A significant justification for Israel’s existence relies on the narrative that, because of the alleged inherent and rabid antisemitism of Arabs and Islam, the Jews of the Middle East never had a home. Without Israel, it is said, these Jews would be left on the fringes of Middle Eastern societies, marginalized for an irrational prejudice against their religion and ethnicity by Muslims. 

Historian and author Avi Shlaim details in his book, “Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab Jew,” through personal experience and historical analysis the lies that this narrative is constructed upon.

“There was no history of antisemitism in the Arab world. Antisemitism is a European disease,” Shlaim tells Chris Hedges. “In the 1930s, antisemitism was exported from Europe to Iraq in particular, and it’s striking that there was no antisemitic literature in Arabic. So antisemitic literature had to be translated from European languages into Arabic…” 

The Chris Hedges Report: The Arab Jew Experience Exposes the Myths of Middle Eastern Antisemitism