Political scientist and author Matthias K??ntzel gave a lecture on Tuesday in the Center for Tomorrow, discussing his beliefs that the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were caused, at least in part, by the strong anti-Semitism in the Middle East.
The lecture, "Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism, and the Roots of 9/11," was presented by the Scholars for Peace in the Middle East organization. The author's book, "Jihadist Terrorism and anti-Semitism: The Mission against Modernity," won the London Book Festival Prize.
Ongoing warfare in the Middle East coupled with anti-Semitism, which K??ntzel defined as the policies, views, or actions that harm or discriminate against Jews, were the main roots for the attack on 9/11, the author stated.
"It is not about Islam as a faith but about certain groups who misuse Islam for malicious purposes," K??ntzel said.
According to an article by K??ntzel published in The Weekly Standard in 2007, the idea of using suicide pilots to obliterate the skyscrapers of Manhattan originated in Berlin in the 1940s due to the fact that Hitler considered the US a Jewish state.
The outcome of this mindset bled into present time where genocidal thoughts were turned into genocidal actions on 9/11.
"It is very difficult to get along with an enemy who wants to sacrifice their own civilian population," K??ntzel said.
K??ntzel stressed that the birth of radical Islam between the years 1928 and 1937, as well as the strong Nazi influence that followed, played a significant role in anti-Semitism.
The strongly conservative religious views of the group caused a rebellion in Palestine in which modernity was resisted and Jews were to blame. The new Jewish immigrants' aspects of life, such as equality for women, were seen as threatening. Nazi Germany financially supported the Islamic movement.
"Early Islamic Jew hatred had become radicalized," K??ntzel said. "Early on everything Jewish was considered evil but now everything evil was considered Jewish."
An excerpt from a sermon aired on Palestinian television in May 2005, along with many more examples of hatred for Jews available on the Internet, depict the impact of anti-Semitism.
The sermon claimed that Jews are a virus resembling AIDS, that they are behind the suffering of the nations, and that they provoked Nazism, according to K??ntzel.
The Islamic Jew hatred and anti-Semitic propaganda was even being passed on to children. Suicide bombings started as early as the 1980s. Children were given little plastic keys to "paradise" and then sent to run across bomb mines.
"Killing children extinguished basic human instincts," K??ntzel said. "To use human beings as bombs proved that the hatred of Jews was stronger than the fear of death."
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
