According to one interpretation, anti-Semitism in the Muslim world is something intrinsic to Islam itself, rooted in Mohammad’s interactions with Arabian Jewry and a constant feature of Middle Eastern history. Others would argue that it is merely a reaction to Israel’s existence or behavior (perhaps even a justified one). In The Anti-Semitic Origins of Islamist Violence, Evin Ismail presents a sophisticated alternative to these painfully simplistic explanations. Daniel Ben-Ami writes in his review:

Ismail argues that anti-Semitism has played a central part in the Islamist outlook since its inception with the foundation of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928. That is, it should be noted, twenty years before the founding of the state of Israel. So, seeing Islamist anti-Semitism as simply a reaction to Israel’s actions is not tenable.

Several factors contributed to the rise of Islamism and its anti-Semitism in particular. In the 1930s and early 1940s the Nazis promoted the Muslim Brotherhood as a counterweight to Britain—which then dominated Egypt—and France. Naturally the Nazis brought their poisonous anti-Semitic baggage with them. But even before the rise of the Nazis other pernicious European influences, most notably the The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, were having an influence on sections of Egyptian society.

Later these ideas would blend with other extremist Islamic tendencies, including a hostility toward Shiite Muslims, giving rise to the ideologies of al-Qaeda and then Islamic State (IS):

Islamic State took this anti-Shiism a step further by linking it to their anti-Semitism. It developed the idea that Shiites were not really Muslims at all but—astonishingly—undercover Jews, as they reject the true teaching of Islam. This in turn, in the view of IS, justified its systematic killing of Shiites in Iraq.

This is perhaps the most surprising example of the paranoid conspiratorial anti-Semitism that is central to the Islamist worldview. For example, IS—like most other Islamists—believes that America is controlled by Jews and Israel. It has also referred to Kurdish troops as representing “Peshmergan Zionism.” In addition, IS has claimed that Sunni leaders, especially monarchs, are “apostate rulers” who act as “the slaves of the Jews and the Christians.” . . . Jews are, from this warped perspective, engaged in an evil conspiracy against the entire global Muslim community.

Between the explosion of thousands of Hizballah pagers on September 17 and now, Iran’s geopolitical clout has shrunk dramatically: Hizballah, Iran’s most important striking force, has retreated to lick its wounds; Iranian influence in Syria has collapsed; Iran’s attempts to attack Israel via Gaza have proved self-defeating; its missile and drone arsenal have proved impotent; and its territorial defenses have proved useless in the face of Israeli airpower. Edward Luttwak considers what might happen next:

The myth of Iranian power was ironically propagated by the United States itself. Right at the start of his first term, in January 2009, Barack Obama was terrified that he would be maneuvered into fighting a war against Iran. . . . Obama started his tenure by apologizing for America’s erstwhile support for the shah. And beyond showing contrition for the past, the then-president also set a new rule, one that lasted all the way to October 2024: Iran may attack anyone, but none may attack Iran.

[Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s] variegated fighters, in light trucks and jeeps, could have been stopped by a few hundred well-trained soldiers. But neither Hizballah nor Iran’s own Revolutionary Guards could react. Hizballah no longer has any large units capable of crossing the border to fight rebels in Syria, as they had done so many times before. As for the Revolutionary Guards, they were commandeering civilian airliners to fly troops into Damascus airport to support Assad. But then Israel made clear that it would not allow Iran’s troops so close to its border, and Iran no longer had credible counter-threats.

Now Iran’s population is discovering that it has spent decades in poverty to pay for the massive build-up of the Revolutionary Guards and all their militias. And for what? They have elaborate bases and showy headquarters, but their expensive ballistic missiles can only be used against defenseless Arabs, not Israel with its Arrow interceptors. As for Hizballah, clearly it cannot even defend itself, let alone Iran’s remaining allies in the region. Perhaps, in short, the dictatorship will finally be challenged in the streets of Iran’s cities, at scale and in earnest.