Jews are apparently one of -- if not the -- the most-hated people among Indonesian Muslims, because Israel as a state has committed gross human rights abuses against Palestinians for 60 years since the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948.

In a meeting on media and diversity recently, chairman of the Indonesian Survey Institute Syaiful Mujani revealed a finding of his latest research that more than 30 percent of Muslims here did not want Jewish people as their neighbors.

Violence by the Jewish state, which celebrated its 60th anniversary May 14, has made headlines in newspapers for decades here while rocket attacks and suicide bombings on Israel's discos and nightclubs by Hamas get little attention in the media.

Although Palestine is geographically far away, it's emotionally close to many Muslims here, even though not all Palestinians are Muslims.

The Palestinian miseries have also been a favorite talking point for some Islamist parties here which regularly deploy thousands of supporters in demonstrations condemning the only democratic country in the Middle East.

A recent seminar in Depok, West Java, which featured Muslim pundits and Jewish rabbis, aimed to convince the public that the conflict was not based on the religions of Judaism and Islam.

But the conclusion of the seminar should not be just lip service. It needs to be followed up with real actions, such as eliminating teachings that discriminate against the Jews, an almost impossible mission.

Since kids, ulemas in pesantren (Islamic boarding schools) have told us "to hate Jews -- and Christians would never be sincere to you (Muslims) until you follow them".

Canadian Muslim feminist Irshad Manji in her recently-translated book, Beriman Tanpa Rasa Takut: Tantangan Umat Islam Saat Ini (Faith Without Fear: The Challenge for Muslim Today), revealed how Muslims have discriminated against the Jews since the beginning of Islam.

Despite praising the same monotheistic roots inherited from Prophet Ibrahim, Manji, who recently visited Jakarta and Yogyakarta, questioned among other things the concept of dzimmi which gives protection to Jews but at the same time discriminates against them by urging different clothes and walking in separate streets in Medina, a place idolized by Islamists here.

Manji, who was expelled from a madrasa (Islamic school) in Canada when she was 14 years old, currently campaigns for ijtihad (critical thinking) among Muslims.

Many scholars believed anti-Semitism started here in the 1960s. Actually, many Jewish communities lived here peacefully, especially in Jakarta and Surabaya, during the Dutch colonial era.

With the current increasing trend of fundamentalism -- particularly the influence of Wahabism -- slogans such as "Go to hell, Israel" or "Jihad against Jews" can be easily found in the streets.

The puritans would easily label other people with different opinions as Jewish cronies and American collaborators as perhaps they did with the followers of Ahmadiyah.

The efforts by moderate Muslims to convince the world that God assigned Prophet Muhammad as a blessing for universe (rahmatan lil alamin) seem to go unheard among noisy rallies using symbols of violence, such as fake weapons and time bombs with Pakistani attire.

Some may think anti-Semitism is to a lesser degree similar to anti-Chinese sentiment here. The Holocaust could be considered a large-scale version of the May 1998 tragedy in which hundreds of Chinese-Indonesians were killed and their properties destroyed.

Dozens of Chinese-Indonesian women were allegedly raped or sexually harassed during the riots which then pushed the downfall of authoritarian president Soeharto.

Some viewed all of the "anti spirits" -- anti-Semitism, anti-Chinese, anti-America, anti-foreign capital-- were just a manifestation of our failure to solve our own social, political and cultural problems.

But the "anti-spirit" is not seen in the soccer game. We still love Chelsea although it's favorite manager Portuguese Jose Maurinho was replaced with Avram Grant, the former Israel coach.

Blaming the others -- with all those ridiculous conspiracy theories -- is the easiest way and often conducted by losers, instead of finding the roots of the problems in our culture, including religious teachings.

Ijtihad, instead of jihad (holy war), is one of the ways to reconcile Muslims with those who are considered by some puritans as "the others": the West, Jews, Indonesian-Chinese and Christians.

Forget the Indonesian Muslim Council's fatwa (edict) banning pluralism, secularism and liberalism, all of which are actually the pillars of critical thinking.

Ijtihad should move forward, instead of backward into puritanism and searching and applying values of a medieval desert age. It should be wide open for all Muslims, instead of just conducted by narrow-minded goateed ulemas.

Thanks to the late Muslim scholars such as Nurcholish Madjid, Ahmad Wahib, Mukti Ali, Munawir Sadzali and Mansour Faqih for opening youths' horizons in various studies from religious teachings to gender studies.

Amid the increasing fundamentalism with its stalemated thought, Muslims here have developed enlightened ideas that could make them live together with global citizens in peace.

The writer is a journalist at The Jakarta Post. He can be reached at junaidi@thejakartapost.com

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