Saudis Put New Twist on Ancient Blood Libel Against Jews

The same government that claims to be spearheading a
new peace initiative between Israel and the Arab world
is, at the same time, reviving a vicious blood libel
against the Jews. The Saudi-government-run Al-Riyadh
daily newspaper reported this month that Jews require
human blood to prepare a Purim holiday pastry. The
dispatch, by columnist Umayma Ahmad Al-Jalahma, a
Saudi academic, appears in the newspaper's March 10
number.

This anti-Semitic fabrication is a new twist on the
ancient blood libel propagated decades and centuries
ago in Europe that claimed Jews drank Christian blood
on the holiday of Passover. Al-Jalahma, of course,
buys into this falsehood, writing that "Jewish
vampires" use the blood of "Christian and Muslim
children under the age of 10" on Passover.

The rabid anti-Semitism that pervades the Arab press in
countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt is strikingly
similar to the sort that appeared in the Nazi press in
the years leading up to the Holocaust. Thankfully, the
safe haven Israel provides in the face of such
dangerous Arab hostility stands as a bulwark against
another Holocaust.

Read more about this blood libel on the web site of
the Middle East Media and Research Institute

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Abrahamic Faith