Fanatiques antijuifs sur la voie du jihad. Dans le sillage de Haj Amin al Husseini et de Johann von Leers

Abstract

The Jihadist dimension of the dominant form of contemporary Judeophobia, which is focused on anti-Zionism, is the product of a complex political and religious legacy. Since the end of the 1960s, Judeophobia has been undergoing a progressive Islamization. This has taken place through the ever-expanding place occupied by the “Palestinian cause” in the new translational, anti-Jewish school of thought, which is now shared by both Muslims and non-Muslims who call themselves “anti-Zionists.” The Jihadist commitment to the “Palestinian cause” was not a consequence of the creation of the State of Israel. Nor is it a reaction to “Israeli policy,” which is thought to be “colonialist,” “imperialist,” and “racist.” Intense propaganda began at the beginning of the 1920s, led by ideologues who blended pan-Arabism and pan-Islamism.The Jihadisation of Palestinian nationalism came about concurrent to the development of Palestinian nationalism as a political and religious movement in the 1920s and 1930s. This nationalism was developed by one of the main ideologues of Arab national Islamism : the Grand Mufti (al-Mufti al-Akbar) of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al Husseini (1895-1974). There is proof of his close ties to Nazi Germany dating back to March 31, 1933, on the eve of the Nazi boycott operation launched against the German Jews. The Nazification of Palestinian national Islamism continued up through the active collaboration between the Grand Mufti and the Third Reich starting at the end of 1941. The Muslim Brotherhood, under the direction of Hassan al-Banna (1906-1949), played an important role in the construction of an Islamist anti-Zionism. This anti-Zionism had global aspirations that could not be reduced to Arab nationalism. Another contributor to the movement was the Nazi anti-Jewish fanatic Johann von Leers (1902-1965), who converted to Islam in 1956 in Nasser’s Egypt where he participated in the regime’s “anti-Zionist” propaganda. Johann von Leers, a.k.a. Omar Amin, and Haj Amin al Husseini can be seen as representing the Islamization of Nazism and the Nazification of Islam, two simultaneous processes at the root of radical anti-Zionism.In the 1950s, the Egyptian Islamist ideologue Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966), a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, took the reins by clearly designating the enemy. He used the term “the Jews” without dressing it up in anti-Zionist or anti-imperialist wording. With the Jews denounced as the oldest and most formidable of Islam’s enemies, the link between traditional Muslim anti-Judaism and contemporary radical anti-Zionism was established. Hamas explicitly took on this political, religious legacy, which continues to feed Palestinian nationalism, a nationalism whose future remains Jihadist.