LOS ANGELES — Respected news outlets unwittingly sent a lie around the world on Sept.12: a Jew backed by 100 Jewish donors made a film insulting Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.
Within a day the lie unraveled. But the damage to the Jewish community had been done, and Jews will continue to suffer for it, say Jewish civil rights leaders.
“This is another blood libel that’s in place,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, referring to a history of conspiracy theories that have fueled anti-Semitism for centuries.
In much of the Muslim world the myth persists that Jews made the film.
A radical Islamic group that took responsibility for the Sept. 21 killing of an Israeli soldier later put out a statement that said it was motivated by the offensive film.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) also has been tracking instances in which the video continues to be blamed on Jews.
ADL National Director Abraham Foxman noted that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blamed “Zionists” for the video on Sept. 25, the night before he addressed the United Nations.
For Foxman, it is the most recent lie that makes it easier for anti-Semites to justify the persecution of Jews. “Jews were blamed for the plagues, for communism, for fascism, when things go wrong, when things go well,” Foxman said. “Look how easily the lie that Israelis were responsible for Sept. 11 took hold.”
Polls taken years after Sept. 11 show that large minorities in several Muslim-majority countries believe Israel plotted the attacks.
Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the Egyptian-American man behind the film, (see ‘LA police arrest man behind anti-Islam film,’ page 16) was arrested and detained in Los Angeles on Sept. 27.
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