BAT YE’OR INTERVIEWED BY JERRY GORDON
http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/98500/sec_id/98500
An Egyptian Jew in Exile: An Interview with Bat Ye’or
I first encountered Gisèle Littman, better known as “Bat Ye’or,” through her book, The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam while browsing through a Judaica section of a Barnes & Noble book store in Westport, Connecticut in 1985. Reading it opened my mind to the historical evidence of the subjugated treatment of Jews, Christians and other non-Muslims under shari’a in the wake of Islamic Jihad over conquered lands. Her book threw into considerable doubt the then fashionable medievalist commentary that Jews and Christians had been well treated in Al Andaluz, Muslim Spain and in the far reaches of the Caliphate of the Ottoman Empire. Bat Ye’or’s penetrating historical analysis in The Dhimmi was followed by further investigations into the plight of Christians under the system of Islamic shari’a “dhimmitude.” Dhimmitude as an historical concept, was coined by Bat Ye’or in 1983 to describe the legal and social conditions of Jews and Christians subjected to Islamic rule. The word dhimmitude comes from dhimmi, an Arabic word meaning “protected.” Bat Ye’or, through her latter writings plumbed the depths of Islamization of Europe with her major work, Eurabia: The Euro Arab Axis and the recently published, Europe Globalization and the Coming Universal Caliphate. See our review in this edition.
I first encountered Gisèle Littman, better known as “Bat Ye’or,” through her book, The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam while browsing through a Judaica section of a Barnes & Noble book store in Westport, Connecticut in 1985. Reading it opened my mind to the historical evidence of the subjugated treatment of Jews, Christians and other non-Muslims under shari’a in the wake of Islamic Jihad over conquered lands. Her book threw into considerable doubt the then fashionable medievalist commentary that Jews and Christians had been well treated in Al Andaluz, Muslim Spain and in the far reaches of the Caliphate of the Ottoman Empire. Bat Ye’or’s penetrating historical analysis in The Dhimmi was followed by further investigations into the plight of Christians under the system of Islamic shari’a “dhimmitude.” Dhimmitude as an historical concept, was coined by Bat Ye’or in 1983 to describe the legal and social conditions of Jews and Christians subjected to Islamic rule. The word dhimmitude comes from dhimmi, an Arabic word meaning “protected.” Bat Ye’or, through her latter writings plumbed the depths of Islamization of Europe with her major work, Eurabia: The Euro Arab Axis and the recently published, Europe Globalization and the Coming Universal Caliphate. See our review in this edition.
I first met Bat Ye’or and her husband David Littman over a decade ago at a lecture at Brown University arranged by Andrew Bostom, then in the midst of research for his books, The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Treatment of Non-Muslims and The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred texts to Solemn History. In 2003, Bat Ye’or spoke at my synagogue in Fairfield, Connecticut. The matter came up about what topic to discuss. Her National Review article, a precursor to Eurabia, had recently been published. Colleagues, Fred Leder, Judith Greenberg, Dr. Richard L. Rubenstein and I agreed it should be about the threat of Islamization to Europe, the isolation of Israel and the Jewish people. When Eurabia was published in 2005, Dr. Rubenstein and I attended Bat Ye’or’s lecture at Columbia University. We next met when she returned to New York in 2007 to give several lectures on her views about Islamization in Europe. She had been invited by a faculty member to lecture on these topics to a class of future staff officers at the US Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
Less well known is the saga of Bat Ye’or’s family ejection from Egypt as stateless persons following the first Sinai War in 1956. Deprived of resources they made their way to exile in England. This interview with Bat Ye’or focuses on her experience and that of her family as Jews in Egypt during this tumultuous period following the founding of the State of Israel and the Free Officers Movement coup in Egypt. It touches on her family heritage; her meeting with her future husband while both were students at London University’s Institute of Archeology, their marriage and their little known exploits in clandestinely saving Moroccan Jewish children and enabling their emigration to Israel. Both Bat Ye’or and her husband David Littman were honored in 2009 for this rescue known by Littman’s code name, Operation Mural.
Jerry Gordon: Bat Ye’or, thank you for consenting to this interview.
Bat Ye’or: Thank you for inviting me.
Jerry Gordon: You were born and raised in Egypt. Could you tell us about your family’s heritage?
Bat Ye’or: I was born in a family of mixed heritage. My mother was French and grew up in Paris. Her mother, who was British, had married a Frenchman. They were emancipated and non-observant Jews, well integrated into French culture, counting among their family painters and writers. Members of my mother’s family were also living in Egypt and were prominent leaders of the Alexandrine Jewish community.
The picture was very different on my father’s side. The Orebi were observant Italian Jews, who spoke Arabic, several other languages and were less Westernized. My grand-father received the title of Bey under the last Ottoman sultan. He died when my father was thirteen years old.
Both families were related and belonged to the same educated and wealthy Westernized Jewish bourgeoisie, sharing the same social milieu. My mother loved reading and followed the cultural events in France. She gave us her taste for literature. We always had plenty of books at home. As far as I can remember, I was always reading.
After the Italian racial laws were decreed by Mussolini in 1938, my father requested Egyptian nationality that had been established only in 1924. Usually it was denied to Jews, but he did obtain it. He could hardly guess then, that less then 20 years later he would leave Egypt stripped of everything, including his nationality.
Gordon: What was it like growing up as a Jew in Egypt prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948?
Bat Ye’or: In my childhood we were more worried by the Nazi advance toward Alexandria and the war in Europe. In Egypt we knew about the extermination of European Jewry, my mother worried about her parents living in occupied Paris, wearing the yellow star. Her two brothers and uncles were hiding in the so-called free zone. When the Germans approached Alexandria, the populace around us grew menacing and we left Cairo and hide in the countryside.
Later, after the war, the Muslim Brotherhood and the nationalists triggered a wave of assassinations and violent demonstrations against the British and mainly against Jews. I only knew of the ordeals suffered by the Jews living in the poor quarters from my parents. We lived in a residential area, with many Europeans. We were protected children, going out only with our nannies and chauffeur.
My parents recommended that we never speak of Israel or of any policy even with friends. We had the feeling of being spied upon, even by our Muslim servant. Then when Jews were arbitrarily jailed or expelled from their jobs, or the country, a climate of fear and insecurity shrouded us. Violent pogroms erupted; mobs killed Jews in the street, raped Jewish women, vandalized Jewish shops, and burned Jewish schools and hospitals. All Jewish assets were sequestered, including those of my father. Jews were fired from administrative jobs and liberal professions. We lived with the fear that life could end at any moment.
During WWII, the Jewish Palestinian soldiers in the British army had trained the young Egyptian Jews for self-defense and as Zionists. Hence the Jewish quarter could be defended when attacked and young Zionists could clandestinely reach Palestine.
Gordon: After the Revolt of the Free Officers Movement in 1952 and toppling of the aristocracy under King Farouk I, were restrictions placed on the Egyptian Jewish community?
Bat Ye’or: The restrictions of 1947-48 were never totally removed. Jews could hardly find a job and were under police supervision. The anti-Jewish hatred became customary, especially with the arrivals of numerous German Nazi criminals who organized the anti Jewish policy of the new government. Jews were attacked and humiliated in public places and they could not answer or defend themselves. They found themselves at the mercy of anonymous denunciations. Young people realized they had no future in Egypt and many left for Israel or to study in Europe. The community was already organizing the last phase of its 3.000 years of history.
Gordon: What affect did the Israeli spy scandal, the Lavon Affair of 1954, have on the status of Egypt’s Jews and your family?
Bat Ye’or: It increased the animosity against the Jews, their segregation, isolation and close watch by the secret police.
Gordon: What happened to you and your family after the outbreak of the Suez Crisis and First Sinai War in 1956?
Bat Ye’or: The anti-Jewish apartheid system deepened. Jews were expelled from clubs, forbidden to go to restaurants, cinemas and public places. Many were immediately expelled from the country or thrown into jail. The secret police would come at night to arrest them. Others, like my mother, were under house arrest and their bank assets frozen. Their telephones were suppressed. Many Jews were isolated and could not communicate. Many left the country immediately, abandoning everything. I remember seeing their flats and beautiful villas ransacked. Each one was leaving in secret, fearing to be prevented from leaving their country which had become a jail.
Just before my mother was put under house arrest, I accompanied her to the bank where she quickly withdrew her jewels. We sold our flat for nothing since the pillage of Jewish homes had lowered prices. I choose twenty books among the hundreds we had and we sold all the rest. This was heart-breaking, as I always wanted to be a writer. I had accumulated many diaries since an early age, and later essays and literary criticisms. I realized that I was witnessing the agony of the Egyptian Jewish community and I made notes for a book. One night I burnt them all in the chimney. It was like dying. I knew we could only leave with two cases each and that the censors would read every piece of paper.
Families were dispersed in all directions. One sister went to London with her husband and child, another planned to go to Belgium, cousins went to Brazil, others went to Switzerland and France. As people were leaving secretly, I never knew whether I would be seeing them for the last time. I was living through the death of a world, not knowing if I would survive the next day. While the mob rejoiced in pillaging, I observed closely the inner destruction of family, friendships, bonds, society and the dignity and resolve of the victims.
By then, I had very few friends remaining. For me they belonged to a beloved and disappearing world that was dying with a part of my life, where everything being so transient also became so precious. In the last months preceding our departure, I walked alone throughout Cairo and Alexandria, their old quarters, their museums and every place that now was deserted of friends and family. For years I was fascinated by Egyptology, art and history. I knew I would never see these treasures again.
We left at night in secret. My father and mother could hardly walk. Thanks to a lawyer my father had at last sold a parcel of land. The proceeds from this sale, together with my mother’s jewels were sent out of the country through a clandestine channel. The Swiss consulate gave us a Nansen passport since Egyptian Jews were allowed to leave Egypt only on condition that they renounce their nationality and all their belongings in Egypt and never come back. We all signed such a declaration.
We had reservations on a KLM flight. We were kept at the airport for hours, our bodies searched, our cases emptied on the floor, insulted, humiliated and threatened by an Egyptian Sudanese officer who was cracking a whip (curbash) around us. My meager twenty Egyptian pounds were confiscated. Finally, they let us depart. We stopped at Amsterdam where my other sister came from Belgium, with her husband and baby to see us and tell us that money and jewels were safely deposited in a bank.
It was strange to see them in an Amsterdam hotel. We were now refugees, homeless, stateless, in a world where we knew no one. We were full of apprehension on the threshold of a new life, where we would destroy our past to build the future. It was my first night in exile.
Gordon: After your ejection from Egypt in 1957, how were you and your family able to enter the UK as stateless persons?
Bat Ye’or: Being stateless made it difficult to be admitted into another country. Although we were political refugees, it was not easy for my expelled British brother-in-law, to get us into England on a short term resident permit and on his guarantee that we had enough money to live. I wanted to go to Israel; however, my mother decided that we would go to London where my sister, her four year-old son and her British husband lived as refugees. We stayed with them for a month in their small unheated flat.
We started our life as stateless, robbed, homeless refugees in a cold, wet English winter. A life where you hardly had enough to eat and you did not know where you would sleep at night, where time is like an endless dark coldness penetrating soul and body. I had to plan the future of my parents with the little money we saved. My mother had a broken leg and my father had been an invalid since the age of three when he contracted polio. Both never worked, they always had money and servants. They were totally unfit to face such a situation. When we left my sister’s home I found a room for my parents with great difficulty. Doors were slammed in my face, no-one wanted to lodge stateless invalids. I started writing a short novel inspired by our situation. I used to go to museums to write because they were heated. Museums were like my home. I spent months walking throughout London, frozen to the bones in the rain and snow, to find a suitable home for my parents, where they would live comfortably but also rent a few rooms. I thought I would then leave for Israel.
Gordon: How did you and your husband David Littman meet in the UK?
David, Gisèle and Diana Littman – Casablanca (June 22, 1961)
Bat Ye’or: Other Jewish refugees put us in contact with a Jewish organization helping Egyptian refugees. They assisted us in every way, advising and providing us with a card allowing us to get warm clothing from Marks & Spencer. When I found, a house on London’s outskirt, in Ealing Broadway, the Jewish organization gave us small loans. From October when we arrived in London till April, I spent six months walking throughout the London fog and rain or writing in museums. I knew no one and had become a kind of aggressive animal always hungry and cold fighting despair by creating fictional characters totally lost in the fog of life.
The Jewish organization gave me a one year grant to study at the London University, Institute of Archeology. There I met David. He offered me biscuits at the break in the cafeteria. It was often the only thing I ate during the long hours I spent at the Institute. David and I shared a love for archeology, museums, history and art. My teachers were not happy with me because I was writing my novels during their courses, and I was a rebellious student. David immediately felt the need to protect and advise me in spite of my bad character. We met every day at the university and we took the same underground line back home. David’s station was Holland Park, less that half mine, but often he stayed with me till I arrived and went back on the same line. At this time we led the life of penniless students, but we were young, both idealists living in the world of ideas, music and art.
Life in London was harsh. With trepidation, I had to adapt constantly to new situations which were often painful. However, I discovered liberty there and a whole new intellectual atmosphere that I missed so much in Egypt. In England, people were polite, welcoming, warm and helpful. Escaping from Egyptian bondage and racist hatred, I discovered on this grey, cold English island, human kindness and the incommensurable world of culture and knowledge. All while going through misery and distress.
Gordon: Following your marriage in 1959, both you and your husband were involved in Operation Mural, the covert effort to help Jewish children emigrate from Morocco to Israel on behalf of the Jewish Agency. Could you tell us about that undertaking and the recent honors bestowed on your family by the State of Israel?
Bat Ye’or: After the birth of my first child, I wanted to do a mitzvah. I felt I had received so much that I had a debt to pay back to the Jewish people. In Egypt, I felt international and rejected religious belonging. However, in England I realized that I was ejected from Egypt because I was Jewish. In my exiled loneliness, foreigners came to help us because we were Jewish. I then understood where my place was and to which people I belonged.
We lived temporarily in Lausanne, my husband was reading William Shirer’s book on the genocide of European Jewry, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. He was shocked and accepted a proposal that came by chance to go to Morocco and secretly rescue Jewish children. Jews were forbidden then to leave Morocco. We went on a voluntary basis without being paid. My husband did not know how dangerous it was to work for a Zionist organization in a Muslim country, but I knew that we risked death or years in jail. I took my daughter with me, in my student straw bag, and was pregnant with my second daughter.
We went undercover as Christians working for a Swiss organization. There we were contacted by a Zionist underground which we didn’t know, was Israeli. My husband did a fantastic job and in a few months managed to send from Morocco to Israel, via Switzerland and France, 530 children. Their parents followed by other means. However, having accomplished that we had to leave in haste. That was Operation Mural, my husband’s code name. Recently, a film was done on Operation Mural and shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival in 2009. (Watch this You Tube Video excerpt). Israeli President Shimon Peres received us as did the whole Israeli and Israeli and Moroccan Jewish clandestine network involved in this operation. In 2009 my husband received the “Hero of Silence” Order from the Israel Intelligence Heritage & Commemoration Centre. It was a strong acknowledgment of his total dedication to this operation saving Moroccan Jewish children from bondage to bring them to freedom. We liked the Moroccans we met. However, we rejected the Jewish immigration policy of the King that forced us to act in the way we did.
David and Gisele Littman with grandaughter, 2nd Lt. Taïr; behind them: Gad Shahar, Carmit Gatmon, Shmuel Segev
(Photo: Ariane Littman)
Gordon: What prompted your life long scholarly investigations into Islamic Jihad and Dhimmitude – the treatment of non-Muslim minorities under Islam?
Bat Ye’or: I never expected I would do such research. I was a novelist writing a long historical novel on the Egyptian Jewish community and while reading hundreds of books and researching for this novel, I discovered the dhimmi condition. This book was refused by a publisher because the historical material was too heavy. I extracted it and wrote a short, factual historical book. I thought then that I would go back to my novel, but I developed the historical book for a Hebrew edition. Then I noticed that the ignorance on these topics were so immense that I decided to publish a book of documents. The French political and academic world was totally opposed to my views. It took me three years to find a publisher. I had to be very careful in writing Le Dhimmi. Strangley enough, Christians were more interested than Jews. They requested that I develop and research these same themes and I never went back to my novels. I realized that writing novels on the dhimmi, forced me to examine the documents through other perspectives than just historical, in order to penetrate the humanity, soul, and human experience of dhimmi – a study which I introduced into my writing.
Gordon: What is Dhimmitude and how did the term originate?
Bat Ye’or: The term originated when at the request of Lebanese Christian friends, I extended my research from the condition of the Jewish dhimmi to the Christian. I realized then that I had to deal with a total different situation. The impact of Islam on Christianity triggered mechanisms in every sector of the Christian state, demography, culture and society that aimed at transforming a Christian country, population and culture into an Islamic society. The phenomenon started always with a Muslim minority within a Christian majority and ended with a Muslim majority governing a Christian subdued minority on the way of its extinction. I studied the religious, juridical, demographical factors of these evolutions over 13th centuries and called these encompassing well structured mechanisms “dhimmitude.” Hence dhimmitude is a complex historical evolution linked to Islam’s relations with non-Muslims. It is correlated to the jihad ideology and jurisdiction and integrated into the shariah. It is rooted into the Koran, the Sunnah and the biographies of the Prophet Muhammad. In other words it is within the very core of Islam.
While I was doing my research, I was looking for a term that would contain all those complex interactions of correlated factors. I founded the word dhimmitude and I discussed it with my Lebanese friends without daring to write it in articles since I was so much abused just in using the word dhimmi. My friend spoke about this word to Bashir Gemayel who used it in his last speech before his assassination. Years later a Lebanese Christian told me that because Gemayel spoke of dhimmitude, Christians would then accept it, but that they would never had accepted it from me. I thought then that chance favored me because dhimmitude is the most important concept to understand in order to face the XXI century’s challenges.
Gordon: Over four decades you have published seminal works in the study of Dhimmitude, beginning in 1971 with Les Juifs en Egypte and The Dhimmi, translated into English in 1985, that established you as an international scholar. Could you outline the major historical themes of these works on Dhimmitude and the controversies they spawned?
Bat Ye’or: The major themes consist in studying the various and different levels of the process of religious, social and political Christian disintegration linked to dhimmitude. I also added the psychological elements which were not considered before. Countless works analyzed or just mentioned among other topics, the condition of Jews and Christians in Islam. My contribution into this domain was to make it into a special discipline and to give it a name. Naming objects or concepts provides the minds with conceptual tools allowing the classification of elements; they can then be recognized and placed into a structure.
I had already done this work with the dhimmi, and I was attacked because I made of the dhimmi condition a special category. For me it enters into a social, religious, legal category among others developed by human societies because it had a legal structure. It is not happening by chance. The dhimmi condition is integrated into a determined policy with its ideological and legal structure like the system of slavery or apartheid. Its constitutive elements can be recognized unchanged throughout the centuries and the lands where Islamic law is implemented.
Other critics were scandalized because I had put Jews and Christians together into the same dhimmi category. This was of course a political and racist view rooted in the conviction that Christians couldn’t be in the same category of the devilish Jews. The proponents of this opinion militated for a Christian-Muslim alliance against the Jews, whom they accused to cause conflicts between Muslims and them. My view on the dhimmi, a common condition for Jews and Christians together oppressed by the same Muslim law, followed by my conceptualization of dhimmitude, couldn’t be for them more horrific to them.
I also underlined the fact that the so-called protection granted to the dhimmi was a protection against the threats of jihad: death, slavery or forced conversion imposed by Muslim law on non Muslims. Hence the toleration came within a condemnation. Such protection does not deserve any admiration or gratitude from its victims, because it belongs to an unjust system that denies to non-Muslims the right to live. It is tolerant only in the Islamic conception of justice. If we say that it is tolerant, it implies that we agree with the first condition: the condemnation.
My discussion on the specificities of Islamic tolerance clarified the fallacies of this notion and its superficiality. This point also brought me many enemies since the belief in the justice of Islamic law and therefore in the justice of the system of dhimmitude is a religious obligation for Muslims and therefore for the cohorts of their supporters in the West. I recognize of course that my researches are far from being perfect and should be improved and corrected, but the controversies were more spawned by politics or antisemitism than by historical arguments.
My books also demonstrated that slavery was not practiced only by the West; Islam practiced it on a much larger and longer scale. Likewise the wars of conquest, colonialism and imperialism were much more pursued by Muslims than by Christians. Those historical facts were acrimoniously opposed by Europeans. My publications on the persecution of Christians in Muslim countries, raised suspicion and hate from Christian pro-palestinian sectors. All in all, my work couldn’t be more opposed to the European policy of alliances and integration with the Muslim world, based on a common Euro-Arab hatred of Israel. Europe was involved in the creation of Palestine and the weakening, the demise of Israel.
Gordon: You published an essay in the National Review in 2002 that led to a major work, Eurabia: The Euro –Arab Axis published in 2005. Could you tell us the origins of the term, your book’s principal thesis and its implications for the future of the EU, UK and even America?
Bat Ye’or: This term Eurabia was created by European politicians and intellectuals that militated from the late 1960s for the Palestinians and a Euro-Arab rapprochement, and even a Euro-Arab symbiosis around the Mediterranean. This movement was antisemitic and anti-American, it gathered many former Nazis and their supporters and collaborators in European countries. It was supported by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1973 it became an unofficial but organized policy of the European Community and its executive office, the European Commission, together with the Arab League.
My book examines the numerous official texts, policies and decisions generated by the ideology of Eurabia and their consequences in the countries of the European Community, on their domestic and international affairs. I analyze these transformations within the dhimmitude historical framework since the Muslim world’s relations with the non-Muslim world has not changed. The implications for the West are its Islamization and the destruction of the Judeo-Christian civilization, the phenomenon that I have examined in its historical development since the seven century in its various modalities throughout numerous lands.
Gordon: What do you believe is behind the condonment of Islamic doctrine, adoption of shariah, Islamic law, in Western legal systems and the rise of de facto self-governing Muslim areas in the EU and UK?
Bat Ye’or: There are many factors. First, Western demography is weak and our population are aging and rich. Moreover Westerners abhor wars. Two world wars produced genocides, hecatombs and incommensurable sufferings. Our Western leaders know perfectly well the history of jihad and its consequences on non-Muslims. Precisely for this reason, they chose a policy of appeasement and rapprochement with the Muslim world, taking also in consideration the economic and energy factors, as well as tactical alliances against other states. I do not think that the Eurabian project had foreseen the consequences of a massive Muslim presence in the West, but now our leaders cannot conceive another policy than submission, dhimmitude and Islamization of their own countries by multiculturalism and globalization. This policy adheres to materialist and opportunist considerations under the guise of humanitarian aims; it is devoid of any ethic and morality.
Gordon: How dangerous do you believe are those Stealth Jihad threats to the future of Western civilization and Judeo-Christian values?
Bat Ye’or: Stealth Jihad exists in every sectors of Western society, in law, culture, schools, universities, policies, banking, economics, medias. The aim is to destroy the Judeo-Christian values and to Islamized Western societies, following the thousand years of Islamic conquest of Christian lands. They are help in the West by the promoters of multiculturalism and the Left.
Gordon: Why in your view have EU elites and mainstream media dismissed the threats implied by Eurabia?
Bat Ye’or: Some dismissed them by personal political interests and lust; others because they wanted like the Nazis, to destroy the Christian civilization rooted in Judaism and loved Islam. Christian traitors joining and supporting the Muslim forces against their own people represent a permanent and strong current in the Muslim-Christian interactions and wars throughout history. Now, they are deadly afraid of terrorism if they dare change policy. As for the media, I consider that it obeys the orders of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) that represents the Ummah, the universal Muslim community. The OIC is working at all levels with European leaders and Western leaders. The blasphemy laws punishing the criticism of Islam are implemented in the West at the request of the OIC. Likewise European countries adopted a recent decision to teach religions in schools because the OIC insisted upon it.
Gordon: Who do you consider as allies in the EU and Americain furthering your Eurabia thesis of the threat of Islamization to the future of the West?
Bat Ye’or: Every European is aware of Europe’s transformation under the pressure of massive Muslim immigration. Some Muslims are perfectly integrated and oppose the Islamization of European school teaching, culture, law, society. No European or American well integrated in its Western and Judeo-Christian culture could possibly welcome its replacement by a Koranic shariah society, imposing its religious conception of history which affirms that jihad is just and resistance to jihad is aggression. Nor could he accept the discriminated condition of the women, the denial of the equality of human beings, and the restrictions on knowledge. Hence, to answer your questions, I would say that this problem, that has been obfuscated by our leaders for so long, is not my problem but a worry to all Westerners.
Gordon: You have developed the term “Palestinism?” Could you explain that term and why it is at the root of Europe’s decline and the isolation of Israel?
Bat Ye’or: Palestinism is a world policy initiated and imposed by the OIC and its Western allies that aims to transfer to Palestinian Muslims the history, and the cultural and religious heritage of the Jewish people. The origin of this belief is in the Koran which states that the Bible is a falsification and that the biblical figures, including Jesus and the apostles were all Muslim prophets who preached Islam. This theory suppresses Jewish and Christian history and legitimacy. Palestinism struggles to eliminate Israel and replace it by a Muslim Palestine since it is based on the Islamization of the Bible.
Palestinism is also a political and theological current working for the Islamization of Christianity by replacing its Jewish biblical roots by the Koranic interpretation of the Bible. The promoter of such theology is the Sabeel Christian Center in Jerusalem that teaches Christians the Islamic interpretation of the Bible.
Palestinism is at the base of the whole Eurabian construct, European dhimmitude and the submission of Western leaders. Palestinism encompasses all Western-Muslim relationships, this is the reason why the West has made the creation of Palestine and the destruction of Israel the most urgent topics of the planet. This is also in obedience to the OIC who made of Palestinism/antisemitism the base of its policy with the West and its subjugation. Support for the Palestinians is the guaranty for Europe’s security. Westerners have paid billions of jizya (tribut) to the Palestinians as a protection from terrorism. The OIC obliges the West to deny Israel’s rights and adopt the Islamic conception of history where Jewish and Christian rights to their history and culture are denied as we have seen recently with the Islamization of the Hebrew Patriarch tombs in Hebron by UNESCO.
Palestinism makes the destruction of Israel a universal duty.
Gordon: In the United States a grass roots movement has arisen seeking to bar adoption of Shariah Law in our American Legal system. Three States, Arizona, Louisiana and Tennessee, have enacted anti-Sharia laws. Other State legislatures are considering similar legislation. Do you view that as a positive sign, despite objections raised by Muslim Brotherhood front groups and civil liberties allies in the US?
Bat Ye’or: It is a positive sign because Shariah Law follows Koranic values that are opposed to ours and applies the Declaration of Human Rights in Islam which are in many ways contrary to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Gordon: Given the eruption of the Arab Spring in the Middle East, what do you see as the ultimate outcome?
Bat Ye’or: I am quite pessimist. There is no base or structure in any Arab country for democratic governments. The extremists and the Muslim Brotherhood will control the whole area and will work to re-establish the 7th century caliphate and its jihadist ideology of world conquest. Shariah and democracy are antinomic.
Gordon: How imperiled do you believe is America’s long term support for Israelin the wake of the Arab Spring?
Bat Ye’or: The enemy Israel is facing is America’s enemy, and if American do not understand it, America will disappear.
Gordon: Your new book, Europe, Globalization, and the Coming Universal Caliphate, expands upon your original thesis of Eurabia. Can that dark prospect somehow be reversed, and defeated?
Bat Ye’or: It can if the West understands the complex and various aspects of this confrontation, but we are far for that.
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