Rawan Osman, a Syrian-born German political activist and a self-described Arab Zionist, spoke with Arutz Sheva-Israel National News at the European Jewish Association (EJA) conference in Poland about antisemitism in the Arab world.
Osman says that “antisemitism has always been rampant in the Arab world. However, even I, who lived in four different Arab countries, had never imagined how bad the situation was until October 7th. In fact, October 7 unmasked a much bigger problem not only in the Arab world but globally. We do have data for antisemitism around the world except in Arab countries because they do not acknowledge, recognize, or admit that antisemitism is an issue. And when Arabs deny that antisemitism is a problem, we ask them, ‘Where are your Jews today?’”
She continued: “More than 800,000 Jews have left the Arab world since Israel became a country. What needs to be done first and foremost is to invite them to recognize, admit that it is an issue for them to understand that antisemitism has caused, above all, problems in the Arab world. And if they want to address their issues and problems, they need to reconcile with the existence of a Jewish state in the so-called Middle East.”
Osman stated that “October 7th helped us recognize how bad antisemitism in the Arab world is, but it definitely also contributed to a sharp rise in Jew hatred and anti-Zionist sentiments across the Arab world. Even those who considered accepting Israel in the region passionately rejected it after seeing the horrific video footage emerging from Gaza. What needs to be done is for political leaders to explain that Israel did not start the war. We need to get rid of Hamas. We need to expose them as liars, and we need to speak about the elephant in the room.”
“The Palestinian culture glorifies violence and martyrdom. And we will not get rid of recurring wars in our region unless we stop infantilizing the Palestinians and we hold them accountable for their actions, especially for incitement against the Jews, the Zionists, and the Israelis.”
Of course, after the historic signing of the Abraham Accords, we knew that the so-called axis of resistance led by the Islamic Republic of Iran would try its best to disrupt the Abraham Accords. And they managed and they succeeded in obliterating many bridges that we carefully built between the Arab world and Israel. That said, we do trust the wisdom of the political leaders who joined the Abraham Accords and that they will not allow an organization such as Hamas to destroy work that took more than a decade to lay the groundwork and to build the cornerstones of peace upon. I am optimistic, and I still believe that even Saudi Arabia will join the Abraham Accords. They delayed the process, but they did not manage to destroy it,” she concluded.
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