An Arabic copy of Mein Kampf was reportedly found on the body of a slain Hamas terrorist. While holding this copy up during an interview, Israeli president Isaac Herzog said:

This is Adolf Hitler’s book, Mein Kampf, translated into Arabic. This is the book that led to the Holocaust and the book that led to World War II … . The terrorist wrote notes, marked the sections, and studied again and again the ideology of Adolf Hitler to hate the Jews, to kill the Jews, to burn and slaughter Jews wherever they are.

As it happens, many years ago, I conducted a deep dive into ascertaining how similar the writings of Islamic terrorists — in the guise of al-Qaeda — were to the writings of Hitler in Mein Kampf. Out of it came a 4,500 word article, first published in 2007.

Influence Not Coincidence

To appreciate the parallels, consider the following sentence from the introduction of the 1999 edition of Mein Kampf, published by Mariner Books:

He [Hitler] had made his ultimate goals clear in Mein Kampf as early as 1926: rearmament, the abolition of democracy, territorial expansion, eugenics, the ‘elimination’ of the ‘Jewish threat.’

The writings of al-Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri (as translated and categorized in The Al Qaeda Reader) dwell on, if not obsess over, four of these same five “ultimate goals” of Hitler. Other than eugenics, al-Qaeda’s writings revolve around the “Jewish threat,” overthrowing the “pagan religion” of democracy, both territorial re-conquests (from Palestine to “Andalusia”) and territorial expansion (to the whole world). Indeed, that there are many similarities is best represented by the fact that the German words mein kampf, “my struggle,” translate to jihadi — “my jihad” — in Arabic.

What follows are a few excerpts dealing specifically with Mein Kampf’s (MK) and The Al Qaeda Reader’s (AQR) similar understanding of “the Jew.” (The many other parallels — anti-democracy, etc., — are categorized here.) Especially similar passages are italicized for emphasis. 

Doing “God’s Work”

MK: “Hence today I believe I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord,” p. 65. 

AQR: “You should know that seeking to kill Americans and Jews everywhere in the world is one of the greatest duties [for Muslims], and the good deed most preferred by Allah, the Exalted,” p.270.

Jews, the Economy, and the Media

MK: “People who can sneak their way into the rest of mankind like drones, to make other men work for them under all sorts of pretexts, can form states even without any definitely delimited living space of their own. This applies first and foremost to a people under who parasitism the whole of honest humanity is suffering, today more than ever: the Jews,” p. 150 … . “He [“the Jew”] begins to lend money and as always at usurious interest … . He regards commerce as well as all financial transactions as his own special privilege which he ruthlessly exploits,” p.309. “From the publisher down [i.e., the media world], they were all Jews,” p.61.

 AQR: “You [America] are a nation that permits usury, though it has been forbidden by all the religions. Yet you build your economy and investments on usury. As a result of this, in all its different forms and guises, the Jews have taken control of your economy, thereby taking control of your media, and now control all aspects of your life, making you their servants and achieving their aims at your expense — precisely what Benjamin Franklin warned you against,” p.203.

MK: “When over long periods of human history I scrutinized the activity of the Jewish people, suddenly there rose up in me the fearful question whether inscrutable Destiny, perhaps for reasons unknown to us poor mortals, did not with eternal and immutable resolve, desire the final victory of this little nation [“Jewry”]. Was it possible that the earth had been promised as a reward to this people which lives only for this earth?” p.64.

AQR: “Come let me [bin Laden] tell you who the Jews are. The Jews have lied about the Creator, and even more so about His creations. The Jews are the murderers of the prophets, the violators of agreements … . These are the Jews: usurers and whoremongers. They will leave you nothing, neither this world nor religion … . Such are the Jews who, in accordance with their religion, believe that human beings are their slaves and that those who refuse [to recognize this] should be put to death,” p.277.

Jews to Blame for Porn and Prostitution

MK: “The relation of the Jews to prostitution and, even more, to the white-slave traffic, could be studied in Vienna … . When thus for the first time I recognized the Jew as the cold-hearted, shameless, and calculating director of this revolting vice traffic in the scum of the big city, a cold shudder ran down my back,” p.59. … “Only now did I become thoroughly acquainted with the seducer of our people,” p.61. 

AQR: “[T]he Jews have taken control of your [Americans’] economy, thereby taking control of your media, and now control all aspects of your life … . You are a nation that permits acts of immorality … . You are a nation that exploits women like consumer products or advertising tools … . You are a nation that practices the trade of sex in all its forms, directly and indirectly. Giant corporations and establishments are built on this [commodity], under the name of ‘art, entertainment, tourism, and freedom,’” p.203-204.

Jews as a Virus

MK: “It seemed as though a continuous stream of poison was being driven into the outermost blood-vessels of this once heroic body [the German nation] by a mysterious power [Jews], and was inducing progressively greater paralysis of sound reason and the simple instinct of self-preservation,” p.154.

 AQR: “And the most dangerous of these groups are those that cloak themselves in the garb of Islam and its summons [i.e., “moderates” and “hypocrites”], worming their way into the umma’s beliefs, mind, and heart. They are like a lethal bacteria trying to overcome the human immune system, trying to destroy it to sow corruption in the cells of the human body,” p.104.

Raymond Ibrahim, author of Defenders of the West and Sword and Scimitar is the Distinguished Senior Shillman Fellow at the Gatestone Institute and the Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.