Why do Jewish blood libels circulate in the Arab World when the Arabs did not invent them?

Answer 1

Sadly, if you have been taught to hate "the other," you will use any old stereotypes and myths to illustrate or "prove" why your hatred of them is warranted. While Arabs and Jews got along well at certain periods in history, there were also verses in the Qur'an which spoke negatively of Jews and said they could not be trusted. Still, it wasn't really until the early 1900s that classic anti-Semitic tropes began to circulate, including the vile forgery "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." Discredited in the Western world, it found a home in the Muslim world, where some important Muslim clerics embraced it, since it gave a putative excuse to show the Qur'an was correct that the Jews could not be trusted.

The same with blood libels: again, if you have already been taught that the Jews are the people who killed the prophets and are deceitful and dangerous, the myth that they use the blood of Christians or Muslims in their nefarious plots fits nicely into that negative narrative, since it seems to "prove" why the Jews must not be trusted. Unfortunately, many Muslims in conservative countries rarely get to meet an actual Jew, so they may pick up myths and stereotypes instead (the internet has been a mixed blessing here-- while it enables people from various cultures to communicate, it can also be used to spread anti-Jewish or anti-whoever myths far and wide); add some religious leaders determined to stir up hatred, and it can give legitimacy to those myths. Given little opportunity for critical thinking or fact-checking, the Muslims in countries where such beliefs are espoused by clerics and politicians may assume these false beliefs must have some validity.