On November 6, 2014, "the Aladdin Project, an international nongovernmental organization based in Paris, was honored with the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) prestigious ADL Daniel Pearl Award for its groundbreaking work in promoting greater mutual understanding among peoples of different cultures and religions and for fostering a greater understanding between Jews and Muslims. Anne-Marie Revcolevschi, President of The Aladdin Project, accepted the award on behalf of the organization at the League’s Annual Meeting in Los Angeles, California. Also attending the award ceremony was Abe Radkin, the Project's executive director".
If there is a persistent myth about Muslim rule, it is the “golden age”
myth of a “peaceful coexistence” between Jews, Christians and Muslims in
Muslim-ruled “lands of Islam”, in particular in “al-Andalus”
(Medieval Muslim-rule Spain). On March 27, 2009, in
Paris, the Aladdin
Project
launch conference unanimously celebrated that myth.
The French Jewish Foundation for the
Memory of the Holocaust (FMS) has initiated the Project both to fight
against revisionism and Holocaust denial in the Muslim world as well as to
foster improved Jewish-Muslim relations.
The project includes in particular two
web sites in five languages: Turkish, Persian, Arabic, English and French. Projetaladin.org
provides “objective information on the history of the Holocaust, an
introduction to Jewish culture, history and religion and the history of Muslims
and Jews throughout the ages across the Middle East, North Africa and Medieval Spain”.
Aladdin Online Library “features
pdf-formatted books on the Holocaust -- such as The Diary of Anne Frank
and If This is a Man
(Primo Levi) -- that can be downloaded free of charge in Turkish, Persian and
Arabic.
That myth is an essential part of “Islamically correct” discourses. It produdes
perverse effects that will be presented later on in this article.
Professor Bernard
Lewis writes that the myth was forged by European pro-Islamic Jews:
“The
golden age of equal rights [under Muslim rule] was a myth, and belief in it was
a result, more than a cause, of Jewish sympathy for Islam. The myth was
invented by Jews in nineteenth-century Europe
as a reproach to Christians – and taken up by Muslims in our own time as a
reproach to Jews”.
Historian
Bat Ye’or explains that myth, “which endorses the Islamic version of history”,
by geopolitical factors,
such as the XIXth century European “political equilibrium”. The myth
justified “the defence of the territorial integrity of the Ottoman
Empire”, i.e. conquering peoples under its rule. In the
Interwar years, the “Ottoman tolerance” myth changed into the “peaceful
coexistence under the first caliphs” myth.
That myth is an anesthetizing narrative: it blurs the topics at stake in
the jihad against the West or in Eurabia. It both conceals a tragic threatening reality -
jihad and its corollary institution dhimmitude which is the cruel
inferior status of non-Muslim minorities under Islamic rule
- and “delinks Islam and Islamism”.
Instead, it imposes an “Islamically correct” vision of an idealized “peaceful”
Islam
symbolized by brilliant al-Andalus civilization, an example of
“peaceful coexistence between Judaism, Christianity and Islam” under Muslim
rule. It also contains the Western “debt” myth to “Arabic/Islamic sciences”. It
thus downgrades the Christian civilization which put an end to that idealized
era by defeating the Moors and retaking the Iberian Peninsula (Reconquista)
as well as failed to create an al-Andalus’ equivalent.
The myth
thus induces a West’s moral inferiority complex towards the Muslim-Arab world,
meanwhile demonizing the West – “obscurantist” (Inquisition), “conqueror”
(Crusades, empires), “racist” - victimizes Muslims and reinforces the
vilification of Israel. That myth can
only induce a West’s guilty feeling, anti-Western and Israel-bashing discourses.
The fact that Jews recreated the State of Israel contradicts the mythical
“happy Jewish dhimmis”. Lauding how the Muslims’ behaviour towards non-Muslims
was admirable and beyond reproach vilifies a contrario demonized Israel: the
State of Israel’s re-creation is suggested as having broken an era of idealized
“peaceful coexistence between Jews and Muslims”. The Israeli policy is
distorted through a biased mythical prism: it is compared to a myth presented
as an historical fact and Israel
is required for a myth-compliant
policy which de facto would restore the “good old days” of dhimmitude,
and consequently the destruction of the Jewish state. That myth was also
renewed in the idea of a “secular multicultural Palestine”
replacing Israel.
“That myth
of peaceful coexistence strengthens Islamic doctrine. It confirms the
perfection of the shari’a… The slightest criticism of the dhimmi
status is rejected, as it undermines the doctrine of the perfection of Islamic
law and government…. Consequently, the praise of the tolerance and justice of
Islamic government, accompanied by gratitude, constituted an integral part of
the obligations required of the dhimmi”.
Jewish and
Christian dhimmitude networks have conveyed that perverse myth which aims at
influencing public opinions and therefore government policies, especially in
the Euro-Arab dialogue.
And some French textbooks still present that myth as an historical fact.
The myth-endorsing Aladdin Project launch
conference
A recent
example of the vitality of that myth was offered by the launch conference of
the Aladdin Project at UNESCO (United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural
Organization) Headquarters on March 27,
2009.
About 800 diplomats, including Israeli ambassadors, ministers, presidents
of Jewish associations, rabbis, bishop, imams, Medias, especially from the
Muslim world, and artists attended that prestigious conference.
In
compliance with the myth, Jewish,
Christian and Muslim orators concealed Islamic Anti-Semitism, dhimmitude and the
Jewish “Forgotten Exodus”
from the Muslim world. They whitewashed
the Islamic world from any participation in the Holocaust or any link with
Nazis, and praised Muslim
Righteous among the Nations as well as King Muhammed V of Morocco and the
Bey of Tunisia who had protected “their” Jews. So, Muslims officials easily
condemned Holocaust denial and expressed their sympathy for the Jewish victims.
“There
have never been historical contentions among Muslims and Jews. On the contrary, from the Charter of Medina
in 622 to Arab-ruled medieval Spain
and the Ottoman Empire, history teaches us that
in different periods Jews and Muslims have been able to live together in peace
and respect each other. Jews were often protected by Muslim monarchs”.
It was quite bizarre to hear that ode before Muslim Judenrein countries’
officials.
Orators committed shocking confusions, West-bashing and Israel-bashing
stances, which are parts of the myth.
For instance, controversial and anti-Israeli Egyptian Minister of Culture
Farouk Hosny
said on President Hosni
Mubarak's behalf that the Holocaust was a “transgression
against Islam and Muslims (. . . ) because their Semitic brothers
were killed in such a great number”.
By qualifying Jews and Muslims as “Semites”, that speech
denies both what “anti-Semitism” means - Jew-hating - and the existence of a
Jewish people. In 2001, Farouk Hosni had invited convicted French
Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy to speak in Cairo. On May 21, 2009, philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, director Claude Lanzmann et Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel expressed outrage at Hosny’s
candidacy
for UNESCO Director General. On
September 9, 2009, Serge
Klarsfeld, the famous Nazi hunter, backed Hosni “because of his public
position on the Holocaust”.
He also said that Hosny had expressed repentance for his speech about burning
Israeli books and that he took recent measures in favour of the Jewish culture
in Egypt, such as restoring synagogues and communication of the Egyptian Jewish
community’s archives. Paris vaut bien
une messe (“Paris is well worth a mass”), as King Henry IV is said to have declared…
Another example. Controversial Grand Mufti of Bosnia Mustafa Cerić reading a speech on
behalf of the President of
Bosnia, and André Azoulay, member of the Aladdin
Project Experts Committee and advisor of the King of Morocco, exhorted to fight
both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Islamophobia is a term used against the
West in order to prevent any critical discussion of Islam.
The West was stigmatized too through slavery and imperialism. President
Wade vilified [Transatlantic] “slavery which lasted for five centuries”;
that historical period of time corresponds to the European trade slaveries and
avoids evoking the lasting Transafrican and transoceanic trade slaveries led by Muslims. That discourse has victimized Africans in
a claiming position demanding repentance towards Europe.
Muslim orators denounced French or British empires, but presented the “Arab
empire” as a quite natural fact. The reason is that the European empires were
not led by Muslims and did not intend the expansion of Islam.
President
Wade also
advocated cultural
relativism which actually seeks to destroy universal
human rights considered
as Western concepts:
“Beyond worldwide admitted norms,
nothing is more relative than a value of culture and civilization. The truth of
an era is not necessarily the one of another. What is the norm of a society may
be a counter value in another one. The dialogue of cultures and civilizations
can only blossom and prosper in the nuance and the relativism”.
Concerning the Near-East, Mauritania’s Former President Ely Ould Mohamed
Vall evoked his “Palestinian
brothers”’ sufferings.
And, while ignoring the Palestinian Autority’s
revisionism
and President Mahmoud Abbas’ Holocaust denial writings Jacques Chirac,
Former President of France
declared:
“I told the Israelis that settlement building was a mistake. You don’t
make peace with your neighbour by expropriating his land, uprooting his trees,
and cordoning off his roads”.
Jacques Chirac’s reference to Israel
revealed how the audience was divided: pro-Israeli stances were cheered by
Jews, and Israel-bashing was applauded by Muslims.
A myth-endorsed “Call to Conscience”
A “Call
to Conscience” to fight Holocaust denial was then signed by Jacques Chirac,
Simone Veil, Honorary President of the FMS and former deportee, and President
Wade. Hundreds of intellectuals signed it.
That “Call” endorses too that myth by alleging that “Muslims and Jews (…) for
centuries - in Persia, throughout the Middle East, in North Africa and across
the Ottoman Empire – (…) lived together often in harmony”. So, the rule is “harmony”.
That “Call” also refers to “values of justice and fraternity”, and
not to liberty and equality, because Muslims must not consider dhimmis as
equals. It evokes “intolerance and racism”, but not “anti-Semitism” or
“anti-Judaism”.
In accordance with the myth, it asserted that the authors of the
Holocaust were “Nazi Germany
and its European accomplices”. It recalls “the actions of the Righteous in Europe
and in the Arab and Muslim world”.
Moreover, it supports the “two-state solution” to the conflict between “Israelis
and Palestinians”, as if the Muslim world had accepted Israel's legitimacy as a Jewish state
. Thus, that Call politicizes the Holocaust
without reason, and ignores other solutions.
Muslim
orators opposed that myth to Jews for all the above reasons and in order to
prevent any claim related to the Jewish Exodus.
Is that myth the basis
for Islamic acceptance of fighting
Holocaust denial? Will the Islamic
world book fairs accept books dealing with taboo topics, such as the alliance
of Nazis and Muslim leaders, the Muslim Bosnian SS division’s participation in
the Holocaust or Arab leaders’ Nazi councillors? Will the OIC condemn the pro-Nazi past of some of
its Member States? Will it make act of repentance for
Arafat’s “hero”, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini, striving
to persuade the Nazis to kill Jews living in the Middle
East? The Holocaust remains a sensitive topic, and some Muslim
leaders, such as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, instrumentalize and
trivialize it.
Why did
Jews endorse that myth which denies their history -- some Jewish leaders privately expressed critics about Farouk Hosni --?
Extreme politeness? For the sake of the “Muslim sensitiveness”? However, Jews
are sensitive too…
That myth has also been endorsed by Public authorities for the sake of
social peace or public order. If Jewish organizations contradict that myth,
they may be blamed for a possible interreligious clash and its consequences in
terms of anti-Semitic incidents.
The FMS did not challenge the myth because of its dynamic progressive
strategy. It aims to fight against the Holocaust denial, which fuels
anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, through gaining Muslim leaders’ support in
order to present its books in the Islamic world Book Fairs and to introduce
history of the Holocaust in the Muslim world’s school textbooks.
By ignoring the Sephardic history, the FMS fuelled a “concurrence des
mémoires” (rivalry of memories) between Sephardim, a generic word used to refer to Jews from
Spain, Portugal, North Africa and Middle East descent, and Ashkenazim, a generic term used to refer to Jews from Central and Eastern Europe
descent. It seems
quite contradictory for Jewish organizations both to endorse that myth and to advocate in favour
of exiled Jews from Arab countries, Turkey
and Iran,
before Muslim leaders.
That myth has been repeated for decades with no positive effect upon the
situation of European Jews and Israelis. It has not allowed improving the
Jewish-Muslim dialogue. It marginalizes moderate
Muslims, because it denies the need for a critical discussion or a reform of
Islam. It has also failed in upgrading the relations between the Jewish state
and the Muslim world.
The Aladdin Project may reinforce relations between Jews and Muslims, but
on an artificial consensus and at the expense of the Bible-based links between
Jews and Christians, because that myth bans the writing of history of dhimmis,
including Eastern
Christianity. Whereas some Christian Churches
adhere to the anti-Zionist Palestinian Liberation Theology (PLT).
The Aladdin Project is an opportunity to debunk the myth, to bring up
taboo issues in the Muslim world in order to lead it to face a dark side of its
past.
It hardly can avoid the necessary critical discussion of Islam in order to
lead to a victorious fight against Holocaust denial in that world, sincere
interfaith relations, the acceptance of the State of Israel by the Islamic
world.
Otherwise, it will be a missed opportunity.
Articles
sur ce blog concernant :
That article was published on August 20, 2012. On July 27, 2012, Ziad Al-Bandak, an advisor to Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) on Christian affairs, visited the Auschwitz concentration camp (Poland). Al-Bandak's visit sparked angry responses from Hamas.
Nés respectivement en 1976 et 1986, Andrea et Magda ont constitué « un duo-photographes » de France et d’Italie ». 
N’attendez d’Andrea et Magda aucune allusion au terrorisme palestinien, à la lutte féroce entre le Fatah et le Hamas dans les territoires disputés dénommés « sous occupation militaire israélienne ».
Curieux mais pas téméraires, Andrea et Magda ne montrent pas les palaces, les centres commerciaux, les villas des dirigeants palestiniens, etc. Mais ils s’intéressent à l’émergence d’une classe moyenne qui adopte un mode de vie consumériste, hédoniste, et une société de consommation, de services et de loisirs (clubs équestres). Bref, les retombées de la manne financière internationale quand elle n’est pas détournée.
