Le reazioni all'Olocausto nel Medio Oriente arabo. [The Reactions to the Holocaust in the Arab Middle East]

Abstract

This is a long chapter on the reactions to the Nazi Judeocide in the Arab Middle East. The chapter starts with a description of the difference in viewpoints and narratives between Jews and Arabs, with a different focal point for each community (the Shoah and the Nakba). It then depicts Arab reactions to Nazism and its consequences from 1933 to 1947, making a distinction between liberal pro-Western Arabs, Islamic fundamentalists, Arab nationalists and Marxists. The evolution of stances in the epoch of the rise and radicalisation of Arab nationalism (1948-1967) is then assessed. This was followed by the era of Arab exacerbated resentment (1967-1987), which led in turn to the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism as part of an ideological regression in the whole Arab world, with a sharp increase in stances of an Anti-Semitic character, fought by a minority of enlightened intellectuals.