According to American University professor Hillary Mann Leverett, anti-Semitism doesn't exist in the Middle East.

The Senior Adjunct Professorial Lecturer at the School of International Service recently appeared on MSNBC and claimed that since she has personally seen a Jewish hospital and kosher restaurants in Iran, the idea that anti-Semitism exists in the Middle East is false.


"There is not this deep-seated Arab-Jewish or-you know, Muslim-Jewish animosity. There's not an anti-Semitism in the Middle East the way that there was in Europe, which is based on race; which is based on color; which is based on genes and biology," Leverett said in her segment on Melissa Harris-Perry. "That doesn't exist in the Middle East. There's no history of that in the Middle East."

However, a recent worldwide survey from the Anti-Defamation League on global anti-Semitism shows that the majority of the most anti-Semitic countries and territories are in the Middle East.


The top 10 worst countries for anti-Semitism among inhabitants include: the West Bank and Gaza, Iraq, Yemen, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan.

Public figures from the Middle East have been extremely outspoken about their anti-Semitic beliefs, including Egypt's former president Mohamed Morsi and Iran's former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.


Morsi made multiple public speeches, urging Egyptians to "nurse our children and grandchildren on hatred" for Jews and Zionists while Ahmadinejad referred to the Holocaust as a myth. Iran's current Supreme Leader also denies the Holocaust while candidly proclaiming his anti-Semitic views.

According to Leverett's faculty page, her research primarily focuses on "[p]olitics and international relations of the Muslim world, U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East, Persian Gulf, and Asia, diplomacy, international negotiation, and conflict resolution."

The foreign policy professor is a Fulbright Scholar as well as a Thomas J. Watson Fellow, and has made multiple media appearances regarding Iranian politics.

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