LATEST UPDATE: SEPTEMBER 1998
Algeria continues to be marked by violence between government forces and militant Islamists, particularly the Front islamique du salut (FIS, Islamic Salvation Front). Although the small community of Jews left in the country is not the primary target of Algerian Islamists, antisemitism is sometimes apparent in the context of their deep hostility to the West, particularly France and the USA. There is also concern over the influence of the Algerian situation on Islamist groups in neighbouring states such as Tunisia and Morocco.
Demographic data
Total population: 28 million
Jewish population: 50
Other minorities: approximately 25 per cent of the population are Berbers (original inhabitants, also known as Amazigh)
Religion: predominantly Sunni Muslim
Political data
Constitutional status: quasi-military regime
Head of state: President (Brigadier-General) Liamine Zéroual since 1994
Government: since the June 1997 elections Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia leads a coalition government headed by Rassemblement nationale démocratique (RND, National Democratic Rally) and including the Front de libération nationale (FLN, National Liberation Front) and the Mouvement de la société de paix (MSP, Movement of Society for Peace, formerly Hamas)
Other political parties: Front des forces socialistes (FFS, Socialist Forces Front)
Parliamentary elections (June 1997): some forty-four parties contested the elections - despite calls from the FIS to boycott the proceedings - including the two largest legal opposition parties, FFS and Hamas (which changed its name to the MSP in order to comply with the ban on religious symbolism). Against a background of increasing violence and allegations of electoral malpractice, the RND, a new party with close links to President Zéroual, together with the MSP and the former ruling FLN, gained a majority in the national assembly. A total of 380 seats in the lower house were contested, and the results were as follows (percentage of vote in brackets):
RND: 156 seats (36.3)
MSP: 69 seats (16)
FLN: 62 seats (15.3)
Ennahda (Renaissance): 34 (9.4)
FFS: 20 seats (4.8)
Rassemblement pour la culture et démocratie (RCD, Rally for Culture and Democracy): 19 seats (4.6)
Workers' Party: 4 (2)
Progressive Republican Party: 3 (0.7)
Union for Democratic Liberties: 1 (0.5)
Social Liberal Party: 1 (0.4)
Independents: 11 (4.9)
Next presidential election: in September 1998 President Zéroual announced that presidential elections would be held no later than March 1999 and that he would not be a candidate.
Economic data
GDP per capita 1997: US$1,600
Inflation 1997: 30 per cent
Unemployment 1997: 30 per cent
During the nineteenth century, traditional Christian antisemitism was introduced into parts of the Muslim world, including Algeria, by European clerics and missionaries. Jews received favoured treatment from the French colonists and, despite Muslim resentment, soon capitalized on the new economic opportunities.
Following the 1894 Dreyfus affair (see France), a leading French antisemite, Edouard Drumont, was elected as the representative for Algiers.
Although the antisemitic movement of the time was short-lived in Algeria, Nazi propaganda in the 1940s led to its resurgence. Under the Vichy regime, Jews were treated with contempt by the French authorities, who applied the antisemitic Vichy laws in all their severity.
After Algeria gained independence from France in 1962, most of the country's 140,000 Jews emigrated. Algerian Jews, almost universally gallicized, were viewed by Muslims not only as Zionists, and therefore enemies of Arab national aspirations, but also as Europeans. They were also resented for their economic success and the privileges they had enjoyed under French rule. In 1960, during anti-French riots, the Great Synagogue of Algiers was destroyed. Jewish areas were attacked repeatedly and synagogues and cemeteries were desecrated. Large-scale emigration followed.
The 1967 Six-Day War led to further looting and attacks. In recent years, Islamist opposition forces have frequently combined antisemitic, anti-Zionist and anti-western rhetoric. During the 1991 Gulf War, the use of antisemitic slogans was particularly evident.
Islamist groups have repeatedly warned foreign workers and business-owners to leave the country. The abduction and killing of foreign tourists and workers has prompted many international companies to evacuate staff and dependants.
In 1996 the kidnapping and murder of seven French Trappist monks and the killing of the French bishop of Oran, Pierre Claverie, led the French government to urge all French citizens to leave Algeria immediately. In March 1998 a court in Oran sentenced to death seven suspected Islamic militants who had been implicated in the assassination of Claverie.
Islamist groupings
The most significant Islamist group is FIS which advocates a return to religion as a guide for daily action and conservative social practices.
Since 1992, when the electoral process was suspended by the military government to prevent a probable victory by the FIS, the continuing violent struggle between the group's supporters and the government has resulted in the deaths of an estimated 75,000 people. Following the assassination of President Muhammad Boudiaf by Islamists in June 1992, the FIS was outlawed.
Towards the end of 1997, tensions appeared to emerge between rival Islamist factions: in September of that year the Armée islamique du salut (AIS, Islamic Salvation Army), the military wing of the FIS, called for a truce in order to expose its rival, the Groupe islamique armée (GIA, Armed Islamic Group).
The GIA emerged in 1993 with the aim of bringing down the government by terrorizing the civilian population. The group rivals the FIS, and is primarily responsible for the murder of foreigners. More than 700 schools have been destroyed by the GIA, on the grounds that their teachings are not religious. Since 1994 the GIA has been issuing statements calling for the elimination of all Jews and Christians from the country.
Throughout 1997 and 1998, Islamists have continued to attack military targets as well as local and foreign civilians. Among the most serious incidents have been car bombs and massacres of villagers suspected of harbouring government-backed militias. In June 1997 some 300 people were killed in an attack on three villages in the Bilda region. (Many victims were reportedly beheaded or had their throats cut.)
Also notable is the recent increase in the number of abductions, rapes and murders of young women accused of failing to observe the strict Islamic dress code.
Antisemitic literature, including Arabic translations of The
Protocols of the Elders of Zion, continues to circulate in Algeria.
Institute for Jewish Policy Research and American Jewish Committee
© JPR 1998
