Semites and Anti-Semites: An Inquiry into Conflict and Prejudice

286 Pages·1987·9.92 MB·English

by  Bernard Lewis

Semites and
Anti-Semites
Also by Bernard Lewis
The Arabs in History
The Emergence of Modern Turkey
Istanbul and the Civilization of the Ottoman Empire
The Middle East and the West
The Assassins: A Radical Sect in Islam
Race and Color in Islam
Islam from the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople
History-Remembered, Recovered, ·Invented
The Muslim Discovery of Europe
The Jews of Islam
Semites and
Anti-Semites
AN INQUIRY INTO CONFLICT
AND PREJUDICE
Bernard Lewis
W • W • NORTON & COMPANY
NEW YORK • LONDON
Copyright @ 198B by Be'rnard Lewis. All rights reserved. Publi;hed simultaneously
in Canada by Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 2801 John Street, Markham, Ontario L3R
1B4. Printed in the United States of America.
The text of this book is composed in Gael, with display type set in Book Regular.
Composition and manufacturing by the Haddon Craftsmen. Book design by Marjorie
J. Flock.
First published as a Norton paperback 1987
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lewis, Bernard.
Semites and anti-Semites.
Includes index.
1. Antisemitism. 2. Antisemitism-Arab countries.
3. Jewish-Arab relations. I. Title.
DS145.L52 1986 305.8'924 85-26021
ISBN 0-393-30420-5
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth.Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110
W. W. Norton & Company Ltd., 37 Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3NU
234567890
Contents
Acknowledgments
9
Introduction 11
ONE The Holocaust and After 25
TWO Semites 4Z
THREE Jews 58
FOUR Anti-Semites 81
FIVE Muslims and Jews 117
SIX The Nazis and the Palestine Question 140
SEVEN The War Against Zionism 164
EIGHT The War Against the Jews 192
NINE The New Anti-Semitism 236
Notes 261
Index 275

Acknowledgments
M y THANKS are due Srst and foremost to my research
assistant, Corinne Blake, whose skill, scholarship, and en
ergy enormously lightened the task of writing this book,
and whose critical acumen saved me from falling into a number of
pitfalls. She is in no way responsible for those other pitfalls into which
I tumbled with my eyes open and by my own choice~ I would also
like to express my appreciation to Mary Alice McCormick, whose
meticulous care and unfailing good temper survived the many
changes in my typescript from Srst draft to final copy. I am indebted
for comments, criticisms and suggestions of various kinds to Priscilla
Barnum, Theodore Draper, Grace Edelman, David Eisenberg, Zvi
Elpeleg, Yuval Ginbar,Judy Gross, Cathleen Kaveny, !tamar Rabino
vitch, Shimon Shamir, Elliott Shore, Frank H. Stewart, and some
others who made helpful comments but prefer not to be named. I
offer them my gratitude for those of their suggestions which I ac
cepted, and my apologies for those which I resisted. My thanks are
due to the editors of Survey and of Encounter, in which earlier
versions of some paragraphs in chapter 9 were published. Finally, I
must record my debt to my colleagues at Princeton University, who
in their various ways have deepened my understanding of the prob
lems discussed in this book.