ESSAY
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Islamism Against Zionism: Muslim Identity and the Middle East Conflict
Marching for Al Quds: Demonstrators mark Ayatollah Khomeini’s special day in Berlin, October 2005 Photo credit: Harry’s Place
FOR THE CASUAL OBSERVER looking to capture Islamist attitudes towards Zionism and Israel, there are few spectacles better than Al Quds Day. Instituted by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, the year of the Islamic Revolution, and held on the last Friday during the month of Ramadan, the day is dedicated to protesting Israel's control of Jerusalem (Al Quds in Arabic, Al Qods in Persian), one of the three cities regarded as holy by the Muslim faith.
Al Quds Day has become an institution across the Arab and Islamic worlds. In more recent years, it has been observed in Europe too. In cities like Berlin, Paris, Toronto and London, Islamist activists have taken to the streets, often accompanied by non-Muslim leftists. Many of the slogans deployed at these events - notably, "Hand in Hand Against the Zionists!" - are sanitized for a European leftist audience. However, antisemitic cries like "Death to Israel!" are also on display, leaving little doubt as to the antisemitic essence of Al Quds Day. Indeed, at the 2002 Al Quds Day demonstration in Berlin, these calls for Israel's annihilation passed unremarked. It was not until the following year that a counterdemonstration revealed the antisemitic underpinnings of this opposition towards Zionism.
What, in such a context, does "Zionism" actually mean? There are two obvious points to make: firstly, that Zionism is a byword for malevolence and hostility, above all towards Muslims; secondly that such a perception has no factual foundations. But that does not explain why Zionism has taken on this meaning for so many Muslims, particularly those who do not live in Muslim countries. As I will show, with a particular focus on Islamist literature in the Turkish language, this manifestly negative meaning was never pre-ordained, but rather evolved over time, in parallel with the Middle East conflict. The principal consequence has been that opposition to "Zionism" has become an article of faith and a badge of Islamic identity in a world of uncertainties.
Islamist Discourse on "Zionism"
To begin with, a brief explanation for my focus on Turkish Islamism is in order. By comparison with Islamist literature on Zionism in the Arabic language, the Turkish version is not very well known. Yet the Turkish contribution is significant for several reasons, among them the traditionally strong diplomatic and military relations between Turkey and Israel and the existence, in Europe, of large Turkish Muslim communities [1]. In addition, while political Islam aspires to the creation of a global community, or umma, unfettered by linguistic or national boundaries, for analytical purposes, its national variants should not be ignored.
Opposition to Zionism was not always uniform in the Muslim world. Indeed, some Arab leaders, notably Faysal ibn Hussein, who became King of Iraq in 1921, even sought an accomodation with the Zionist movement. However, in the years following the 1917 Balfour Declaration, through which the British government promised a "national home" to the Jewish community in Palestine, Arab enmity towards Zionism steadily intensified. In Turkey, newly emerged from the ashes of Ottoman Empire, this Arab antagonism was echoed in the books and periodicals of the burgeoning Islamist movement. These sources are one component which enable us to trace the ideological development of anti-Zionism in the Muslim world.
“…(O)pposition to “Zionism” has become an article of faith and – especially among younger Muslims living in Europe – a badge of Islamic identity in a world of uncertainties”
In the twilight years of the Ottoman Empire, conspiracy theories began to circulate about the fall of the Caliphate (in other words, the ending of Islamic rule). These theories were brazenly antisemitic, insisting that the Young Turk movement which brought about the end of Ottoman rule was really a plot composed of Jews, freemasons and Dönmeh [2]. The basic claim was that the Turkish republic was really a "Jewish" republic; for evidence, the conspiracy theorists pointed to the fact that many of the leading figures in the Young Turk movement came from the Greek city of Salonika (Thessaloniki), which was both a center of Spehardic Jewry and the Dönmeh community. These outlandish theories continue to nourish contemporary Turkish Islamism, as demonstrated by numerous articles in newspapers such Yeni Safak, Vakit and Milli Gazete, which is close to the Milli Görüs Islamist movement [3].
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