What are the origins of Muslim anti-Semitism?

[Behind the Aegis]

When he met Pope John Paul II in 2001, Syrian president Bashar Assad surprised the pontiff when he said of the Jews, "They try to kill all the principles of divine faiths with the same mentality of betraying Jesus Christ and torturing him, and in the same way that they tried to commit treachery against the Prophet Muhammad."

In order to understand the background to these accusations, one must go back to the year 1986 when then-Syrian defense minister Mustafa Tlass, who was considered an intellectual giant in the fields of the humanities and the arts, published his book "The Matzoh of Zion." The conclusion of the popular book was that the Jews had indeed murdered a Christian monk in 1840 as part of a ritual murder, in one of the most important blood libels in Jewish history, known as the "Damascus Affair."

The phenomenon of a blood libel against the Jews was until then an anomaly in the lands of Islam. The Muslim majority lived under the Ottoman rule in Syria alongside two minorities, the Christians and the Jews. The two minorities were considered "protected citizens" (dhimmi) and were treated in tolerant fashion. They were allowed to practice their religious precepts in return for paying a tax, and recognizing that they had a lower legal and social status. But in 1831-32, the ruler of Egypt, Muhammad Ali, conquered Syria from the Ottoman sultan, holding the territory until the end of 1840. The period of Egyptian rule in Syria was perceived by the country's Christians as a golden era, since they saw their rights increased. It's a period of great importance to any understanding of the change that occurred in the attitude of Muslims toward the Christians.

The rights that the Egyptian rulers granted to non-Muslims - including appointments to government councils, acceptance to the regional administrative system, the building and renovation of places of worship, permission to ride horses in the cities and to wear clothes of colors that previously had been permitted for Muslims only - hurt the feelings of Muslim subjects, arousing in them grudges toward the non-Muslim population. Muhammad Ali was considered to rule at the sufferance of the European powers, led by France, in return for which he granted excess rights to non-Muslim minorities, particularly the Christians. In addition, the local Christians were perceived as collaborators with the European powers that were hoping to gain control of the Ottoman Empire. As a result, the Muslims started developing a hatred for the Christians, who were now perceived as political rivals.

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