Islamic antisemitism: a fatal synthesis
At a glance
Islamic antisemitism is not an original component of Islam, but the result of a fusion of traditional Islamic images of Jews with European – and in particular National Socialist – antisemitism. It arose through political influence and propaganda, not out of Islamic theology.
The traditional Islamic image of Jews:
In the early period of Islam, Jews were regarded as inferior, not as all-powerful. As “Dhimmis” – protected subjects – they were permitted to live under Islamic rule, but were socially and legally disadvantaged. The image was paternalistic rather than paranoid: Jews were held in low esteem, not feared.
The ideological rupture:
In the 20th century this image changed fundamentally. With colonialism, the founding of Israel and National Socialist propaganda, the Jew became a demonic, all-powerful enemy. National Socialist broadcasters such as Radio Zeesen and propagandists such as Amin al-Husseini deliberately transmitted antisemitic myths into the Middle East. Quranic terms were linked with National Socialist rhetoric: the “unbeliever” became the “world conspirator”.
“Islamised continuation” of European antisemitism:
Matthias Küntzel describes this process as an adoption and reinterpretation of European images of the enemy. Islamist movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood, and later Hamas, combined religious language with National Socialist ideology – Jews became enemies of God, Israel the symbol of evil.
The post-war period and the missing reckoning with the Shoah:
After 1945 this way of thinking stabilised, because in the Arab countries a societal reckoning with the Shoah largely failed to take place. The extermination of the Jews was not recognised in the media, in school textbooks, in sermons and in political speeches as a crime against humanity; it was either celebrated or else presented as a “Zionist lie” or a “pretext for colonialism”. Antisemitism thus became a religiously charged system for interpreting political powerlessness.
Islamic antisemitism: a fatal synthesis
The term
Islamic antisemitism
describes not an original or unchangeable component of Islam, but the result of a historical and ideological fusion: a synthesis between traditional Islamic anti-Jewish images and modern European antisemitism, particularly in its National Socialist form. This thinking arose not from theological logic, but from political expediency – as a consequence of the deliberate transfer of European images of the enemy into the Arab-Islamic world.
The traditional Islamic image of Jews: inferiority instead of omnipotence
In the early Islamic period, Jews were regarded not as all-powerful conspirators but as a small, defeated and humble minority. The Quran describes them in part as “those who broke the covenant” or who “contradicted the Prophet”, yet not as supernatural enemies. In the Islamic social order Jews were – like Christians – “Dhimmis”, that is, protected subjects who were permitted to live under Islamic rule but were legally and socially subordinate. This hierarchy was not based on racial ideology, but on a religious conception of order: Jewish existence was tolerated, but devalued. The traditional Islamic image of Jews was therefore paternalistic, not paranoid: it saw Jews as lowly, not as powerful; as cowardly, not as dangerous.
The ideological rupture: the import of European antisemitism
In the 20th century this pattern changed fundamentally. With colonialism, the crises of modernity and the founding of Israel, a new phase began in which Jews were no longer portrayed as “inferior” but as all-powerful, conspiratorial and bent on world domination – a direct inheritance of European antisemitism. This Islamisation of the modern antisemitic myth is a fatal synthesis. Central to it was National Socialist propaganda in the Middle East. Between 1939 and 1945 the Third Reich invested considerable resources in spreading antisemitic images of the enemy throughout the Arab world. The German Foreign Office ran Arabic-language radio stations (above all
Radio Zeesen
) and distributed millions of leaflets, publications and translations of National Socialist agitation. Speakers such as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini, who maintained close contacts with Hitler and Himmler, presented the fight against the Jews as a shared religious mission of Islam and National Socialism. In his radio messages to the Arab world he combined Quranic verses with National Socialist terminology: Jews as “enemies of God”, “corrupters of the world”, “the men behind the war”. In this way an ideological translation came about: the religious accusation that the Jews had betrayed God’s message merged with the racist myth of the “Jewish world conspiracy”. The previously paternalistic view of Jews as weak and as protected subjects was replaced by the notion of a demonic, all-powerful adversary threatening Islam, morality and humanity. This reversal – from the “despised inferior” to the “cosmic enemy” – is the actual hallmark of modern Islamic antisemitism.
Supporters of the regime demonstrate their backing for the Iranian attack on Israel on Tehran’s “Palestine Square” in 2024.
Photo: Majid Saeedi/Getty Images[/caption] Küntzel interprets this process as an “Islamised continuation of European antisemitism”: a transcultural legacy that did not grow out of Islam itself, but was carried into it from outside and functionalised for domestic political ends. Islamism adopted not only the images of the enemy of the Third Reich, but also its pathological logic – the notion of a worldwide Jewish power plotting the downfall of the “true believers”. Antisemitism thereby became, in Islamist thinking, a theologically exalted explanation of the world: an interpretative framework that externalises political powerlessness and social crises and charges them morally. It turns Jews into enemies of God, Israel into the symbol of evil – and the fight against both into a holy mission.
The consequences of the synthesis
After 1945 this ideological transfer survived the defeat of the National Socialist regime. Organisations such as the Muslim Brotherhood took over antisemitic patterns of argument almost verbatim from National Socialist sources and combined them with religious rhetoric. Later they found their way into the Hamas Charter (1988), into the propaganda of the Iranian regime and into numerous school textbooks and sermons. Antisemitism thus became a fixed component of Islamist world views – religiously justified, politically effective, emotionally charged.
The absence of a reckoning with the Shoah:
A decisive difference from the European development lies in the absence of a societal reckoning with the Shoah in the Arab countries. While in Germany a culture of remembrance, of reflection on guilt and of educational reappraisal established itself, albeit hesitantly, in large parts of the Arab world the memory of the Holocaust remained largely suppressed or was politically instrumentalised.
Arab Jewish refugees near a reception camp set up by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, 1949
Photo: National Photo Collection of Israel/Zoltan Kluge[/caption] In many states the Shoah was, after 1945, neither recognised as a crime against humanity nor accepted as a moral point of reference. Instead, the engagement with their own colonial history and with the Arab-Israeli conflict merged into a counter-memory in which the Jews were not victims but aggressors. In school textbooks, in the media and in political rhetoric the Holocaust was frequently relativised, denied or reinterpreted, for instance as a “Zionist invention” or a “pretext for the establishment of Israel”. Antisemitism thus remained free of history and of guilt: an inherited image of the enemy without moral upheaval, one that was able to continue under new ideological auspices. This absence of historical self-examination meant that antisemitism stabilised and modernised itself in parts of the Arab world, while in Europe it was increasingly ostracised in public. This is not to say that in Germany or Austria an enlightened turning away from antisemitism, and a critique of it, took place from 1945 onwards out of conscious reflection. Rather, open antisemitism was made taboo through the laborious political and academic work of survivors, of victims’ associations and of members of the victim generation, and an engagement with the crimes and the ideology of the Shoah was pushed through, not least under pressure from the Allies. They fought against institutional inertia, social indifference, old and new Nazis and a widespread self-exculpation. The widespread narrative of a successful “coming to terms with the past” obscures the fact that repression, defensiveness and silence dominated for decades. Only the Frankfurt trials, the pupils’ and protest movements of the 1960s, Jewish initiatives and international impulses compelled a broader public engagement with the Shoah. This laboriously achieved culture of remembrance was – and is – no sign of a German moral “becoming good again”, but the provisional result of constant debate, of conflicts and of the persistent commitment of individuals. The contrast with the Arab world therefore lies not in a moral superiority of Germany, but in the historical circumstance that here – under pressure and against resistance – at least a critical self-questioning was fought for, while there it largely failed to materialise.
Historical lines and concepts of Islamic antisemitism
In classical Islamic law, the term
Dhimmi
(literally: “protected subject”) denoted members of non-Muslim scriptural religions, above all Jews and Christians. They were permitted to practise their faith, but were legally disadvantaged and socially subordinate. Jews thus counted as a tolerated but inferior community – theologically in error, socially weak. For centuries this view shaped the image of the “inferior Jew” who remained subordinate to the Islamic order – without the notion of demonic power familiar from European antisemitism.
Radio Zeesen
From 1939 to 1945 the National Socialist foreign broadcasting service
Radio Zeesen
broadcast daily in Arabic, Persian and other languages to the Middle East. It deliberately disseminated antisemitic National Socialist propaganda and combined it with religious arguments from the Quran and the Hadith. The aim was to mobilise Muslims in the fight against the “common enemy – the Jews”. The broadcasts, which portrayed the Jew as a “corrupter” and as “the man behind the Allies”, contributed decisively to translating European hostility towards Jews into Islamic patterns of thought.
Amin al-Husseini (Grand Mufti of Jerusalem)
Amin al-Husseini was a central figure in the ideological transmission between National Socialist Germany and the Arab world. He met Hitler in Berlin in 1941, supported the Axis powers and propagated the extermination of the Jews as a religious duty. In his radio addresses he combined National Socialist rhetoric (“Jewish world conspiracy”) with Islamic terminology, such as the “struggle in the name of Allah”. Al-Husseini received massive financial backing from the National Socialist state and was built up as a political leader against his rivals; he is regarded as a key figure in the early Islamisation of European antisemitism.
Islamised National Socialist propaganda
National Socialist propaganda translated classical antisemitic motifs into Islamic symbolic language. It drew on Quranic passages that portray Jews as “unbelievers” or “breakers of the covenant”, and combined them with National Socialist notions of “race”, “conspiracy” and “world power”. This gave rise to a theologically coded variant of European antisemitism which lived on after 1945 in Islamist movements.
The missing reckoning with the Shoah
In the Arab world no systematic engagement with the Shoah took place after 1945. The Holocaust was mostly ignored, relativised or presented as a “Zionist lie”. Antisemitism was thus able to continue without moral upheaval or historical responsibility – as a cultural inheritance, politically charged by the Middle East conflict. In Germany, by contrast, the reckoning was indeed institutionalised, yet it remained no act of collective purification, but the result of the laborious struggles of individuals against repression and defensiveness.
Küntzel’s analysis of Islamic antisemitism
Matthias Küntzel describes Islamic antisemitism as the result of an ideological transfer: European – above all National Socialist – images of the enemy were exported to the Middle East in the 20th century and linked with existing religious prejudices. In this way the traditional image of the “inferior Jew” was transformed into that of the all-powerful, conspiratorial enemy. This antisemitism does not originate in Islamic theology, but is the product of political propaganda and of a post-colonial interpretation of crisis.
Conclusion
Islamic antisemitism is not a religious inheritance, but a model of ideology that established itself in the colonial and post-colonial crisis of the Islamic world. It combines old religious images of the enemy with modern political myths and thus turns antisemitism into a cross-border narrative – a language of power, of anger and of self-exculpation.
Current examples
In September 2021 the police foiled a presumably Islamist-motivated attack on the synagogue in Hagen on Yom Kippur; indications of an “Islamist-motivated threat situation” came from foreign security circles, and a 16-year-old with contacts in the jihadist online sphere was arrested. Investigators assumed a motive in which religiously charged hatred of Jews was combined with the notion of a “legitimate attack” on a Jewish community.
Around 300-400 supporters of an Islamist Syrian militia gathered in front of the Rotes Rathaus in Berlin on 19 July 2025 and chanted, among other things, slogans against Jews, Israel, Druze, Alawites and Christians – accompanied by calls for murder and sexual violence. Investigations were opened by the Landeskriminalamt Berlin (Berlin State Office of Criminal Investigation), as videos repeatedly show anti-Israel, antisemitic and violence-glorifying statements.
is a German propaganda network with close ideological affinity to Hizb ut-Tahrir, which propagates a worldwide caliphate and the abolition of democratic orders. In its campaigns the group regularly spreads Islamist messages that portray Jews and Israel as religious enemies and call for the fight against them. Because of this antisemitic and anti-democratic agitation, Muslim Interaktiv was banned by the German federal government in November 2025.
Video
This video shows how religious anti-Jewish ideas in the Islamic world became bound up in the 20th century with European – and in particular National Socialist – antisemitism. It explains why this Islamic antisemitism is not an elementary religious teaching but a historically evolved, politically charged construction – and why confronting it today is an enormously important task for society – for religious and non-religious people alike.
Sources and further information
Here you will find projects, films and further reading on this topic.
Projects and organisations in this field
DialoguePerspectives promotes Jewish-Muslim understanding and, in workshops, seminars and publications such as the
DP-Journals
also discusses anti-Jewish traditions within Islam openly and critically. Its programmes (“Anti-Judaism in Islam – Theology, History, the Present”) are regarded across Europe as model projects.
The MFFB publishes studies and dossiers on Islamist antisemitism, among them analyses of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Iranian regime as well as reports such as “Islamist Antisemitism in Germany”. It offers one of the most important German-language research archives on antisemitic ideologies in the Middle East and in migrant communities.
Through its projects (“Antisemitism Documentation Project”, “Jihad & Terrorism Threat Monitor”) MEMRI provides translated primary sources from Arabic and Persian media which document recurring antisemitic narratives in Islamist sermons, television broadcasts and political speeches. It thereby supplies indispensable material for research, education and monitoring.
The UNESCO-Yad Vashem cooperation develops guidelines and programmes for Holocaust education in MENA countries and publishes reports such as “Addressing Holocaust Denial in the MENA Region”, which set out both progress and obstacles. It strengthens local educational initiatives and sheds light on the connection between remembrance culture, political instrumentalisation and antisemitic discourses.
Documentaries
Balci, Güner (2014) (film): “Shariah Police – Die Salafisten von Wuppertal” (RBB) – documentary on Islamism and, among other things, antisemitic conspiracy narratives. Balci, Güner (2015) (film): “Kampf im Klassenzimmer” (ZDFinfo) – documentary on Islamist and antisemitic attitudes among young people.
Podcast
Braune Hetze auf Arabisch. NS-Radiopropaganda im Nahen Osten. Season 3, episode 4 of
historycast – was war, was wird?
of the Verband der Geschichtslehrerinnen und -lehrer Deutschlands e. V. (Association of History Teachers in Germany)
: Almut Finck in conversation with Matthias Küntzel.
Further reading
Bauer, Yehuda (2018):
Der islamische Antisemitismus. Eine aktuelle Bedrohung.
Münster: agenda Verlag. Becker, Ulrike (2018): “Islamischer Antisemitismus unterscheidet sich von anderen Formen des Antisemitismus. Er speist sich aus spezifischen Quellen und zeigt spezifische Äußerungsformen.” In:
Wissen schafft Demokratie
, vol. 8. Jena: Institut für Demokratie und Zivilgesellschaft (IDZ Jena). Becker, Ulrike (2019):
Nazis am Nil. Die deutsche Einflussnahme auf den Nahen Osten und Nordafrika im 20. Jahrhundert.
Berlin: Hentrich & Hentrich. Bozay, Kemal / Şen, Faruk (2005):
Islamismus in Deutschland. Eine kritische Bestandsaufnahme.
Essen: Zentrum für Türkeistudien. Bozay, Kemal / Eser Davolio, Fürian (2010): “Türkischer Ultranationalismus und antisemitische Weltbilder.” In:
Migration und Zugehörigkeit in Europa
, ed. by E. Pichler. Vienna: Braumüller, pp. 145–164. Bozay, Kemal (2017): “Islamismus, Nationalismus und antisemitische Feindbilder in der Türkei und Diaspora.” In:
Journal für Konflikt- und Gewaltforschung
, 19(2). Bielefeld: Universität Bielefeld. Bozay, Kemal (2021): “Antisemitismus in der postmigrantischen Gesellschaft: Schnittmengen, Codes und hybride Feindbilder.” In:
Antisemitismus in Europa heute
, ed. by Schwarz-Friesel et al. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 233–252. Çiçek, Hüseyin (in preparation/since 2024): project
Echokammern der Niedertracht. Analyse antisemitischer Propagandanetzwerke im türkisch-muslimischen Diskurs nach dem 7. Oktober 2023.
Vienna. Guttstadt, Corry (2008):
Die Türkei, die Juden und der Holocaust.
Berlin: Assoziation A. Herf, Jeffrey (2009):
Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World.
New Haven/London: Yale University Press. Jikeli, Günther (2015):
European Muslim Antisemitism. Why Young Urban Males Say They Don’t Like Jews.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Koopmans, Ruud (2013): “Fundamentalismus und Fremdenfeindlichkeit. Muslime und Christen im europäischen Vergleich.” In:
WZB-Mitteilungen
, issue 142, pp. 21–25. Berlin: Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB). Krämer, Gudrun (2005):
Geschichte des Islamismus.
Munich: C.H. Beck. Küntzel, Matthias (2002):
Djihad und Judenhaß. Über den neuen antijüdischen Krieg.
Freiburg: ça ira. Küntzel, Matthias (2018): “Islamischer Antisemitismus – als Forschungsbereich: Über Versäumnisse der Antisemitismusforschung in Deutschland.” In: Marc Grimm / Bodo Kahmann (eds.):
Antisemitismus im 21. Jahrhundert. Virulenz einer alten Feindschaft in Zeiten von Islamismus und Terror.
Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, pp. 135–156. Küntzel, Matthias (2019):
Die Nazis und der Nahe Osten. Wie der islamistische Antisemitismus entstand.
Berlin: Hentrich & Hentrich. Küntzel, Matthias (2022):
Islamischer Antisemitismus.
Working Paper #004. Aachen/Cologne: CARS – Katholische Hochschule NRW. Lewis, Bernard (1987a):
Die Juden in der islamischen Welt. Vom frühen Mittelalter bis ins 20. Jahrhundert.
Munich: C.H. Beck. Lewis, Bernard (1987b):
“Treibt sie ins Meer!” Die Geschichte des Antisemitismus.
Frankfurt am Main/Berlin: Ullstein. Litvak, Meir / Webman, Esther (2009):
From Empathy to Denial. Arab Responses to the Holocaust.
New York: Columbia University Press. Melhem, Hisham (2015): “The Roots of Arab Anti-Semitism.” In:
Politique Étrangère
, no. 3/2015, pp. 97–109. Paris: Institut Français des Relations Internationales (IFRI). Öztürk, Cemal / Pickel, Gert (2024): “Antisemitismus unter Musliminnen: Sozialisation, religiöse Tradierung oder herkunftsübergreifendes Feindbild des islamischen Fundamentalismus.” In:
Zeitschrift für Religion, Gesellschaft und Politik
, 14(4). Heidelberg: Springer Nature. Pfahl-Traughber, Armin (2011): “Antisemitismus im Islamismus. Ideengeschichtliche Bedingungsfaktoren und agitatorische Erscheinungsformen.” In: Helmut Fünfsinn / Armin Pfahl-Traughber (eds.):
Extremismus und Terrorismus als Herausforderung für Gesellschaft und Justiz. Antisemitismus im Extremismus.
Brühl: Fachhochschule des Bundes für öffentliche Verwaltung, pp. 112–134. Pfahl-Traughber, Armin (2019):
Islamismus als Ideologie der Ungleichwertigkeit. Eine Analyse aus politikwissenschaftlicher Perspektive.
Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung. Rothenberg, Gunther (2018):
Hamas: Islamist Politics and Antisemitic Ideology.
London/New York: Routledge. Sansal, Boualem (2008):
Das Dorf des Deutschen. Eine Jugend in Deutschland oder Die wiedergefundene Spur des Nazismus in Algerien.
Munich: dtv.
(novel)
Satloff, Robert (2007):
Among the Righteous. Lost Stories from the Holocaust’s Long Reach into Arab Lands.
New York: PublicAffairs. Stillman, Norman (1979):
The Jews of Arab Lands: A History and Source Book.
Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society. Tibi, Bassam (2002):
Der neue Totalitarismus. “Heiliger Krieg” und westliche Sicherheit.
Darmstadt: Primus Verlag. Zick, Andreas / Küpper, Beate / Hövermann, Andreas (2011):
Die Abwertung der Anderen. Eine europäische Studie zu Vorurteilen und sozialer Diskriminierung.
Berlin: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.