that Arabs could only be expected to despise Hitler if they knew that Nazi racism also extended to Arabs – though not as completely as to Jews – may unfortunately be right. Indeed, there are many indications that Arabs (and Muslims) were and are willing to ignore general Nazi racism and applaud Nazi antisemitism.

Historically, the most notable example is of course Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Palestinian leader who became known as “Hitler’s mufti.” In our own time, the perhaps most prominent example is Yussuf al-Qaradawi, the influential cleric who has been described as the “Global Mufti.” In late January 2009 – in the wake of Israel’s three-week campaign against Hamas – Qaradawi told his huge audience on Al-Jazeera TV that the Holocaust had been “divine punishment” for the Jews and he expressed the hope that “Allah willing, the next time will be at the hand of the believers.”

This time around, it was Turkish pop star Yildizz Tilbee who expressed similar sentiments on Twitter. She reportedly praised Hitler for the Holocaust, writing “May God bless Hitler” and assured her more than 330 000 followers: “If God allows, it will be again Muslims who will bring the end of those Jews, it is near, near.”

While the prevalence of Arab and Muslim antisemitism is a well-documented phenomenon, English-language hashtags on Twitter obviously provide only a glimpse that is not necessarily representative. However, the sample of screen shots I took of relevant tweets seems to confirm once again that Jew-hatred has the ability to unite people from a wide variety of backgrounds.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.