This is an extremely important book. Written by a German political scientist and former senior Green Party advisor, a leftist who was shunned by fellow leftists because he made rather uncomfortable historical, political and ideological associations of modern islamists and nazis.

These are important facts that are continually ignored in the MSM.

It is well-written, well-researched and is invaluable to an understanding of the true nature of the islamist threat.

This is a dreadful and shallow study of Islamic antisemitism, which Kuntzel falsely claims to have stemmed from Nazism.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Rather, as Dr. Andrew Bostom shows in his forthcoming Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History, Islam's sacred texts themselves are the font from which Islamic antisemitism springs, and this is further demonstrated by historical accounts, from the time of Mohammed down through the ages. Indeed, as Bostom shows by providing the first English translation of Dr. Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi's Ph.D. thesis--Banu Isra'il fi al-Qur'an wa al-Sunna [The Children of Israel in the Qur'an and the Sunna]--Islamic sacred texts replete with hatred of the Jewish people. Furthermore, contemporary "moderate" Islamic scholars like Al Azhar director Tantawi have made a career out disseminating these classical Islamic views.

As Bostom also pointed out in a recent review of this book, Kuntzel makes a travesty of history in his ridiculous claim that Hassan al-Banna's Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928 in Egypt, innovated the "concept of jihad as holy war, which significantly differed from other contemporary doctrines and, associated with that, the passionately pursued goal of dying a martyr's death in the war with the unbeliever." What complete nonsense.

The Qur'an itself mentions jihad 40 times in many grammatical forms, according to seminal Arabic lexicographer Edward William Lane, and with only four exceptions (in Suras 61:09, 16:40, 24:53 and 35:42), the other 36 usages are variations holy war. As Lane taught us in Arabic English Lexicon, "Jahida in the Qur'an and in subsequent Islamic understanding to both Muslim luminaries, from the greatest jurists and scholars of classical Islam (including Abu Yusuf, Averroes, Ibn Khaldun, and Al Ghazzali, to common people, meant and means 'he fought, warred or waged war against unbelievers and the like'," (6 vols, London 1865, p.472).

Kuntzel's book contains what Bostom describes as a "yawning gap of omissions (and significant self-contradictions)" and more disturbingly includes frequent "selective citation and excerpting," as for example his "redacted discussion of Albert Speer's memoirs," omitting Hitler's "effusive praise for Islam, including the Nazi leader's resentment" that Islam did not conquer and Islamize Germany during its 8th through 11th century jihadist campaigns in Europe--and Kuntzel's misrepresentations of Sheikh Tantawi's above cited 700 pp. Ph.D. thesis--segments of which I've read in English--in which Tantawi repeatedly lauds the hatred of Jews extant throughout the Qur'an and Sunna.

According to my understanding, Kuntzel was before 1991 a West German leader of the Kommunistischer Bund--a subversive group funded by East Germany--which is documented by Germany's Lexicon Freenet entry on the subject.

Anyone considering this author or book educated on the subject of Islamic antisemitism should be sure to read Bostom's forthcoming work, as well as his previous The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-muslims.

There's nothing new about Islamic antisemitism. It's much much older than Nazism, which is exactly why Hitler and Albert Speer so loved Islam, and many Nazis converted and became as devout as Tantawi.

If you read this book, give it the weight of one tenth of a grain of salt, if that. Better yet, don't waste your time on this uneducated and dangerously misleading drivel.

--Alyssa A. Lappen

This is a dreadful and shallow study of Islamic antisemitism, which Kuntzel falsely claims to have stemmed from Nazism.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Rather, as Dr. Andrew Bostom shows in his forthcoming Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History, Islam's sacred texts themselves are the font from which Islamic antisemitism springs, and this is further demonstrated by historical accounts, from the time of Mohammed down through the ages. Indeed, as Bostom shows by providing the first English translation of Dr. Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi's Ph.D. thesis--Banu Isra'il fi al-Qur'an wa al-Sunna [The Children of Israel in the Qur'an and the Sunna]--Islamic sacred texts replete with hatred of the Jewish people. Furthermore, contemporary "moderate" Islamic scholars like Al Azhar director Tantawi have made a career out disseminating these classical Islamic views.

As Bostom also pointed out in a recent review of this book, Kuntzel makes a travesty of history in his ridiculous claim that Hassan al-Banna's Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928 in Egypt, innovated the "concept of jihad as holy war, which significantly differed from other contemporary doctrines and, associated with that, the passionately pursued goal of dying a martyr's death in the war with the unbeliever." What complete nonsense.

The Qur'an itself mentions jihad 40 times in many grammatical forms, according to seminal Arabic lexicographer Edward William Lane, and with only four exceptions (in Suras 61:09, 16:40, 24:53 and 35:42), the other 36 usages are variations holy war. As Lane taught us in Arabic English Lexicon, "Jahida in the Qur'an and in subsequent Islamic understanding to both Muslim luminaries, from the greatest jurists and scholars of classical Islam (including Abu Yusuf, Averroes, Ibn Khaldun, and Al Ghazzali, to common people, meant and means 'he fought, warred or waged war against unbelievers and the like'," (6 vols, London 1865, p.472).

Kuntzel's book contains what Bostom describes as a "yawning gap of omissions (and significant self-contradictions)" and more disturbingly includes frequent "selective citation and excerpting," as for example his "redacted discussion of Albert Speer's memoirs," omitting Hitler's "effusive praise for Islam, including the Nazi leader's resentment" that Islam did not conquer and Islamize Germany during its 8th through 11th century jihadist campaigns in Europe--and Kuntzel's misrepresentations of Sheikh Tantawi's above cited 700 pp. Ph.D. thesis--segments of which I've read in English--in which Tantawi repeatedly lauds the hatred of Jews extant throughout the Qur'an and Sunna.

According to my understanding, Kuntzel was before 1991 a West German leader of the Kommunistischer Bund--a subversive group funded by East Germany--which is documented by Germany's Lexicon Freenet entry on the subject.

Anyone considering this author or book educated on the subject of Islamic antisemitism should be sure to read Bostom's forthcoming work, as well as his previous The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-muslims.

There's nothing new about Islamic antisemitism. It's much much older than Nazism, which is exactly why Hitler and Albert Speer so loved Islam, and many Nazis converted and became as devout as Tantawi.

If you read this book, give it the weight of one tenth of a grain of salt, if that. Better yet, don't waste your time on this uneducated and dangerously misleading drivel.

--Alyssa A. Lappen

This book begins by challenging us to examine the roots of Islamism and its anti-semitism. Most have denied that anti-semitism exists in Islam. But the truth is quite startling. The origins of Islam were full of anti-semitic tractates comparing Jews to dogs and encouring the extermination of the Jewish tribes of Arabia. But then a long lull set in. However with the fall of the Ottoman empire Islamism began blaming 'closet Jews' for creating a secular Turkey and Ataturk was seen as a descendant of Jews who converted to Islam.

In Hitler's Germany the dissemination continued with Mien Kampf translated to Arabic and Nazi propoganda in the Muslim world encouraging Islam to wage 'holy war' against England and Zionism. The Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al Husayni, was a collaborator of Hitler and helped raise SS divisions in Muslim Bosnia and Albania. Some of these men also fought against Israel in 1948. But Muslim anti-semitism grew from their as former Nazis found refuge in Syria and Cairo. In BAghdad in 1941 the Arab nationalists had become enthralled with Nazism and the Ba'ath party was based on Nazi ideology.

Later Islamism became entranced with Nazism because it could use this ideology against Israel. Hamas leaders read the Protocols of the Elders of Zionism and while they referred to Israel in the press as a 'nazi state' they also denied the Holocaust.

A fascinating book that deserves to be widely read. The author is a German scholar who has finally connected the dots.

Seth J. Frantzman

The 2007 London Book Festival has named Matthias Küntzel's "Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11" as the grand prize winner of its annual competition honoring books worthy of greater attention from the international publishing community. I echo the positive critiques already given this important work.

Mathias Kuntzel is one of the world's foremost experts on the Middle East. He has given special attention to the role that Anti- Semitism plays in the irrational ideologies of the Muslim world. In this work he shows how the Nazi Anti- Semitic ideologies have been incorporated into the whole pattern of paranoia that dominates Middle Eastern political thinking. He also shows how the those who have failed in modernization have made antisemitic ideas their means of shifting the blame away from themselves. Kuentzel stresses that for the Middle East to truly modernize it must make a determined effort to combat antisemitism.
Kunentzel argues that using Western modes of reasoning does not provide a sufficient basis for understanding Islamist thought. He suggests the suicide- bomber mentality is one which cannot be contended with by gestures of appeasement but one which must be rejected entirely.
In this he warns against the kind of Change imposed by Fascist Middle Eastern regimes and argues for the kind of change impelled by Western and democratic values.
He in other words makes it clears that the antisemitic regimes of the Middle East, and the Islamist terrorists are not simply the enemies of the Jews and Israel but of the Western world as a whole.
A truly outstanding and important work.

Terrorism is not an area that I will claim to know a great deal about. Rather the Second World War is my forte. Which makes it that much more important for me to have read this book. It was nothing less than utter shock which greeted me when I was finally able to put two and two together. Nazism/fascism had not died with the destruction of the Third Reich. On the contrary, those ideals are alive and well in the Middle East today. After the end of the Second World War Hitler's anti-Semitic ideas became entrenched in Egypt and what today are the Palestinians, amongst a plethora of individuals and future groups/terrorist organizations. The author also makes the argument that after the collapse of the Soviet Union a new anti-US sponsor had to be found, that 'sponsor' turned out to be "Islamism" and everything that comes with it.

It is no wonder that behind practically any and every terrorist attack there is that vehemence against Jews, as if they are the real reason for why this terrorist attack had to happen. Even if on the cover it might be anti-globalization, anti-US _______ fill in the blank, behind it all is the "fact" that the Jews are the ones controlling ALL the moves that the rest of the world makes against the Middle East and, always, in support of Israel. The majority of what is presented here one will hardly find in our news media outlets. One would tend to think that a good portion of the US and the Western World are logical and rational, they cannot blindly accept conspiracy theories, like the idea that the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" are the truth behind how the Jews have been manipulating the world. We cannot fathom the anti-Semitism that gripped Nazi Germany in the 1930's and 1940's but today's terrorists can and do, they are the embodiment of the racist ideals of that period. Terrorists and their supporters have no restraints in regards to how much they will believe the Jews are responsible for, it is an explanation to them for all they have suffered and continue to suffer. I can only commend the author on his efforts and what he will open your eyes to. This book has greatly changed my line of thought in regards to the past half century and terrorism in general.