ByDALIA ZIADA
Updated: 

Growing up in Cairo, Egypt, nearly every middle-class home had two main books on its shelves: the Quran (or the Bible for Christians) and the Arabic edition of Hitler’s Mein Kampf (My Struggle).

As shocking as that may seem, this did not necessarily mean these families were radicals or illiterate. Ironically, most were well-educated professionals, including government officials, as well as knowledgeable secular journalists, writers, and intellectuals.

However, their distorted mindset was the product of a generational brainwashing that stretches back to the mid-20th century, indoctrinating the belief that Israel and the Jewish people at large are responsible for their domestic political and economic troubles.

Oblivious narrative

Such an oblivious narrative was exploited by socialist dictators, who needed a scapegoat for their failure to effectively run their country’s affairs beyond empty Marxist slogans and promises.

Yet, it also created fertile ground for political extremists, regimes that promote terror, and ideological terrorist groups to cause chaos across the Middle East and around the world under the banner of Jew-hatred.

This is not just history – it remains a serious, life-threatening problem that our world continues to face today.

Jew-hatred in the Arab world did not develop in its current form as an organic extension of premodern religious beliefs. Neither can antisemitism be reduced to the eruption of the Arab-Israeli conflict alone. It is the product of layered ideological transformations that unfolded throughout the twentieth century.

Although classical Islamic societies were hierarchical and discriminatory toward the Jews, they were not driven by extermination or conspiracy theories. Jews existed as a “protected” yet unequal community, embedded within social and economic life.

What fundamentally changed this dynamic was the encounter with modern European antisemitism in the twentieth century, which used the trend of “-isms” and mass ideology to infiltrate Arab thought.

Nazi Germany heavily invested in Arabic-language propaganda aimed at the Middle East, utilizing radio broadcasts, print media, and political alliances to embed antisemitic narratives within anti-colonial discourse.

Jews were portrayed as a global force manipulating capitalism, communism, and imperialism all at once. As historian Jeffrey Herf noted in his book Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World, this messaging fused European antisemitic mythology with regional grievances and resonated deeply with emerging Arab nationalist movements struggling against British and French occupation.

These ideas persisted after Germany’s defeat and were absorbed into postwar Arab political culture instead of being dismissed as outdated fascist relics.

Israel’s establishment

Following the establishment of Israel in 1948, antisemitism became deeply integrated into the state ideology of much of the Arab world. Egypt’s former president Gamal Abdul Nasser, the founder of Pan-Arabism, was the first to stigmatize the then-newly born State of Israel as “an agent of Western imperialism” that seeks to destroy the so-called “Arab cohesive fabric,” which never truly existed.

An Arabic-language copy of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, located by IDF troops in a Hebron-based charity affiliated with Hamas. October 23, 2025.
An Arabic-language copy of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, located by IDF troops in a Hebron-based charity affiliated with Hamas. October 23, 2025. (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)

The Arab military defeat by the Jewish state posed an existential threat to Arab nationalist legitimacy. Instead of addressing strategic miscalculations, institutional decay, or authoritarian governance, ruling elites diverted public anger outward.

Zionism was recast, not as a nationalist movement rooted in Jewish history, but as a global conspiracy. Jews were portrayed as all-powerful actors capable of instigating wars, financial crises, and political upheavals across continents.

Over time, this narrative was reinforced through state-controlled education systems, media outlets, cultural events, and even mosques. School textbooks in many Arab countries either completely erased Jewish history or portrayed Jews and Israel as malevolent actors. Holocaust education was often left out or dismissed as “Zionist propaganda.”

In Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, as clear examples, popular TV shows and movies fueled longstanding antisemitic stereotypes, depicting Jews as greedy, treacherous, and morally corrupt. These tropes persisted into the late 20th century and, in some cases, still do today.

State indoctrination

The circulation of Hitler’s Mein Kampf in Arabic was only part of this broader state-sponsored indoctrination. The book’s popularity among the Arab middle class and intellectuals showed growing radicalization through the normalization of antisemitism.

In his book Semites and Anti-Semites, Bernard Lewis warned that this normalization represented a dangerous departure from earlier forms of prejudice, noting that modern Middle Eastern antisemitism had absorbed the most extreme elements of European hatreds while shedding the moral boundaries that once kept it in check.

The rise of Islamist movements from the 1970s onward further intensified this trend. Groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and later jihadist organizations redefined antisemitism in religious terms, selectively instrumentalizing Islamic texts while blending in modern conspiracy theories.

Jews were no longer seen just as political adversaries or historical rivals, but as an “eternal” ideological enemy. This merging of religion and political ideology of hate transformed antisemitism from a political tactic into a moral duty.

In this context, normalizing diplomatic relations with Israel became seen as betrayal; Muslim coexistence with Jews became considered blasphemy; and denying the Holocaust, Zionism, and the Jews’ basic right to exist became a means to garner political legitimacy and public approval.

Arab Holocaust denial logically stems from this worldview. Their reasoning is that, if Jews are viewed as inherently deceitful and excessively powerful, then Jewish testimony cannot be trusted – and if Jewish influence is seen as omnipresent, then Jewish victimhood must be fabricated or exaggerated.

Beyond the debate

Holocaust denial in the Arab world goes beyond the historical debate to address Arabs’ ongoing cognitive dissonance and maintain the ideological consistency of the irrational narrative that deceitfully emphasizes Jewish omnipotence and moral illegitimacy.

The events of October 7, 2023, clearly showed the ongoing Holocaust denial attitude among Arabs. Hamas carried out the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, with lots of evidence provided by the perpetrators themselves.

Still, denial and justification spread quickly through Arabic-language media and social platforms. Atrocities were dismissed as fabrication, relativized as resistance, or erased altogether.

This reaction cannot be explained by misinformation alone. It reflects decades of systematic moral conditioning that trained audiences to distrust Jewish suffering as a category.

Sociologist David Hirsh describes this phenomenon as a moral inversion in which hostility toward Jews is reframed as political virtue through opposition to Israel, rendering Jewish suffering uniquely suspect and perpetually conditional. In much of the Arab world, this inversion predates the digital age and has only been amplified by it.

Not inevitable

That being said, the persistence of antisemitism and Holocaust denial in Arab societies is not inevitable. The decisive variable is the will of Arab leaderships to dismantle the narratives they once cultivated for survival.

As more Arab states pursue political reform, invest in education, and expand economic opportunities for their people, the need for scapegoats decreases. In such environments, Israel is no longer seen as a metaphysical enemy but as a neighboring reality and an indigenous thread in the Middle Eastern fabric.

In that sense, diplomatic normalization becomes a reflection of successful domestic development. Where governance replaces grievance, and accountability replaces myth, antisemitism loses both its strategic utility and its audience.■


Dalia Ziada is a Middle East scholar and Washington, DC, coordinator at the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP).