November 06, 2023 @ Manhattan Contrarian
On and after October 7 the world has been treated to images of Hamas terrorists engaging in the most horrific acts against Israeli civilians, including even elderly people and babies. Surely all civilized people would react to these crimes with revulsion and outrage? To the contrary, the last several weeks have seen massive pro-Hamas demonstrations around the world, including on campuses of elite universities and in major cities like London, Paris, Washington, D.C., and New York.
Rationales that I have seen to justify Hamas’s conduct have included that Israel is supposedly an “apartheid state,” that Israel engages in “genocide,” and that the Israelis are “settler colonialists.” In each case the words used as accusations against Israel are completely detached from their usual meaning, or indeed from any meaning. Certainly, much that Israel has done over the years could be subject to fair criticism. But “apartheid”? “Genocide”? Ridiculous. “Settler colonialism”? I have no idea what that even means.
Here in the U.S. we have a well-established constitutional order of freedom of religion. People practice dozens of different religions, and members of one religion, and also the government, do not prevent or restrict the practice of other religions by other people. That was not an easy order to establish, but we have established it (at least for now), and it enables people who have come from all over the world and from many different religions to live among each other in peace.
The Muslim countries have no such principles. As far as I can determine, the record of Muslim countries with regard to treatment of members of other religions is universally abysmal, in every case far worse than anything Israel can possibly be accused of. Yet somehow in the torrent of criticism of Israel for “apartheid” or “genocide,” this subject never comes up.
So I thought it would be useful to put together a small round-up of treatment of members of minority religions in Muslim countries. I will focus on the countries of North Africa, and on their treatment of their Jewish populations, because that information is particularly relevant to the situation involving Israel today. The North African countries once had substantial and thriving Jewish communities, none of which exist any more. Nor was the abysmal treatment by the Muslims limited to Jews. Similar (if perhaps not quite as bad) treatment has befallen members of other religions like Christians or Baha’is by Muslims both in North Africa and also in places like Pakistan or Iran or Nigeria.
Libya
The website Jewish Virtual Library has a series of pages on the status of “Jews in Islamic Countries.” Here is their page for Libya, updated to 2023. For starters, the number of Jews in Libya is given as 38,000 in 1948. Today the number is 0. How did that come about?
A savage pogrom in Tripoli on November 5, 1945, killed more than 140 Jews and wounded hundreds more. Almost every synagogue was looted. On June 12, 1948, rioters murdered another 12 Jews and destroyed 280 Jewish homes. Thousands of Jews fled the country after Libya was granted independence and membership in the Arab League in 1951. . . . When Muammar Gaddafi came to power in 1969, all Jewish property was confiscated, and all debts to Jews were canceled.
It goes on from there. In short, the Jews were forced out down to the last person by absolutely despicable treatment.
The U.S. State Department has a country-by-country report on religious freedom. Here is their page for Libya, updated to 2021. A few excerpts:
[T]he circulation of non-Islamic religious materials, missionary activity, or speech considered “offensive to Muslims” is banned. The criminal code effectively prohibits conversion from Islam, according to scholars and human rights advocates. . . . Human rights activists said freedom of conscience for converts to Christianity, atheists, and Muslims who deviated from Salafist interpretations of Islam was not respected.
Algeria
Population numbers from Jewish Virtual Library: 1948 - 140,000; 2020 - fewer than 200. Excerpt:
In 1955, there were 140,000 Jews in Algeria. After being granted independence in 1962, the Algerian government harassed the Jewish community and deprived Jews of their economic rights. As a result, almost 130,000 Algerian Jews immigrated to France. Since 1948, 25,681 Algerian Jews have immigrated to Israel.
And here are a few tidbits from the State Department’s religious freedom page on Algeria, updated to 2022. Ill treatment of minority religions extends not only to Jews and Christians, but also even to branches of Islam other than the dominant Sunni branch:
Christian leaders and congregants stated that non-Muslims faced social pressure for practicing a non-Muslim faith. Some individuals who engaged in religious practice other than Sunni Islam reported they had experienced threats and intolerance. Some local media outlets occasionally criticized Ahmadi Islam and Shia Islam as “sects” or “deviations” from Islam or as “foreign” and demonstrated a bias against these groups. . . .
The law does not prohibit religious conversion, including from Islam, but proselytizing to Muslims by non-Muslims is a criminal offense. . . . The law criminalizes blasphemy. The penal code provides punishment of three to five years in prison and/or a fine of 50,000 to 100,000 dinars ($366-$733) for offending the Prophet Muhammad or other messengers of God or disparaging the dogma or precepts of Islam.
Egypt
It’s the same story of complete eviction during the 1950s and 60s of a once-thriving Jewish community. From the Jewish Virtual Library Egypt page, updated to 2020: number of Jews in 1948 - 75,000; 2020 - fewer than 10. Excerpt as to how that came about:
In 1956, the Egyptian government used the Sinai Campaign as a pretext for expelling almost 25,000 Egyptian Jews and confiscating their property. Approximately 1,000 more Jews were sent to prisons and detention camps. On November 23, 1956, a proclamation signed by the Minister of Religious Affairs, and read aloud in mosques throughout Egypt, declared that “all Jews are Zionists and enemies of the state,” and promised that they would be soon expelled. Thousands of Jews were ordered to leave the country.
They were allowed to take only one suitcase and a small sum of cash and forced to sign declarations “donating” their property to the Egyptian government. Foreign observers reported that members of Jewish families were taken hostage, apparently to insure that those forced to leave did not speak out against the Egyptian government.
In more recent years Egypt has reached an accommodation with Israel, and the two countries have even exchanged ambassadors. However, the Jewish community has been completely eliminated, so there are no Jews left to persecute. As to treatment of other minority religions in Egypt, the State Department Egypt religious freedom page paints a relatively bright picture of at least the formal legal framework. But that may well not reflect conditions on the ground. Here is a summary from something called For the Martyrs (a site that collects information on persecution of Christians around the world). Excerpt:
[T]he Egyptian constitution . . . establishes Islam as the official state religion. . . . Christians are barred from holding jobs and prominent positions in Egyptian academia, which often require their faculty to study the Quran or adhere to tenants of Islam. . . .
Within society, apostasy from Islam is not tolerated. . . . Human rights activist and Coptic Christian, Ramy Kamel has been in prison since 2019. Kamel has defended the rights of Coptic Christians in Egypt by documenting attacks on Christian churches by Islamic extremists. . . .
Syria
For one example from outside North Africa, consider Israel’s neighbor to the northeast, Syria. They also have a page at Jewish Virtual Library, updated to 2022. Here are the numbers: Jewish population in 1948 - 40,000; in 2022 - 4. In some respects the history of how that came about in Syria is even worse than the story of the North African countries, because Syria actually prohibited the Jews from leaving even as it treated them abominably:
In 1944, after Syria gained independence from France, the new government prohibited Jewish immigration to Palestine, and severely restricted the teaching of Hebrew in Jewish schools. Attacks against Jews escalated, and boycotts were called against their businesses. When partition was declared in 1947, Arab mobs in Aleppo devastated the 2,500-year-old Jewish community. Scores of Jews were killed and more than 200 homes, shops, and synagogues were destroyed. Thousands of Jews illegally fled Syria to go to Israel. Shortly after, the Syrian government intensified its persecution of the Jewish population. Freedom of movement was severely restricted. Jews who attempted to flee faced either the death penalty or imprisonment at hard labor. Jews were not allowed to work for the government or banks, could not acquire telephones or driver's licenses, and were barred from buying property. Jewish bank accounts were frozen. An airport road was paved over the Jewish cemetery in Damascus; Jewish schools were closed and handed over to Muslims.
Conclusion
So can anyone give a single example of a Muslim country treating members of minority religious communities in a manner that we would consider appropriate?
I can’t come up with one. Perhaps the most honorable example is Morocco. An ex-partner of mine — a Jew born in Morocco whose family left for France in the 1970s — has only good things to say about current King Mohammed VI and his predecessors, who have been very supportive and protective of the Jewish community. However, even support from the top does not prevent Jews and other religious minorities from being treated like second class citizens, in areas like ownership of property, ability to conduct business (enforcement of contracts), and right to intermarry. The Jewish community in Morocco has shrunk from about 265,000 in 1948 to only about 2,100 in 2019.
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