The study also found that Arab countries such as Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Jordan “enable (and some even encourage) anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic incitement for a variety of internal reasons: they can use the struggle against Israel and the image of support for the Palestinians as a way of letting opposition groups let off steam (especially when Israel-Palestinian confrontations escalate), for increasing their identification with Islamist groups and for increasing support for their own regimes.”
Paradoxically, both Israel-Arab military escalation and progress toward Israeli-Arab peace act to increase anti-Semitism in the Muslim world, the research showed.
Among the central themes in contemporary Arab and Muslim anti-Semitism are Holocaust denial coupled with claims that Israel is carrying out a holocaust against the Palestinians, as well as the drawing of parallels between Israel and Nazi Germany, the study found.
“The motifs used in anti-Semitic propaganda are often taken from Western neo-Nazi literature, media and rhetoric and there are clearly reciprocal relations between Holocaust denial in the West and denying it or trying to minimize it in the Arab-Muslim world,” it said.
The study also found that Arab and Muslim anti-Semitism has a broad field is widespread among both lower classes and intellectuals, opposition groups and radical Islamic movements.
“Arab-Muslim regimes in the Middle East all use it, although the way they use it changes from country to country. It is not limited to the Middle East, since anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic propaganda are distributed to Muslim communities all over the world, especially in Europe. Anti-Semitism is marketed in a variety of ways (books, the Internet, television) and helps fan the flames of hatred for Jews and Israel among Muslim communities far beyond the Middle East.”
The report singled out the Iranian regime for having turned anti-Semitism and the desire to destroy the state of Israel into a strategic weapon.
It concluded that “anti-Semitism supported by a state which publicly adheres to a policy of genocide and is making efforts to arm itself with non-conventional weapons which will enable it to carry out that policy is unprecedented since Nazi Germany.”