In a recent function at a London Jewish center, a senior Jewish community figure warned that Jewish students on campuses across the United Kingdom were losing ground because of their inability to refute challenging arguments put forward to them by Israel’s opponents. He expressed dismay at the fact that some Jewish students have been apologizing to their Muslim counterparts in debates over the situation in the Middle East. He concluded by proposing special training programs for Jewish students since, as he put it, booklets and pamphlets are not sufficient to teach them how to respond to Israel’s critics.

While it is rather disappointing that many Jewish community leaders in the UK continue to see it is as their “holy” obligation to defend the Zionist state of Israel, it is good news for Muslim students, because it means that they have begun to make a difference. Winning on the debate-front is indicative of improved tactics and a better discourse.

However, success on some campuses is, regrettably, undermined. This is, in part, by students who fall for the ideas and methods of some fringe groups and mediaholic individuals that insist on supplying Zionist propagandists with “lethal” weapons and ammunition. 

In his presentation before the above-mentioned function, Hebrew University Professor Robert Wistrich, a specialist in anti-Semitism, provided his Jewish audience with a long list of reasons why Islam is a threat to the United Kingdom, proposing two necessary steps to ward off such danger.

The first measure would be for Islam to be reformed, the way “Christianity and Judaism were,” because its doctrines, as they stand today (and this is how they have been since revealed fifteen centuries ago), “are the main reason for provoking Muslim anti-Semitism.” The second measure would be for the British intelligence and security agencies to monitor, arrest and even expel from the country all such Muslim elements that pose a threat to the security of the country by expressing anti-Semitic views. Not a single respectable Muslim figure was quoted by the professor and not a single serious incident was referred to in his talk.

Undoubtedly, the Zionist project bears full responsibility for the Arab and Muslim perception of Jews and Judaism. After all, it was this Zionist project that embroiled Judaism in its intrigues, so as to bestow religious legitimacy on itself and to gain the support of the world’s Jewry. The myths of a “Jewish nation,” the “Land of Promise” and the “Chosen People of God” were revived in order to convince the Jews, most of whom had initially been opposed to Zionism, to adopt the Zionist solution to the Jewish problem in the West.

The ultimate objective had been to persuade the Jews to sponsor the State of Israel, which had been given a theological dimension that transformed it in the Zionized Jewish conscience into “the end of time Messiah.” The ideology was in the beginning condemned by Jewish religious leaders as an adulteration of the Jewish faith that had been predominant until the beginning of the 20^th century, and which forbade Jewish migration to Palestine with the purpose of settling there permanently. Jewish Orthodoxy viewed such migration as a violation that entailed the forcing of the will of God, and that amounted to the sin of apostasy.

Much effort has been exerted by various Palestinian and Islamic groups and individuals in the UK and across the Western world to cross the threshold of sympathy and move into meaningful action in support of the Palestinian cause. This poses a challenge to those who are engaged, especially on campus, in campaigns aimed at enlightening the public and countering the Zionist propaganda that has had the upper hand for many years.

Muslims in the West, and especially their young men and women in education, need to develop a coherent, convincing and strong discourse that is capable of promoting and defending the right of the Palestinian people to resist occupation. Defective and unfounded claims, which may be exploited by the pro-Zionist camp, must be avoided. To be able to capture new grounds in exposing the injustice and inhumanity of the Zionist project in Palestine, a number of issues need to be presented to the public with simplicity and clarity:

1. Muslims need to trace the roots of the conflict. History here is of the essence, since media coverage of the conflict fails miserably to teach the public anything about how it all began. The media usually give the impression that two neighboring communities, one Arab and one Jewish, seem unable to resolve a dispute over territory or resources. The facts of history prove that this was never the case.

2. The attitude of Muslims toward Jews throughout history is useful to highlight. The idea here is that this is not a conflict between Islam and Judaism, or between the Muslims and the Jews. Some of the Jews today are opposed to the Zionist project on religious grounds. At the turn of the 20^th century, most of world Jewry was opposed to Zionism.

3. Identifying the enemy and restricting this category to those embroiled in aggression and those who support them. By doing so, Muslims may pave the way for dialogue with even those who support Israel in the West. Appealing to their humanity, it may be possible to convince some of them of the true nature of Zionism and its evil repercussions, not only on the Palestinians, but also on humanity as a whole. Zionism should be compared with Apartheid. The objective would be to shake and weaken the camp of Israel’s supporters, whether Jewish or non-Jewish.

4. Palestinians are not the first in history, and definitely in modern history, to be subjected to foreign occupation, to an invasion by an alien power, and therefore have the right, like those who went through the same experience, to resist and fight back. In spite of the failure of the international community to stand by what is right and just, Palestinians are supported by all international instruments and conventions in their right to resist until they are free and their land is liberated.

5. It does not help the Palestinians or their cause to propose a final solution. What matters really is to convince the world of the sinister nature of Zionism, and of the right of the Palestinians to resist. How it will all end depends on the generation that will witness the end, and on the circumstances in which the end is reached. The recent “Justice for Palestine” conference in Johannesburg showed beyond doubt that an increasing number of politicians and journalists have come to the conclusion that the Zionist state, by its very nature, is unviable on the long run. Some of those who professed such an opinion had, for a long time, been supporters of a two-state solution. They now affirm that they had been deluded, but have now been disillusioned about the true nature of Israel, a Zionist, racist and fascist state.  It is equally inadvisable to speak of a one-state solution, even a Palestinian state solution. What the discourse should focus on is that occupation must end, and that Zionism is evil and should, just as Apartheid was, be dismantled.

6. The long-term objective of this discourse would be to convince world public opinion, including politicians and decision makers, that what the Palestinians are employing as the means of resistance should be recognized as legitimate. A more immediate objective would be to set in motion a global movement for combating Zionism similar to the international anti-Apartheid movement that contributed to the change of position by leading world powers vis-à-vis the defunct racist regime in South Africa.

Dr. Azzam Tamimi is Director of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought in London and Senior Lecturer at the Markfield Institute of Higher Education in Leicester (UK). He has edited and authored several books, including Islam and Secularim in the Middle East and Rachid Ghannouchi: a Democrat within Islamism.

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