Having recently been asked to write an introduction to an Arabic-language edition of Bari Weiss’s book How to Fight Anti-Semitism, Hussein Abdul-Hussein offers a loose English translation of his remarks, which focus on the connection between hostility toward Jews and the general state of unfreedom in the Arab world:
Arabs do not accept the narrative that [non-Muslim] Arab minorities suffered inequality while living among Muslim Arabs. Instead, Muslims delve into conspiracy theories about the presumed evil plans of world Jewry, including [Arabic-speaking] Jews, to establish the state of Israel, and move to it. Arab conspiracy theories were reinforced by international anti-Jewish propaganda, first with funding and instigation from tsarist Russia, and later from Nazi Germany, followed by the Soviet Union.
Arab anti-Semitism is laced with lies, including the denial of the Holocaust and the misconception that the United States imprisons anyone who denies the Holocaust, which is not true. . . . Arabs cite American nonexistent censorship of Holocaust deniers as the grounds for their censorship of all other literature. The line of Arab argument thus becomes this: if the evil Jews get to censor global literature that would unveil the truth behind their Holocaust lies, then everybody else can censor all other literature.
Weiss [appeals] to Jews and non-Jews to confront the rise of racism and extremism, and therefore anti-Semitism, not in the interest of the Jews alone, but in the interest of freedom in America and the world.
Read more on House of Wisdom: https://hussainabdulhussain.substack.com/p/introducing-how-to-fight-anti-semitism