Anti-Semitism has become "a pandemic raging for many years" among many Muslims, said interfaith activist Soraya Deen. "Unfortunately though, we have no vaccine that can cure it."
Deen joined a group of reformist Muslims Wednesday to announce their best effort to develop that cure.
In a webinar launching the Council of Muslims Against Anti-Semitism (CMAA), author Raheel Raza announced that the organization will be guided by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism. The definition already appears on the CMAA website and the group's members seem to see it as a key in curtailing anti-Jewish hate among Muslims.
Embraced by nearly 30 countries, it includes "Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective," blaming Jews for actions by the Israeli government, and "Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination" among the examples of anti-Semitism. It specifically notes, however, that criticizing the Israeli government as one would criticize any government is not anti-Semitic.
Former Wall Street Journal reporter Asra Nomani saw the way such hatred can lead to horrific violence. She was working in Pakistan after 9/11 when her colleague and friend Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and beheaded. She launched the Pearl Project to investigate and identify the people responsible, but noted that a Pakistani court recently set one of the killers free.
There's a price for her activism, and for the campaign CMAA members launched, she said.
"We have been called every smear word in the book," Nomani said. "I've been called a Zionist media whore because I dared to stand up for my friend who was Jewish. And this isn't just the stuff of history. Danny was kidnapped and murdered in 2002. But today, there are people in Pakistan who believe he is still alive and that it is a Mossad conspiracy to shame Pakistan."