By MELISSA RADLER

NEW YORK – Anti-Semitism in newspapers and on TV in the Muslim world is increasing in content and virulence, according to a study released this week by the American Jewish Committee.
“Muslim Anti-Semitism: A Clear and Present Danger,” authored by Hebrew University professor Robert Wistrich, details the anti-Jewish and anti-Israel rhetoric that has seeped into the Arab and Muslim press and outlines the effect such institutionalized hatred could have on prospects for peace in the region.

With sections on conspiracy theories, Islamic fascism, anti-Semitic falsehoods, Holocaust denial, refusal to accept Israel’s existence, and the history of Muslim-Jewish relations, the study looks at the allegation that Jews use the blood of non-Jews to make Passover matza and Purim pastries; the widespread popularity of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion; and the charge that the Israeli government and the Mossad were responsible for the September 11 attacks in the US.

The study, which includes a selection of cartoons from the Arab press that shows Prime Minister Ariel Sharon gleefully eating Palestinian children in the Palestinian Al-Quds daily, and an Israeli soldier presenting his mother with a bottle of Palestinian blood in the Jordanian paper Al-Dustour, also looks at Western media’s reluctance to report on Muslim anti-Semitism.

In a conference call this week with Jewish leaders, Wistrich warned that failure of the Western world to deal with Muslim anti-Semitism is contributing to strife in the region, and that any peace deal between Israel and its neighbors must be preceded by a true acceptance of Jews and Israel.

Oslo failed in part, he said, because its architects did not enforce the removal of anti-Semitism and incitement from Palestinian Authority textbooks and media and overlooked the PA’s refusal to recognize Israel.

In the study’s foreword, David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee, wrote that the publication “is intended as the sounding of an alarm bell for a very clear and immediate threat to Jews worldwide – and, by extension, to democratic values as well.”

The study can be found online, at www.ajc.org.

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