The anti-Semitic outbursts emanating from today’s Middle East sound like not-so-instant replays from Nazi Germany. As well they should. Consider this recently revealed (from the British National Archives) 1937 letter sent to Berlin by a Nazi offfical in Palestine:
The Palestinian Arabs show on all levels a great sympathy for the new Germany and its Fuhrer, a sympathy whose value is particularly high as it is based on a purely ideological foundation. Most important for the sympathies which Arabs now feel towards Germany is their admiration for our Fuhrer, especially during the unrests, I often had an opportunity to see how far these sympathies extend. When faced with a dangerous behaviour of an Arab mass, when one said that one was German, this was already generally a free pass.
Another document shows that the Nazis viewed the establishment of a Jewish state with great concern. A 1937 report from German General Consulate in Palestine said:
The formation of a Jewish state… is not in Germany’s interest because a (Jewish) Palestinian state would create additional national power bases for international Jewry such as for example the Vatican State for political Catholicism or Moscow for the Communists. Therefore, there is a German interest in strengthening the Arabs as a counter weight against such possible power growth of the Jews.
In 1938, the British government abandonned a plan to bring to Palestine 20,000 German Jewish refugees to Palestine. The reason: a Foreign Office report concluding that it would have upset Arab opinion:
His Majesty’s Government asked His Majesty’s Representatives in Cairo, Baghdad and Jeddah whether so far as they could judge, feelings in Egypt, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia against the admission of, say 5,000 Jewish children for adoption… would be so strong as to lead to a refusal to send representatives to the London discussions. All three replies were strongly against the proposal, which was not proceeded with.
Shortly before Britain reversed its decision to partition its Palestinian mandate, promising instead all of the land to the Palestinian Arabs, Lord Chatfield, Britain’s Minister for Coordination of Defence, told the Cabinet that
If war were to break out, no trouble that the Jews could occasion us, in Palestine or elsewhere, could weigh for a moment against the importance of winning Muslim opinion to our side.
The past is with us today.
This is misleading. First, the reason Muslims tended to side with Germany was not because they hated world jewry or saw jews in the same light as the Germans did. The real reason for their support is because Germany was trying to overthrow the status quo, under which Muslims were mere colonial vassals and as such any power with the guts to stand up to the Colonial powers became a friend.
That said, there is some truth to the fact that Naziism and Communism influences radical Islam. Naziism, through the distribution of pamphlets, books and other propaganda, the Nazi’s sought to portray jews within the Muslim world (Sephardic) as the fifth column of colonialism, they were the ones helping to keep Muslims down and under control. The Germans did this for two reasons, not only did they want to spread their ideology as far as they could, but also because by giving Muslims an enemy they could focus and tie it to the colonial powers, they hoped to undermine the base upon which these colonial empires, like Great Britain, rested on, mainly their colonies.
The tactic didn’t work much during WWII, and hatred of jews didn’t become entrenched in the Muslim world until after the creation of Israel. This is not to say that there were no pogroms before, there were, but most were isolated incidents and in many cases, being so close culturally and ethnically, sephardic jews and Muslims actually protected each other. The state of Israel in many ways became a line in the sand for both sides, you were either with it or against it. Hence, while the Israelis were busy pushing Arabs out of Palestine, most Muslims states began to throw out their jewish populations. In both cases, there were also people who simply migrated to safer territory.
In addition, Islamic radicalism also shares many common features with Communist ideology, oddly since one was secular and the other is radically religious. In essence, they use the language of the disposessed and talk of a better future “beyond the barricade” as it were. Like communists, the ideology and allegiance to the group is paramount above all else, and the ideological founders are seen as nothing short of divine, hence the manner in which Sayyed Qutb is seen and how his books, particularly the one known as “Milestones” or “Signposts” in the West, are revered as foundational documents for Islamic radicalism. They also operate very much like the Communists once did, employing the tactic of terrorism but taking it to further extremes. In addition, they operate in cells, and seek to overthrow governments from within by making them loose face and legitimacy with their own populations.
In short, the issue of radical Islam and hatred of jewish people is far too complex to be captured in such a document as the one you’ve presented and such sweeping generalizations don’t help further our understanding.