My argument is not that there was no anti-Semitism in Arab and Muslim countries but I would argue that it got much worse during the time of Jewish migration to Palestine and infinitely worse after the establishment of Israel.
Your counter-argument seems to be that anti-Semitism was always there and always at the same level only that it was once latent and then became manifest.
Neither of these statements can be termed "arguments". Your position is simply an observation easily verified by counting incidents of antisemitism in Arab regions. But it doesn't actually tell us anything about Arab antisemitism. It doesn't even indicate causation because correlation doesn't mean causation.
Was Jewish migration the cause of increased antisemitism in Arab regions? Was it a result of increased antisemitism? Or were they parallel and interdependent phenomena?
I don't know what I'm supposed to conclude from your observation. Wildcat at least proposes a cause-and-effect that can be examined (i.e., that antisemitism was a constant and the only difference would be what countervailing influences tended to inhibit antisemitic acts). Your observation doesn't offer much of anything.
Now, in the end, I find Wildcat's thesis (as I've restated it) lacking as well because the difference between an countervailing influence and a reduction in underlying antisemitism is vague at best. If the Sultan in Cairo is more tolerant of Jews because he wants Jewish investment in Cairo and sees an opportunity caused by the Jews being expelled from Spain, if that a countervailing influence or a reduction in antisemitism? Is the Sultan still an antisemite who forbears in order to get Jewish money, or is he a more enlightened ruler enjoying the fruits of tolerance for his people?
The history of the Jewish diaspora is a history of cycles. One group persecutes Jews so the Jewish population there dwindles (but might not be extinguished). This creates an opportunity elsewhere for another ruler who plays host to the Jewish exiles. Eventually, that region becomes rules by someone who persecutes the Jews and they move again.
The fact that Cairo has an unbroken Jewish community for 2000 years doesn't say much, except perhaps, that none of the various persecutions of Jews over the millennia manage to totally wipe the community out.
I don't think it's right to compare Muslim and Christian treatment of Jews and declare that one group treated Jews better than the other. First, the term Muslim and Christian is much too broad. Second, the populations were very different and constantly changing. The Jews were different too. The Jews of the third century would be almost unrecognizable to the Jews of the 19th century. Moreover, the way Jewish persecution manifested changed over the centuries. Sometimes, it would be forced conversions (Muslims tended to do this more often than Christians). Sometimes, they would be taxed oppressively. Sometimes, they would be herded into ghettos. Sometimes, they would be expelled. Sometimes, their property would be taken. Sometimes, the government would simply look the other was as people beat or murdered them. Sometimes, they would be tortured.
The stated reasons for tolerance and persecution would vary as well. Martin Luther is a prime example. Luther was initially tolerant of the Jews. He believed that the reason the Jews did not convert to Christianity was because the Catholic persecution of them prevented them from hearing the loving message of the Gospel. But after a few years of tolerance and the puzzling refusal of Jews to convert en mass to Protetantism, he decided the Jews were irredeemable and became a virulent antisemite.
In Egypt, the persecution would take on a different character. Because Muslims could not loan money to one another, Jews were a necessary "evil" (and tolerated as "Brethren of the Book"), because they could finance businesses and generally increased commerce. But when the economy was good, or the rulers feared a burgeoning middle class would disrupt their power, Muslim leaders would suddenly identify the Jews as heretics and "foreigners" who needed to be dealt with before the fomented revolution. A lot of Muslim antisemitism before the 19th century appears to have been largely economic and cultural, rather than religious.
Which brings us to the 1930's. Both Christians and Muslims have a complex history with antisemitism. But most importantly, since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the Arab nations were being colonized by Englishmen and Frenchman. And they were going to war against Germany. And Germany hated Jews. So it was natural for Arabs to ally with Germany and to forge a common bond by accentuating their own antisemitic tendencies. Which doesn't forgive their antisemitism. It merely explains it.
And when Germany lost, the Arabs, found themselves still oppressed by Englishmen and Frenchmen who were now expiating the guilt of their own antisemitism by founding an Israeli nation to be populated by European (jews).
It has been said that the Israelis see the Arabs through the lens of European antisemitism -- the new Nazis. And the Arabs see Israelis through the lens of European colonialism -- the new Colonial power. So even some Jews had been living in what would be Israel since forever, the new arrivals from Europe felt like a new colonialism. And even though Arabs had been antisemitic to varying degrees since forever, the opposition to Israel felt like the new Nazism.
And both of them are partly wrong and both of them are partly right in their observations.
And here we are. And what are we to do with this? Arab antisemitism is undeniable. Israel (and any remnant Jewish communities in Arab areas) continues to be the target both of Arab antisemitic sentiment and Arab anticolonial sentiment. And Israel's Arab neighbors continue to be viewed as the new Nazis as well as simply hostile neighbors.
Do you think that these Europeans were inherently diseased with anti-Semitism or do you think they were propagandized/brainwashed into it?
it's a silly question. Nobody is inherently antisemitic and nobody is inherently tolerant. Cultures are the products of centuries of development.
Jewish migration to Palestine (AKA fleeing extreme European anti-semitic persecution) was considered a threat to one of the Holiest sites of Islam, al-Quds/Jerusalem which led to an massive increase in anti-Semitism with such things as the Arab revolt under people like Qassam (although they may have also had some genuine i.e. secular grievances too given that some of their land was certainly dispossessed). For the most part, Jewish communities in the Arab world were still relatively (and please understand that there are meaningful distinctions here) unmolested. This changed with the mass expulsions of Jews from Baghdad, Cairo, Tripoli etc...
I question whether these communities were "relatively unmolested" from an historical perspective. Certainly, compared to the mass expulsion, they were less molested. But that's like saying that Europe's Jews were "relatively unmolested" and comparing it only to the Shoah. It's an unhelpful statement that whitewashes centuries of antisemitism in Europe and the Arab world.
For instance, let's look at the "threat to Al-Quds". Was there any bona fide reason that Muslims might have feared that Jews would do something to the Al Aqsa Mosque? England had governed Jerusalem for a quarter-century and hadn't done anything to endanger Muslim holy sites. Were Zionists in the 1940's threatening to rebuild the Temple? I doubt it, as the Zionist movement wasn't all that fundamentalist. I've never seen any evidence of Zionist desire to threaten Al Aqsa. This leads me to believe that the "threat to Al-Quds" was a justification to opposition to Israel, not a cause of it. The cause, as far as I can see is that the movement to create Israel represented both colonialism and Judaism, and Arabs hated both of those things in varying degrees.
