Rome-The World War II Nazis spread their anti-Semitic hatred of the Jewish race to Arab states, a legacy that al-Qaeda (photo) has fed off, the German historian Matthew Kuntzel, argues in his book 'Jihad and Jew-hatred'.The book seeks to trace the origins of anti-Semitism present in the Arab world and evaluate the role it has played in the contemporary jihadist 'world view'. He argues that the Nazis 'exported' their hatred of Jews via the media and writers, with the back-up of German politicians. Anti-Semitism took root within nascent Arab nationalist movements - Islamists from the Muslim Brotherhood and in Shia Iran, Kunztzel claims, quoted by Italian daily Il Sole 24 Ore. The anti-Semitism of Islamism then fused with that of the nationalists - a mix embodied by the mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini. He was head of the Palestinian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood,and of the Palestinian Arab nationalist movement.Husseini orchestrated the 1936-1939 Palestinian revolt against the British, with the political and financial support of Nazi Germany and of Italian wartime dictator Benito Mussolini. He spent 1941-1945 in Berlin, from where he launched anti-British jihadist messages to the Arab world.Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's attacks against western countries, first announced in 1998, have continually found inspiration from anti-Semitism, Kuntzel argues.Bin Laden equates the West/America with "the Jews" and takes it as axiomatic that "the Jews are out to dominate the world," Kuntzel claims.Kuntzel quotes bin Laden's 'Letter to the American People' of October, 2002, in which he states: "You are the worst civilisation that has ever existed, because the Jews have seized control of your economy, and through it your media, and now they control every aspect of your life and your policies."Bin Laden's ideological mentors are the Egyptian Sayyid Qutb, believed to be the ideologue of the modern-day concept of global Jihad, and Abdullah Azzam.Azzam is a Palestinian born in Jenin, who studied at Cairo's al-Azhar University and was the spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood at the University of Damascus, Syria, from 1971-1973. Together with bin-Laden, Azzam founded in the early 1980s the first office for the mujahadeen in Peshawar, in Pakistan's restive North West Frontier Province, which borders Afghanistan. This office recruited volunteers to join mujahadeen fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. It became 'al-Qaeda', which means 'the base' in Arabic. Bin Laden and Azzam were subsequently joined by Bin Laden's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, a veteran from the Muslim Brotherhood.The existence of a global Jewish conspiracy was one of the fundamental principles of Nazism transmitted to the Arab world, along with anti-liberalism and hatred of democracy, Kuntzel argues.He claims it was the spread through the Arab world of the notion of an international Jewish conspiracy that explains the Muslim Brotherhood's call during the 1930s for a global Jihad against the tiny Jewish community in Palestine [as the Palestinian territories were called at the time].It also explains why membership of the Muslim Brotherhood leapt from 800 in 1936 to 200,000 in 1938, Kuntzel contends. By this time, the Muslim world had to view the Jews as a radical threat, Kuntzel argues."We were the first to think of translating [Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's National Socialist tract ] 'Mein Kampf', one of the Syrian Baathist leaders Sami al-Jundi, is quoted as saying.The Jews had fought a war against Muslims for 14 centuries that continued to the present day, "helped by Christians and idolatry", according to Qutb."As a result, Allah [...] made Hitler overcome them [the Jews]," Qutb is cited as saying.
http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=1.0.2063262809As in the days of Noah...