When it comes to the issues around Israel, the question of anti-Semitism takes on much greater importance. Much is made of growing anti-Semitism in the Arab world. In Arab countries there are exceedingly few Jews, in most none at all, and all the Jews most people in those countries see are Israeli leaders, soldiers and settlers, and occasional American Jews who voice views at least as hawkish. Still, it is easy to see why people would see such a phenomenon as proof that the Arab view of the conflict with Israel is motivated not by dispossession or concern over Western domination of the Middle East, but by the hatred of Jews. When a group of people are absent from one’s life, and one sees only frightening images of them, this provides the most fertile soil for bigotry. Little reason is given for Arabs to distinguish between the actions of the Israeli government, of which they see only the very worst, and the Jewish people, who are purportedly represented by the Jewish State. Thus, the proliferation of sales of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and the occasional quotes from some Arab leaders, both official and popular, which are eagerly picked up by the mainstream media that reflect great hostility to Jews. Of course, there were those who had antipathy for Jews well before the state of Israel and even the Zionist movement were established, but it is a historical reality that, although Jews did not generally enjoy legal rights equal to Muslims in most of the Arab and Muslim world, our experience there was far better, far more free from persecution, than our experience in Europe. It might not have been a paradise of equality, but in the context of the times, the Jewish experience in the Muslim world was far better than the experience of Jews and other minorities elsewhere.