Participants presented a resume of the situation in five European countries, which was subsequently discussed among the attendees.

The French Case, Jean-Yves Camus
Unlike Muslim populations in Germany and the U.K., the French Muslim population, which numbers between 4 and 6 million people, mostly comes from the former French colonies of Northern and Western Africa. The historical grievances of the minority immigrant populations in France have been focused on the colonial past much more than on religion. There was a disparity in the treatment of minority groups in colonial France. In 1870 the Jews in Algeria were given full citizenship rights, while the Muslims were not. Still, there is a feeling of a kind of competition between Muslims and Jews for the status of French citizenship. Unlike the British Empire however, some colonial subjects who were considered « assimilated » were granted citizenship rights. They were considered citizens, even if it was in practice a second class citizenship. But this was a very small minority.France does have new Muslim populations including a 400,000 strong Turkish population and an active Pakistani population numbering 60,000. Migration from the North African countries has not stopped, but today, it is mainly from West Africa (a 15% increase in migration from West Africa in the last 5 years). Problems of antisemitism are also evident within this population. The murder-kidnapping case of Ilan Halimi involved a gang composed of people from various backgrounds including native Frenchmen, but the leader was African. This is a much publicised case of what some have called “the new antisemitism” from the black African minority.The question of France’s colonial past is still much alive. Antisemitism is mostly not a religious issue. There is a large Islamist movement that disseminates antisemitic propaganda, but during the July demonstrations against the Israeli action in Lebanon, the Islamic movements were silent. Most of the participants were of the French far left and the Muslim-Arab population ( and some Lebanese Christians, too). This alliance is not grounded in religion. One part of the far left considers the Islamic movement as a 21st-century liberation movement. However, the major problem is a kind of identity agenda, an “identitorian” movement of parts of the Muslim Arab population. Islam is not stressed, they stress nationalist Arab values. Demonstrators waved posters of Hassan Nasrallah and Jamal Abdal Nasser and for them, Nasrallah is a Lebanese nationalist hero, not the leader of a theocratic party. The major problem is not dealing with radical Islam, which is dealt with efficiently by the French Security agencies, but rather the convergence of these identity-Arab-nationalist-secular movements with an important part of the far-left and the Islamic movements. The secular Arab nationalist movements speak to the youth of Muslim background in France. “Les indigènes de la République”, supported by many French far-left intellectuals, released a manifesto in support of the Lebanon and Palestinian resistance. “We are sometimes described as the fifth column of the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance, well we are proud to be the fifth column of the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance.” This is not a fringe nor an Islamic movement, but a leftist political movement.2004 was a record year for antisemitic attacks with a total of 950 such incidents. In 2005 the number of incidents decreased sharply, but still totalled more than 500. At the same time, opinion surveys show a constant decline in antisemitic prejudices in the majority population since 1946. Another survey from spring 2005 revealed that 39 % of practising Muslims showed a high degree of antisemitic prejudices and more than 20 % of Muslims with a university degree showed a high degree of antisemitic sentiments. This shows that the problem exists on a deeper level than just a lack of integration and education  –  these are educated, successful French citizens. The French government did not react to the sharp increase of antisemitic incidents in 2000 until the conservative government came in to power in 2002. They increased the sentencing in racially motivated crimes. More however, still needs to be done.

The British Case, Mike Whine
In Great Britain, similar to France, some of the antisemitism issuing from the Muslim community is not coming from the religious Muslim community but from the Islamists in alliance with the far left. The case is much different however, in that the majority of Muslim immigrants are from the Indian subcontinent, from Pakistan, Bangladesh and India. There are also Muslims from East and West Africa. Initially the communities were not politicised, not radical. They were invited by the British government which was facing a labour shortage in the transportation sector, and in
the cotton industry in Lancaster. Most of the people came from Agrarian backgrounds. The Pakistani and Bangladeshi and most of the Indian immigrants come from narrow geographic areas, which essentially amounts to clan-based immigration. Their Imams came from India and Pakistan. The Arab influence was very small. It began to grow with, in particular, Saudi influences.
Integration of Muslims in Britain is not as extensive as in America but better than in France.
The Salman Rushdie affair began a visible process of radicalisation and, as a consequence antisemitism. The Arab world was seen as unsupportive and ineffective in mounting any campaign against Rushdie. The Iranian-backed, British organisation, the “Muslim Parliament” went to Ayatollah Khomeini and lobbied for the fatwa against Rushdie. That was seen in Muslim communities as an effective measure against Rushdie. This radicalisation process was further compounded by the Bosnian situation when Britain and the European Union failed to stop the massacres of Muslims there. If Europe had failed to protect a group of what were essentially white European Muslims, how could a Muslim from outside Europe have confidence? This became for many radicals a question of “something happening against Islam as a religion”.
One of the long-standing influences, particularly within the Pakistani community in Britain, was that of the Jamaat-e-Islami. It is one of the earliest Islamist influences. Islamist ideology began in the 1920’s, pre-dated by the revivalist movements, particularly the Tablighi Jamaat, which is now probably the largest Muslim revivalist organisation around the world. Radical Islamists are distinct from revivalists, who are concerned only with a return to pure Islam. Founded in the 20’s and 30’s in Egypt and in what was then India, radical-political-Islamist organisations such as Jamaat-e-Islami in India and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt sought to counter European influences, but which also absorbed the same. Particularly in the 40’s and 50’s, their primary influences were Nazism, Facism, and the Comintern  –  the mode of operation of the Muslim Brotherhood is based on the Comintern. Islamist ideology is born in modernity and not in the mosques. Antisemitism is in the core of Islamist ideology. Sayyid Qutb, who was the post-war ideologue for the Muslim brotherhood had used the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” in his commentaries on the Koran and his major work “Pathways” is replete with antisemitic pre-war totalitarian ideology. These influences spread to India and Pakistan in the post-war years.
Other external influences to radicalisation were 9/11, the Iraq war and the conflict in the Middle East. On top of that there are the Salafi sub-terrorist ideologies of Hizb ut-Tahrir and Al Muhajiroun and its successors, which are political movements within the Islamist movement, and which came into play about 10 years ago. They are strongly antisemitic. These organisations often work within the universities, spreading radicalised and politicised Islam, antisemitism and the idea of the recreation of the Caliphate as the primary aim of Islamist organisations.
The Afghan war was another important source for members of these movements. Britain served as a home for people who fought in Afghanistan for Islamist organisations.
Essentially, the antisemitism within the Muslim community is limited to the Islamist ideologues, and in some cases is compounded by the alienation of the second generation. On the other hand many individuals from the second generation are now coming to Jewish organisations of their own volition seeking contacts with the Jewish community  –  even to the extent of working jointly against antisemitism.

The Dutch Case, Karen Polak
In the Netherlands, 2005 saw a sharp decrease in antisemitic attacks, bringing the number down to pre-2001 levels. As in other European countries, antisemitic tensions are closely related to events in the Middle East. The weeks of July and middle of August 2006 (the time of the war between Israel and Hezbollah) showed a marked increase in antisemitic incidents.
The Dutch immigration of people with Muslim backgrounds is mostly made up of migrants from Morocco, from Turkey, and by a small number of immigrants from the former Dutch colonies in the West Indies.
Apart from the increased tensions in the wake of 2001, there are specific factors which influenced the debate about Muslim minorities and antisemitism in the Netherlands. The populist politician Pim Fortuyn rose quickly to prominence by proposing that the majority society be tougher about confronting minority populations with their own prejudices, namely forms of racism, antisemitism, and homophobia. The candidate was murdered shortly before the parliamentary elections in which he would have had a large victory. His death and the surrounding debate led to greater scrutiny of the problematic aspects of minority groups on the part of politicians and journalists. A second factor is the election of the parliamentarian Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who in 2002 and 2003 was in the forefront of discussions on antisemitism within Muslim communities. In 2004 she made headlines by stating that teachers in the Netherlands no longer dare to discuss the Holocaust in classes in certain schools with a high percentage of students from immigrant backgrounds. The murder of film-maker Theo Van Gogh also resulted in a renewed discussion of freedom of speech, and the lack thereof within certain communities. There are two positive effects of this heightened attention: a greater understanding of the daily discrimination of Muslim youngsters and more attention to unacceptable behaviour.
In education the focus on antisemitism in the past years has been linked to several specific instances. In May 2004, after the National Commemoration of World War II victims, a small group of youths in one of Amsterdam’s predominantly immigrant neighbourhoods (De Baarsjes) played football with the wreaths laid at a monument. In other neighbourhoods antisemitic slogans were shouted during the commemoration. The public outcry was unanimous. The focus of the public debate that followed was aimed at confronting the Muslim minority with the importance of combating antisemitism, but also calling for teachers, schools and educational institutes to take responsibility for educating these youngsters.
On a local and on a national level several initiatives were taken to educate Muslim youngsters on the importance of WWII and the Holocaust for Dutch society, of showing respect for commemorations and confronting antisemitism.
The mayor of Amsterdam, Job Cohen and the city councilor for education, Achmed Aboutaleb started a Jewish/Muslim dialogue with community leaders and young community representatives, meeting informally and regularly over a period of several years in the mayor’s official residence. Many small initiatives have come out of the network that has been established in this way. In 2006 a Jewish-Moroccan Network (see www.jmna.nl) was set up.
The Amsterdam City Council supported an educational project in which peer educators (university students with a Muslim background) have been invited to teach about WWII and the Holocaust and about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in secondary schools with a large Muslim population. After the first year of this peer education project, it evolved into Muslim-Jewish peer education  –  with an educator of each background going to schools together for a series of six lessons: three on WWII and three on the conflict in the Middle East.
The Anne Frank House organised several meetings with teachers and experts on a national level, and an international expert meeting (autumn 2004). These meetings aimed at getting a better grasp of the problems in schools. Which reactions from students and colleagues do teachers encounter when they teach about WWII? Which strategies in dealing with opposition to the subject, or confronting antisemitism work and which don’t? In what way can the isolation of some teachers be dealt with?
The international expert meeting laid the basis for a co-operation with the OSCE/ODIHR to develop teaching materials on antisemitism in six European countries. This pilot project was run in 2006 and should be finalised by early 2007.
Several initiatives have focused on raising awareness of Dutch minority groups of their own involvement in WWII history. FORUM, Institute for Multicultural Development initiated a publication written by the Netherlands Institute on War Documentation (www.niod.nl), Immigrants of this Moment and the War of Then. Morocco, The Dutch Antilles, Surinam and Turkey and the Second World War. This book brings together the literature available on this subject so that it is accessible to teachers.
On another level ‘Mo’, an activist group of young adults of immigrant descent, working in advertising, published a leaflet in 2004, Commemoration, Two Minutes Silence. Moroccan Soldiers in the Second World War, discussing the Moroccan participation in the Allied forces. This leaflet was specifically conceived to be handed out on the street and in coffee shops, where many young Muslims can be found in their free time. ‘MO’ also printed a series of posters with texts on respect and commemoration that were posted throughout Amsterdam in the weeks prior to the National commemoration 2004.
The Resistance Museum in Amsterdam was successful in 2006 in attracting many new groups of visitors (schools, community centres) with a small, but balanced exhibition on the participation of Moroccan soldiers in the Allied forces. Most of these visitors also took time to visit the permanent exhibition and learnt for the first time what the occupation of the Netherlands during WWII and the Holocaust meant for Dutch society.
All these initiatives have shown how important it is to invest in getting NGO’s and institutions to work together, bundling the expertise and networks of groups of people with different backgrounds. Many teachers have expressed their relief that now more attention is being paid to the difficulties that they face in the classrooms, when teaching about the Holocaust or the conflict in the Middle East. At the same time many have proved that much can be achieved when time is spent in giving students the basic knowledge they need and listening to their questions and remarks and responding in an adequate way.

The Swedish Case, Mikael Tossavainen
The Muslim immigrant population is a recent phenomenon in Sweden. Swedish society at large has not traditionally studied or tracked antisemitism in the wider society, let alone in a specific subset of the population. In addition, population figures in Sweden don’t track ethnic or religious origins, so it is difficult to say how numerous the Muslim population in Sweden is exactly. Mikael Tossavainen estimated it at a few percent of the total population.
Antisemitism does exist in the Swedish migrant community, as evidenced by Muslim or Arab websites in Swedish, and reports by teachers in schools with high Muslim populations who have encountered resistance to Holocaust curriculum and teaching about Judaism and the recent history of the Middle East. In addition there has been an increase in antisemitic incidents perpetrated by people with Muslim or Arab backgrounds.
The first survey of antisemitic attitudes in the Swedish population was published only in 2006 by BRÅ  –  the council for crime prevention in Sweden. The results of the survey showed that the Muslim community is a relevant focus group for combating antisemitism, bearing out the speaker’s previous academic findings. According to the study, 70% of Swedes do not harbour antisemitic opinions, 25% harbour some antisemitic opinions, but not in a systematic sense, while 5% showed systematic antisemitic attitudes. Grouping the most antisemitic 5% into sub-groups highlighted people of two backgrounds, neo-Nazis and Muslims. Percentages of antisemitism among Muslims and Arabs in Sweden are difficult to determine, but it was clear that Muslims are over-represented among the group bearing consistent and systematic antisemitism compared to other religious groups.
The latent antisemitism within the Muslim and Arab community in Sweden has boiled over on a few occasions, notably in September 2000 with the eruption of the second Intifada in the Middle East. The outbreak of the Second Intifada roughly coincided with Rosh Hashanah, which is always a more active period of antisemitic incidents, due to Jewish community’s increased visibility.
The invasion of Iraq was another peak period, as well as the war in Lebanon. There are no figures for what has happened this summer, but there seem to have been an increase. There are attacks on synagogues, community centers, or cemeteries, but in these cases it is difficult to determine if the perpetrators are predominately Arab or Muslim, because they often remain anonymous. In cases where there has been a witness present or where Jews have been attacked personally, perpetrators with an Arab or Muslim background are over-represented along with neo-Nazis.
Street demonstrations are often scenes for antisemitic outbreaks. Street demonstrations in Sweden are almost always in protest of the United States or Israel. They bring in a violent tail of troublemakers who chant antisemitic slogans in Swedish, in Arabic or even in English; Israeli flags are burnt, sometimes effigies of Jews are burnt, and there have been occasions in connection to these demonstrations, with attacks on Jewish property, shop-owners or Jews or people who are suspected of being Jewish, or sympathizers of Israel.
One way that Sweden stands out among the countries in Europe is by the reaction of the majority society, which has been virtually non-existent. Politicians and journalists have ignored, belittled or denied the problem. Journalists have portrayed raising antisemitism awareness as an effort by a supposed pro-Israeli lobby to distract from Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, and as an effort to undermine support for the Muslim community in general and for the Palestinians in particular. Journalists have also argued that antisemitism is a problem of the past, and that the only real problem with racism in Sweden today is discrimination against Muslims and Arabs (which of course is a problem in Sweden as in many other countries).
The issue has been politicised in Sweden. The political left, which as a rule is anti-American and therefore anti-Israel, tend to ignore the problem of antisemitism. Those who are conservative or liberal seem more willing to talk about Muslim antisemitism and antisemitism in general.
Politicians in need of votes resort to a symbolic very harsh criticism of Israel in the press to capture left-wing votes and also in the Muslim community. It has come to the point where members of the former communist party have marched in demonstrations under the Hezbollah flag.
To conclude, in Sweden, in order to combat Muslim antisemitism, the issue needs to be de-politicised, and turned into a domestic policy issue, severed from its Middle East connection.

The German Case, Goetz Nordbruch
The Muslim community in Germany differs in various regards from Muslim communities in other European countries. Several of these differences are important for an understanding of the context of antisemitic thought amongst Muslim and Arab immigrants in Germany. Much to the contrary of France, for instance, out of an estimated total of between 3 and 3.2 million Muslims in Germany, only some 300.000 are of Arab origin. Instead, the huge majority of Muslims in Germany  –  about two-thirds  –  is of Turkish origin. In addition, another larger part of the community has immigrated from the countries of former Yugoslavia, adding to a rather heterogeneous image of Muslim life in Germany.
Important differences to other European countries also exist on an organisational level: While in France and Britain several organisations of various political affiliations represent the Arab-Muslim population, only very few Arab organisations exist in Germany. In contrast, the Turkish community is well organised and actively involved in German politics and public debates.
With regard to the topic of the workshop, this relative organisational weakness of the Arab-Muslim community leads to a point that should be kept in mind: Concerning interfaith relations, there are  –  at least at a higher level  –  rather good contacts between the Turkish and Jewish communities in Germany. In the past, both communities on various occasions joined forces in the struggle against racism, antisemitism and right wing violence. Although the importance of such contacts should not be exaggerated, they surely provide a basis for exchange and might be one reason for the relative lack of tensions between Muslims of Turkish origin and German Jews. In contrast, no similar contacts exist between Jewish and Arab religious communities. There are hardly any relevant Arab organisations that could serve as intermediaries to approach the Arab community and to promote any kind of Jewish-Muslim dialogue amongst the Arab-Muslim population in Germany.
Another important point to understand, in order to put antisemitic thought amongst Arabs and Muslims throughout Germany into context, is that Antisemitism in mainstream German discourses is closely tied to questions related to German identity. Muslims, who are generally not perceived as German by non-Muslim Germans  –  and who often do not consider themselves as German –, are excluded from dominant national narratives. This is reflected in antisemitic arguments and concepts that differ from those known from the non-Muslim German public. For instance, the comparison of Nazism and Zionism is still relatively rare in mainstream German public discourses. In the Arab community in Germany, however, this comparison can increasingly be observed. Within a German audience, this comparison reflects a minimalisation of the Holocaust on the one hand and a “normalisation” of German history on the other: “Others, and the Jews among them, committed crimes similar to those we committed during the Holocaust. So if the Jews do today what we did in the past, German history is hardly exceptional. Germany is a country as others.” This said, the context of comparisons of Nazism and Zionism within an Arab public is completely different, although the message is still wrong and no less problematic. Nevertheless, we should keep in mind that the ideological context of antisemitic thought amongst Arabs and Muslims in Germany is not related to questions of German identity. While antisemitic arguments in mainstream German discourses are closely tied to memory politics, this is not the case for the Arab and Muslim minorities. Assessments of antisemitic thought have to reflect this, and counter-strategies should be adapted to the particular context in which they are used.
In this regard, another aspect should be mentioned: The Arab image of Germany is complex and contradictory. Germany is often criticized as being uncritical of Israel, and submissive to Israeli demands and “blackmail”. At the same time, Germany often enjoys great sympathy that is due to its assumed enmity towards a “common enemy”, the Jews. This ambivalent perception of Germany and of Germany’s relation to Jews is an important factor that shapes Arab discourses on German history  –  and through this the discourse about Jews and the Middle East. An analysis of antisemitic thought amongst the Arab community in Germany has to consider this peculiarity.
To conclude, I would like to end with a general remark. I think that strategies against antisemitic thought amongst Muslims and Arabs should avoid a mistake that is often made with regard to mainstream German discourses: to focus on the extremes  –  in the case of the Muslim community, to focus on radical Islamist circles.
At the Frankfurt book fair two years ago, the “Arab world” was invited as a special guest. The organisers successfully managed to put together a program that carefully tried to exclude Islamist voices. Nevertheless, several speakers were invited that had become known in the Arab public for their aggressive antisemitic stances. The opening talk of the fair, for instance, was given  –  in the name of Najib Mahfus  –  by Muhammad Salmawy, who is editor-in-chief of the Egyptian weekly al-Ahram Hebdo and who is a secular, modernist, and not an Islamist. In the recent past, however, he has contributed some of the most explicit antisemitic articles known in the Egyptian media. Another speaker who participated at the fair was the head of the manuscript museum at the Bibliotheca Alexandria, who had just presented the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” in his museum. His personal website gives additional insight into his state of mind: several articles are dedicated to an assumed cultural conspiracy by which the Jews are attempting to undermine other nations and cultures.
This said, none of these two individuals  –  and additional participants at the fair could be mentioned  –  is in any way affiliated with Islamist circles; in the context of the fair, they simply slipped through the criteria that would have led to their non-invitation. I am afraid that this is no exception; the focus on Islamists blurs the fact that antisemitism is not only a problem of the margins, but of the centre as well  –  in this regard, the phenomenon strikingly resembles the problem encountered in non-Muslim German society.

Discussion from the Participants
Antisemitism from people with Arab or Muslim background in France seems to be more related to cultural-identity issues than to religion, whereas in the UK this seems to be directly or indirectly issuing from Islamist ideology. How do we explain the different frameworks?
Islamists are the main promoters of antisemitism in the Muslim communities in Britain, but there are nevertheless problems within Islam itself regarding Jews. The concept of dhimmitude and the Qur’an’s and the prophet’s inconsistent attitude to the Jews is one explication of this phenomenon. In history, Jews under Islam were protected but as second class citizens with special taxes and they had to wear a special dress. Later, there were even pogroms and blood libels (e.g. Damascus) from Muslims against Jews. However, with the Islamist movements antisemitism became much worse. The Arab world since 1948 has used antisemitism as a strategic weapon in their educational systems, in their publishing, internally and externally. However, regarding antisemitism the Islamist strain in the UK is much stronger.
Another aspect are the concepts of globalisation, and the Arab and Muslim world’s reaction. They are not really dealing with the challenges of globalisation and with the concepts of the “new world order” after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was repelled. These are seen as paradigms for the Western intrusion into the Arab and Muslim world.
Much of the antisemitism of Muslim and Arab minorities, at least in Sweden, stems from a secular need, a feeling of unease about being in a discriminated minority and also the general feeling of the “Arab and Muslim world” that they are threatened by the West. It comes from a secular need, but it takes on a semi-religious language  –  not necessarily from a knowledge of religious issues or texts, but just an adopted ideology.

Are we correct in trying to isolate Islamist antisemitism from the larger phenomenon of Christian antisemitism, when the first uses the reservoir of the second’s imagery?
In theory it might be possible to put these two phenomenon together because one is built on the other, but in practice there is reason to make a separation because these are different populations and different forms and contexts. Antisemitism in the Muslim world and communities has developed on its own terms. Moreover, the remedies for combating Muslim antisemitism and Christian antisemitism are different.
On the other hand, if Islamist antisemitism is seen as a reaction to modernism, there are parallels with the Christian antisemitism in Germany in the late 19th Century.
The movie of Mel Gibson, “The Passion” was a success in Lebanon. How does one differentiate Christian and Muslim antisemitism, when it crosses bounds. Religion is not the key to de-construct it for better understanding. If the key is religion, what about the communist literature which uses the same imagery in a secular way.

Could religion be a catalyst for something that goes much deeper?
Then we need to assume that antisemitism is integrated into a religious world view. But I assume that most of the antisemitic expressions in the Arab world are not argued for with religion, even if they use religious imagery. In contrast to Christian antisemitism, there is no antisemitic story inherent in Islam, only images.
Even if people use religious images, this does not mean that they are religious.
Coming from a very secular country: Even if it is important to understand the religious backgrounds of antisemitic rhetoric, it is very new to the students who are often shockingly uneducated. Some Moroccan students in Amsterdam have understood the term Jew to mean anyone who is not Muslim. It is also important to examine the widespread anti-Western attitudes which contribute to a conception of “them and us”. Concerning conspiracy theories which are so prevalent among young people, the religious background seems to play a minor role.
Right-wing-extremist intellectuals of the anti-mondialism movement comprise another strain of antisemitism with its origins in 1980’s Europe, especially in Italy and France, and which supports Islamists on a secular basis.
Recently, an exchange between Sufi Muslims and Orthodox Jews was initiated in Britain. The Orthodox Jews were remembering that they studied Sufi texts, and that Maimonides wrote in Arabic, and the Sufis study Maimonides as a classical Arab scholar...