A university professor who recently declared that anti-Semitism “doesn’t exist in the Middle East” could not be more wrong, Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer told Newsmax TV on Friday.
“Everything she said was false,” Spencer told “MidPoint” host Ed Berliner, referring to Hillary Mann Leverett, a professor at American University’s School of International Service.
Leverett, appearing on MSNBC’s “Melissa Harris-Perry” show, rejected the existence of “deep-seated Arab-Jewish, Muslim-Jewish animosity” in the Middle East.
“There’s not an anti-Semitism in the Middle East the way that there was in Europe, which is based in race … That doesn’t exist in the Miiddle East,” said Leverett.
Spencer, author of “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam,” said the comment reflected a mindset that downplays both Islamic prejudice and Jewish victimization.
“Hillary Mann Leverett, like so many other academics and so many other policymakers, is intent upon whitewashing the unfortunate and bloody history of Islamic anti-Semitism and the grim reality of Islamic jihad in general,” said Spencer.
Spencer said that expressions of anti-Jewish bigotry in the Middle East today are as virulent as any heard in World War II-era Europe, and that while mainline Christian religions have repudiated anti-Semitism, Islam has not.
