On the Anti-Zionist Crusades’ Crusade

Reading Emma Kellman’s 2014 paper, Politicized Historiography and the Zionist- Crusader Analogy, one may assume, mistakenly, that the attempt of Arab propagandists and their Jewish supporters to apply an anology, that Zionism is like the Crusades and will be ended as a foreign colonialist phenomenon, are from the post-1967 period and relate only to the territories Israel assumed administration over as a result of the Six Days War.

It is not that she doesn’t provide evidence otherwise but you might miss the brief mentions.

So here are three.

In his book, The Origins of Israeli Mythology: Neither Canaanites Nor Crusaders, David Ohana notes two pre-state sources for the Arab comparison of Zionism with the fate of the Crusaders.

The first is from the introduction of Said Ali el-Hariri`s Arabic “El-Ahbar el-Sniyeh Pi el-Harub el-Tzliviyeh” (The Cautionary Tale of the Crusader Wars), Cairo 1899, p. 6 when he observes that the aggressiveness of the European rulers toward the Ottoman rulers 

“bears an amazing resemblance to the actions of the crusaders in the past.” 

A second is just prior to the 1948 War of Independence, in a book published in Damascus, Vadia Talhok, “Al-Tslivia al-Jedira Pi Falestin” (The New Crusaders in Palestine), Damascus 1948 which contains a comparison of the Christian colonialism of the Middle Ages with the Anglo-French and Zionist colonialism. His conclusion is that 

“we shall cleanse Palestine of the star of David just as we cleansed it of the crusades.” 

Eli Kavon notes a third instance:

In September 1947, Jewish officials pleaded with the leaders of the Arab League to make peace with the emerging State of Israel. The League rebuffed the offer, claiming the Arabs would eject the Jews of Palestine as the Muslims had thrown the Crusaders out of the Middle East centuries before.

In fact, Ohana references several Israeli scholars debating the relevancy of the comparison in the 1950s. He also quotes from a 1955 interview with Arnold Toynbee with Uri Avneri which appeared under the title “Don’t Repeat the Mistakes of the Philistines and the Crusaders.” Toynbee had considered Zionism as a modern form of colonialism. He requested Israelis not to rely of rifles and bayonets and noted: 

“You have to learn the history of the country and even that of the crusaders, for example, for it belongs to you.” 

So, the imagery is old and it applies to Israel in any geographical configuration.

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