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A Jewish family in Karachi, circa: unknown (Image courtesy: Dawn.com) Table of ContentIntroduction I. Brief Historical Background: The Jews and Pakistan II. Main Characteristics of Antisemitism in Pakistan a) Antisemitism in Pakistan is Interconnected with Pakistan's Other Perceived Enemies: The "Three Satans" – India, the U.S. and Israel (i.e. Hindus, Christians and Jews) b) Antisemitism is Used Instrumentally by the Pakistani Military c) Antisemitism is Used to Designate Threats to Pakistan, Such As the Taliban III. Range of Motifs in Antisemitic Attacks a) Sports – Jews and Indians Lobby against Pakistani Cricketers b) Polio Vaccination Campaign – A Dangerous Jewish Conspiracy c) Pakistan-India Water Dispute – Israel's Hand d) The U.N. – A Jewish Conspiracy e) Pakistani Interests Abroad Harmed by Jews/Israel f) Valentine's Day and April's Fool Day – Used by Jews and Hindus against Muslims g) Ahmadi Muslims – Agents of Israel/India h) Video of Taliban Flogging Woman – Made by Jews to Smear Pakistan i) Facebook – A Jewish/Israeli Conspiracy j) Pakistan's Nuclear Weapons – Targeted by Jews/Israel k) Faisal Shehzad's Times Square Attack – A CIA/Mossad Plot to Implicate Pakistan IV. The Jews and the West Undermine the Identity of Pakistan Conclusion IntroductionThis paper examines: a) the history of Jews in Pakistan; b) violence against Jews and their synagogues following the creation of the Islamic nation of Pakistan in 1947; c) contemporary protests by Pakistani Muslims against Jews and Israel; and d) Pakistani political and religious leaders' penchant for blaming most problems facing Pakistan on a U.S.-India-Israel axis. Looking at Pakistani media reports over the past few years, this paper outlines how Pakistani opinion makers – barring a small segment of liberal intelligentsia – are deepening the anti-Jewish mindset that is typical across the Islamic world. For the purposes of this analysis, this paper does not include statements, protests, editorials, cartoons or viewpoints of Pakistani leaders and the government that are deemed to be justified criticism of Israel over its policies regarding the Palestinian problem and the occupied territories. This paper does discuss the narrative of antisemitism in Pakistani society, examining how Israel is seen by Islamic scholars and political leaders in Pakistan as representing the Jews rather than the state and government of Israel in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In the context of this paper, a definition of antisemitism means political/religious/cultural attacks on Jews and Israel that are not related to the Palestinian problem but over supposed Jewish-Israeli involvement in international conspiracies. I. Brief Historical Background: The Jews and PakistanThere is a long-held view that the Pashtun tribes, who inhabit the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region, are one of the 10 lost tribes of Israel. Navraas Aafreedi, a Pashtun academic at Lucknow University in northern India, told a newspaper in January 2010: "Pathans, or Pashtuns, are the only people in the world whose probable descent from the lost tribes of Israel finds mention in a number of texts from the 10th century to the present day, written by Jewish, Christian and Muslim scholars alike, both religious as well as secularists." However, attempts by anthropologists to establish a definitive Jewish link to the Pashtun tribes have been unsuccessful. Nevertheless, historical records indicate that Jews, with no connection to the Pashtuns, have lived in Pakistan and the wider South Asian region over the past several centuries. A 2007 report in the Pakistani daily Dawn noted: "The earliest graves... [of Jews in Karachi] are from 1812 and 1814, with a vast majority from the 1950s." The report also cited Aitken's Gazetteer of the Province of Sind, a British-era government document which was published from Karachi in 1907, as recording that "there were only 428 Jews enumerated in the census of 1901, and these were really all in Karachi. Many belonged to the Bene Israel community who observed Sephardic Jewish rites and are believed to have settled in India [which included Pakistan] shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus [the Roman Emperor in 69 AD]." The Dawn report added: "Other research documents record about 2,500 Jews in Karachi, with about 100 in Peshawar at the beginning of the 20th century. At the time of [Pakistan's] independence [in 1947], many Jews migrated to India, but about 2,000 stayed in Pakistan. Their first real exodus occurred soon after the creation of Israel, which triggered many incidents of violence against Jews, and the Karachi synagogue became a site of anti-Israel demonstrations." In the late 19th century, one of Karachi's notables was Soloman David, who died in March 1902. He was a surveyor of the Karachi municipality and built the Magain Shalom synagogue in Karachi. His gravestone reads: "The widely known and highly respected Soloman David always sought the welfare of the Jewish community and through his liberality erected at his own expense a handsome synagogue, Magain Shalome [sic]." Another report estimated the Jewish population of Karachi at 2,500 prior to August 14-15, 1947 when Pakistan was created. After Pakistan's creation as an Islamic nation, relations between the Jews and their Muslims neighbors began to deteriorate. This strain in Jewish-Muslim relations also resulted from Muslim protests in Pakistan against the newly created State of Israel. Some Pakistani Jews migrated to India and the U.K., and others to Israel. In early 2010, a Pakistani daily carried this first-person observation of anti-Jewish violence in the newly created Islamic nation of Pakistan: "The synagogue in Karachi was set on fire, and several Jews were attacked. The frequency of attacks increased after each of the Arab-Israeli wars, i.e. 1948, 1956 and 1967." In 2008, a Karachi resident reminisced about the Jews of Karachi in a conversation with Pakistani journalist Syed Intikhab Ali: "[The Jews] were peaceful people having limited relations with local people and used to keep a distance from political activities. When [the] Arab-Israel war broke out in late sixties, they were isolated and started migrating silently and only a few Jewish people [were] left in the city." From various accounts, it appears that some Jews might be living in Pakistan even now, possibly by hiding their religious identity lest it may not be possible for them to move to Israel due to absence of diplomatic ties between the two countries. Although there is no notable Jewish presence in Pakistan now, the anti-Jewish and anti-Israel protests in Pakistan have taken on an ideological nature, with religious and political leaders blaming Jews/Israel, Christians/the West/U.S., and Hindus/India as the cause of almost all of their problems. By 2010, it could be said that not a week passed in Pakistan without a religious leader, a columnist, or a politician issuing a statement against Israel and the Jewish people, blaming them as well as the United States and India for one or another of the problems facing Pakistan. Although not all criticism of Israel can be described as antisemitic, it does not appear that the Pakistani leaders in their own minds see subtle differences between their hateful ideological sloganeering against the Jews and possibly justified criticism of Israel's policies. II. Main Characteristics of Antisemitism in PakistanThe new generations of Pakistani youth are being taught by the influential Urdu-language press that all major problems facing the society and state of Pakistan are created by Israel, the U.S., and India – or Jews, Christians, and Hindus respectively. Such thinking originates from deep-rooted antisemitism that has become part of the collective conviction in the Islamic world in contemporary times and has become solidly rooted in the Pakistani public consciousness, with Jews and Israel blamed for almost every problem even when they are not remotely connected to an issue. With India strengthening its ties to Israel since the mid-1990s, and the United States enhancing its relations with India rapidly in recent years, Pakistani religious leaders view these developments in international relations of the early 21st century as a tripartite "alliance" that threatens the Pakistani state and its Islamic identity. Such an ideological pattern informs the conspiracy-theory narrative that runs through the collective Pakistani psyche and public debate in Pakistan. a) Antisemitism in Pakistan is Interconnected with Pakistan's Other Perceived Enemies: The "Three Satans" – India, the U.S. and Israel (i.e. Hindus, Christians and Jews) India, the United States, and Israel are seen in Pakistani public consciousness as three Satans acting against the Islamic nuclear state of Pakistan. This view is illustrated in various statements of Pakistani opinion makers. A sample of such statements is given below as representative of a sustained ideological campaign against the three countries. In 2009, Liaqat Baloch, secretary-general of Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan, the country's largest religious-political party and a mobilizer of mass public opinion, accused India, Israel and the U.S. of pursuing "a single agenda" against Pakistan, stating: "The U.S., Israel and India are pursuing a single agenda [of weakening Pakistan]. The U.S. aims to weaken Pakistan on the economic and military fronts, while India wants to weaken Pakistan internally." Syed Munawwar Hassan, emir of Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan, has criticized the Pakistani Army operations against the Taliban, arguing that Pakistan faces threats not from the militants but from the "three enemies, in the form of the U.S., Israel and India, which are the center of evils." To read the full report, visithttp://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/51/50 | |||||||
Sunday, 13 March 2011
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