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Triple-pronged Jihad -- Military, Economic and Cultural
American Thinker, AZ
April 5th, 2005
[In a wide ranging interview with Islamic scholar Bat Ye'or comes a frank
discussion of Eurabia: what it is, and what it means for Americans.
Interview by Alyssa A. Lappen]
In her new book, Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, Bat Ye'or takes a sweeping
view of history, not the one that most of us consider, just past the ends of
our noses. The world's preeminent historian of two unique Islamic
institutions, jihad and dhimmitude~Wthe latter, the humiliated, precarious
state of non-Muslim peoples living under Islamic rule~WBat Ye'or has
masterfully portrayed the means by which the Euro-Arab Dialogue unfolded
over the past 30-plus years. ~SThere are three forms of jihad,~T she says
today, ~Sthe military jihad, the economic jihad and the cultural jihad.~T The
EAD between the European Community and the Arab League has been a means of
spreading [the] economic and cultural jihad from the Middle East to Europe.
In November 1967, Charles De Gaulle announced at a press conference that
henceforward, France would assume a pro-Arab policy. His goals were to
prevent a return to intra-European wars and to help France resume its
leading role in European politics and history. Little could he have imagined
the far-reaching results. De Gaulle died in November 1970, but in October
1973, following Egypt and Syria's war against Israel, Georges Pompidou
picked up his policy reigns and led Europe into the Euro-Arab Dialogue
(EAD), a process that took hold and changed the face of Europe for the
worse.
On French initiative, the European Community sought to open a Euro-Arab
Dialogue, but the Arab League for their part made any dialogue dependent on
the establishment of an anti-Israel policy in Europe.
Outraged that Israel had won the war against all odds, with help from the
U.S., the oil-producing members of the Arab League unilaterally quadrupled
the price of oil and cut production by 5 percent a month. Additionally, they
imposed an oil embargo on the nations considered friendly to Israel--the
U.S., Denmark and Holland. France and Germany panicked. On November 6, 1973,
the nine countries of the European Economic Community met in Brussels and
issued a joint resolution that reversed the intent and meaning of United
Nations Resolution 242, and declared illegal all territory Israel had gained
in its defensive 1967 war. Furthermore, the EEC demanded that henceforward
~Sthe legitimate rights of the Palestinian people~T be included in any
definition of peace.
Having met the Arab League's preliminary demands, the EC recouped the free
flow of oil embargoed to Holland and Denmark the month before. Furthermore,
the EC was now free to pursue the EAD. The agreement to open discussions,
however, came with further conditions. France and all other European
Community nations had to agree to adopt pro-Arab and anti-American policies.
Thus, the free flow of oil came with significant political riders. This
little known dialogue, which subsequently burgeoned into an enormous
EU-funded apparatus, thus began to plant the seeds of political, economic
and cultural jihad in Europe. Less than 30 years after the end of World War
II, it also revived some of the policies of the Nazis. The policies had
migrated to the Middle East during World War II and afterwards, with the
flight of Nazi fugitives to Egypt, Syria and other Arab nations. Now, Nazi
ideology found its way back into European politics through the EAD launch of
a unified European anti-Israel policy.
European leaders hoped through the EAD to create "a global alternative to
American power." The Arab powers hoped to promote Islam and anti-Israel
policies worldwide. What followed, in addition to Europe's mass importation
of Middle Eastern ideas and culture was also mass Muslim immigration into
Europe. Europe gained new markets~Wand free-flowing oil~Wbut at the cost of
lost political independence, and lost independence for European Community
member nations. Recently, reporter Alyssa A. Lappen interviewed Bat Ye'or on
the far-ranging implications of these developments.
Q. Was it intentional that the Euro-Arab Dialogue had these results?
A. Of course, on the Arab side, the [intentions and] decisions were very
clear from the beginning. The idea was to develop good relations with Europe
in order to separate Europe from America, weaken the West, encourage Arab
Muslim immigration into Europe, organize a militant Islamic community in
Europe, and develop a strong European Islam with political and intellectual
influence on European development.
On the European side, opinions varied according to political views. There is
no doubt that the French goal to establish Euro-Arab links stood on strong
anti-American and Judeophobic grounds. The European parties willing to
follow the French lead shared with the Arabs an antisemitic/anti-Zionist
policy. During the Second Wold War, and even before, links existed between
the Arab world and pro-Arab, European anti-Semites. The whole Arab
nationalist movement of the early 20th century was constructed and supported
with the rejection of Israel in mind. Ba'ath Party founder and convert to
Islam, Michel Aflak, from the 1930s opposed the existence of the state of
Israel on religious and political grounds. Opposition persisted even in
England, which sought the mandate from the League of Nations for the Jewish
National Homeland in Palestine. After WWII, the European rapprochement with
Arab countries was just a continuation of the anti-Zionist policies that had
started in the beginning of the 20th century.
Q. How could the European countries turn against their policies and reverse
the entire result of World War II and all their ideological gains. Wasn't
this a complete reversal?
A. There was no reversal. In Europe, the Holocaust was in preparation before
it happened. There was a powerful European transnational anti-Semitic
movement checked by those who opposed it, who didn't seek the disappearance
of the Jews and did not expect a genocide. But World War II brought to power
with the Nazi occupation, those anti-Semitic leaders who planned and
collaborated in the genocide throughout Europe. The genocide of the Jewish
people stopped only because the war stopped. But had the war continued, the
Holocaust also would have continued. In Europe, there was no desire to stop
it. It would have continued were it not for the Allies, who brought the war
to an end. But until the last moment, French Vichy government trains
throughout France carried Jewish children to the gas chambers. And Maurice
Papon, a Vichy government minister during World War II, headed important
ministries for the governments which followed after the war. Vichy
government civil servants were still powerful after the war. Some
intellectuals turned their coats, some were killed, some were condemned.
After the war De Gaulle proclaimed a new start and a reconciliation with
Germany. This was part of the process of promoting peace in post-war Europe.
But the whole of occupied Europe had been fascist, Nazi and anti-Semitic. So
less than 20 years after the war, this anti-Semitic movement tried to
re-establish relations with Arabs, who were pro-Nazi during the war and
favored the Nazi cause. Therefore, the contacts continued, although in a
more clandestine way.
Q. So really, you seem to be saying that the Marshall plan was not
completely successful.
A. After the war, it was taboo to speak about the camps. The first books on
the Holocaust were published in America. A traumatized European Jewry could
not evoke this situation.
Now concerning the economy, the Marshall plan helped to reunite Europe and
reconstruct it. But there were strong Communist parties also, which were
hostile to America. So many Nazis recycled into the Communist and leftist
parties. This was a change, of course. They whitewashed themselves.
Q. Were there Europeans and European policy makers who opposed this
Euro-Arab Dialogue and fought it.
A. Yes, there were people who opposed the shift of Europe, and especially in
France. But the French government was the engine running this policy. If
France had not taken the lead to organize the unity of Europe as a
counterweight to America, and to build a Euro-Arab block against America,
the Euro-Arab Dialogue would not have happened. This is just a hypothesis.
But France took the lead because of strong affinities in the French colonial
class with the Maghreb. France had previously controlled all the Maghrebian
countries, Syria and Lebanon as well as African Muslim territories. Also,
France kept its relations with [indicted WWII criminal] Hajj Amin el
Husseini, a fervent collaborator with Hitler. De Gaulle saved Husseini from
the Nuremberg tribunal.
Q. I didn't know that.
A. Husseini was in Germany when the Allies arrived. He was handed over to
the Red Cross and he surrendered to the French forces stationed in Germany.
In May 1945 he was brought to France with Marshall Pétain. So Husseini was
controlled and protected by France. The British were searching for him to
judge him at the Nuremberg trial for his alliance with Hitler and his
collaboration in the genocide of the Jews. A year later De Gaulle's French
government helped him escape to Egypt. According to Husseini's memoir, he
promised that France could win the sympathy of the whole Arab people if it
established and led a European policy opposing Great Britain and Israel.
Talks on this matter started after the Second World War. At the time, De
Gaulle was Israel's best ally. But in the 1950s, many Nazis immigrated to
the Arab countries, especially Egypt and Syria, they maintained their
relations with French Nazi collaborationists and European neo-Nazis. In the
60s and early 70s, France took an increasingly anti-Israeli position. In
1971 it established a close relationship with Qaddafi's and engaged in
massive arm sales to Arab countries. Economic and political links developed.
By 1971, France had brought the European Community to share its pro-Arab
views.
Denmark and Holland were reluctant to follow the French anti-Israel line.
But at this time there was no united European community foreign policy. The
European Community was only based on economic agreements. There was no
common political vision.
In fact, it was only after the 1973 Kippur war, that this policy developed
thanks to French initiative. By then there were 9 countries in the European
community. For the first time they adopted a common foreign policy in
relation to the Arab world and based on oil. After the oil boycott imposed
by the Arabs, they linked Europe's oil supply to European support for the
PLO, Arafat and an anti-Israeli policy. As a condition for the start of a
Dialogue with the Europeans, they requested that the anti-Israeli policy be
linked to the economic sector of Euro-Arab exchanges. Hence the Dialogue
came to rest on two pillars, anti-American and anti-Israel policies. It is
absolutely extraordinary that less than 30 years after the end of World War
II, after America had saved Europe from destruction, the common European
Community foreign policy was based on an anti-Israel and anti-American
strategy. And from this followed the whole development that we see now.
Q. The thing that strikes me the most is how the EAD relates to the history
of Jihad. In the Decline of Eastern Christianity, it was clear that the
jihad was economic from the beginning. So this EAD did not just evolve in
the 1970s. First you buy off the ministers, then you send economic envoys,
then you pollute the political system, then you send the horsemen, and then
the whole society collapses.
A. Yes, the jihad is an ideological war, which is based on theology, its aim
was to conquer lands and impose the Koranic law. Often the tactic includes
the corruption of leaders. Terror is also a means of jihad: terrorized
people submit. In past centuries the corrupted leaders often opened the
city~Rs gates to the jihadist armies. Corruption is also used to encourage
conversions, particularly among high officials. And you have many
conversions now in Europe.
Q. Now?
A. Yes. Many people have converted to Islam. Some by conviction, some by
opportunism. They leave a civilization and a culture that they hate and join
one that they view as a winning one. There are many reasons why people
convert. Today Islam recruits in jails but also among intellectuals.
Q. But what about the leadership. Is it merely corruption?
A. There are different reasons. In Europe, the romantic view of Lawrence of
Arabia idealizes Islam. And thanks to the cultural components of the
Euro-Arab Dialogue - which encompasses many sectors - every book speaks
about the grandeur of the Islamic civilization, its superiority to Western
civilization [Note: this 12th century map serves as the cover to an official
publication of the Dialogue; it shows the Mediterranean literally turned
upside down, with the Arab world in a dominant position, situated above the
the geographic north of infidel Europe.] There is a whole apologetic
cultural trend about Islam, an ideological movement that glorifies it. Young
people are influenced. This developed in the 70s and 80s within the
Dialogue, raising an enthusiasm for Islam. It has led to several conversions
of intellectuals and politicians. The churches were also very pro-Islamic,
because they saw a way, in linking with Islam, to reconcile Islam and
Christianity against Israel. Much of the church was very anti-Semitic, in
spite of the Second Vatican Council in 1962 to 1965. In fact there were
those inside the church who opposed the rapprochement with the Jews. It was
not an easy thing. Priests who fought strongly for the reconciliation did
not succeed as well as they hoped. They just opened a door for
reconciliation, but they had to fight to keep the door open against the
opponents.
Q. Who are some of these people who have been converting.
A. Many are neo-fascists or neo-nazis or ex-communists. Many also come from
the extreme Left. The Italian Mario Scialoja was responsible for the Italian
section of the World Islamic League. Its vice-president for the Italian
section was also a convert. Converts gets money and prominent positions in
European Islam. They direct Islamic centers, publishing houses and
newspapers. Some collaborate with the powerful Muslim Brotherhood and are
viscerally anti-Christian and anti-Jewish.
Q. How did De Gaulle get this change going.
A. First, all this was not done until after his death. In 1967, de Gaulle
declared that the policy of France would be fundamentally an Arab policy.
But he died in November 1970. The whole thing started in 1973 under his
successors. The French did not like this policy, but it was a slow, gradual
movement.
Q. And even now, most Europeans do not know.
A. No, not about the Euro-Arab Dialogue. Some know the Mediterranean
partnership. But except for those involved in this policy, they do not know
about the Anna Lindh Foundation [to promote ~Sunderstanding between Europe
and the countries around the Mediterranean and the Middle East]. Europeans
work hard, there is much unemployment and they absorb the culture from the
media and television. Disinformation all around supports the pro-Arab
policy. Anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism are congenial to Palestinianism,
the new culture of Europe.
Q. What is of concern is that one sees the same thing already happening
here. The media is pro-Arab, it is impossible to get them to change, even
with the facts. The whole ideological aura has already infiltrated the press
and the universities.
A. You have to expose the cultural jihad, and discuss its consequences in
Europe, and the sub-culture of lies from which it is growing. The lies are
crumbling now as the jihadist ideology and war against the Western world
become more apparent. In fact, Europe has denied its own roots and the
spring from which its spiritual Biblical values emerged. It is a denial of
one~Rs own spirituality and sources. Now, in Europe, Israel is a demonized
word, a confiscated reality. European governments created an anti-Semitic
culture in order to integrate the Muslim immigration, but they have absorbed
also the values of a jihadist society. This is why Europe is
intellectually and spiritually confused and disoriented. You cannot ally
with jihadist forces that want to destroy you intellectually, spiritually
and politically, without being destroyed, and this is what is happening.
Q. Then why do you say the whole thing is crumbling. Clearly they are
winning.
A. There is so much hatred now in Europe, so many lies, so much confusion,
that people don't know where they are going. They don't understand what is
happening. They don't understand why they have to hate America, Israel and
why they have to hate themselves. They have no view of the future except the
economic extension of the EU. Our leaders commend that every effort should
be made to integrate the foreign immigrants. It is not the foreigners that
have to adapt in a country they have chosen to come. Foreigners were given
the right to immigrate with their own culture. So they have imported the
seeds of the culture of dhimmitude into Europe. This is their culture, this
is the type of relationship they had with Jews and Christians and they
brought it with them. This was the culture in which they were educated, and
this is what creates so much confusion in Europe.
Q. Europe is completely lost and nothing can be done?
A. I don't see a solution. Europeans are not reproducing. Soon, the 60- and
70-year-olds will die. And there are no Europeans to replace them. Suddenly,
millions of Europeans won't be there any more. And against that loss is a
mounting immigrant population, which refuses totally to integrate into a
society many hate. In some schools, the new generation rejects the
curriculum, under the pretext that it is not an Islamic history or culture,
or that it is a Judeo-Christian perspective. In a few years they will be
adults and have political power. Laws and institutions will change, already
there are pressures in schools and hospitals for sex segregation. Polygamy
is unofficially tolerated.
Q. So 15 million Arab Muslims out of 350 million can do this? Change an
entire continent? It's only 15 million.
A. No, it is over 20 million, but in fact you don't know their number,
because it is impossible in some countries to take a census on a religious
basis, and anyway there are always new immigrant waves, this is without
counting the clandestine ones, those who come without papers.
Q. So it could be 50 million.
A. I don't know, no one knows. It is not so much the number that counts, it
is the will to take the power, and to dominate. At the beginning of each
[historical Islamic] conquest, the Muslims were a very small minority. But
this colonizing minority became masters over overwhelming Christian
majorities.
Q. Let's talk about the universities because the same thing is beginning to
happen in the U.S. We have professors coming from the Middle East, spouting
anti-Israeli, anti-American propaganda, funded by the Saudis, and it is
getting very difficult to open your mouth in the universities.
A. Palestinianism started in the universities in Europe in the late 1960s.
The whole Left was pro-Palestinian because the Soviets supported them and
gave them training camps and arms to conduct their terrorist activities. The
agreements between the European and Arab leaders included in the Euro-Arab
Dialogue, mention that the Arabic civilization and Middle Eastern subjects
should be taught in European universities by Arabs from the Arab countries.
The Arab perspective of history whereby jihad was a peaceful conquest - not
really even a conquest - but a just war against unbelief, was imported
into European universities. The idealized Muslim vision of history, and
Islam's conception of tolerance towards infidels entered into the
educational system. This partial vision exists also here on campuses.
Q. I think it is, and you starting to see these Islamic centers, with Middle
Eastern professors coming.
A. [Philosopher and theologian] Jacques Ellul was totally opposed to what he
called ~Sthe subversion of Western culture,~T but his views caused him to be
marginalized by the Protestant church, the university, and the press. Many
people shared his opinion, but they were silenced by the network of the
Euro-Arab Dialogue supported by the government~Rs policy and the powerful
European Commission. Through the network of the EAD the Muslim policy and
culture infiltrated into the highest political and cultural levels in
European countries members of the EC. This is why it succeeded so well.
Q. Look, you could see something similar happen here, with the President's
nomination to the U.S. Institute of Peace. Daniel Pipes as you know was
nominated to that, but there was a huge war against his nomination, and
finally, the President appointed him by executive order during a summer
recess. But there are Islamists seeping into that institution and elsewhere
into the upper echelons of government. What can Americans do?
A. The history of jihad must be taught according to the Western perspective.
And the same for dhimmitude, its development and consequences. This is
extremely important, to prevent a return to the condition of dhimmitude.
Unfortunately, an institute to study the history of jihad and dhimmitude
worldwide has not been established.
Q. So you think an institute would help.
A. Of course. In Europe, this history has been totally erased, in order to
please the Muslim world. The Islamic view is taught whereby conquests were
achieved through peaceful means, with tolerance, which is the contrary to
the reality. In Europe, the Muslim groups always accuse the West, and take a
tack that makes them victims and victimized. All evil is projected on the
West and on Israel, and this vision gives the West a feeling of guilt
towards Arabs. In fact, what Arabs have done with the help of European
intellectuals engaged in the Euro-Arab Dialogue is to project the Jewish
history of victimhood onto the Arabs, in order to neutralize the West. They
have usurped the history of another people to create guilt among Western
countries and paralyze them. This process has eliminated the whole history
of jihad. We see that Europeans are incapable of understanding their past,
or even the current situation. This work was begun by Edward Said who
promoted European guilt toward the Arabs and Muslim people. He was totally
supported by high level governmental bodies and European universities.
Otherwise he would not have achieved such fame, his position being based on
historical ignorance and anti-Western racism.
Q. Could you briefly explain the history of jihad and dhimmitude.
A. The history of jihad started in the 7th century with the Islamic religion
and the conquests of Arabia by the followers of Mohamed. Arabia was
inhabited by a pagan majority, but there were also a great number of
Christians and Jewish peasants and artisans who cultivated the oases there.
Mohamed started his war against the pagans in Arabia, who opposed his
beliefs. He fled to Medina, where Jewish tribes lived. On their refusal to
convert to his belief, he attacked them and either expelled them or, as in
the case of the Qurayza tribe, he executed all the men and sold the women
and children into slavery. Then Mohamed continued his war to impose Islam on
the whole of Arabia. Finally, just before he died, he had converted the
whole of Arabia to his religion. Now Mohamed's tactic was in fact patterned
on the normal means of Bedouin war. But the founders of Islamic law
established a whole school, a jurisdictional process by which they made this
warfare into a sacred obligation to conduct a worldwide war against the
realm of unbelief. This ideology inspired from the life of Mohamed, either
true or invented, based on Koran, the hadith and the biographies of the
Prophet, became the sacred duties of jihad in order to Islamize the world.
Now the ideology and laws of jihad represent a system founded on Islamic
theological belief.
This is how jihad developed. Since then, the Arab armies were bent on always
conquering more territories in order to expand the rule of the Koran over
the earth. They conquered all the Christians lands west of Arabia in the
Middle East. They invaded Egypt, Syria, Palestine and the Maghreb. These
lands inhabited by Jews and Christians, were Islamized through different
procedures. Arab conquests expanded to Iberia (Spain) in Europe, Portugal
and up to France and Switzerland and were stopped in Poitiers in the 8th
century. In the East, the Muslim armies conquered Persia, Armenia and part
of the Byzantine empire, which was later totally dominated by the Turkish
tribes converted to Islam. Then, further East, Muslim power expanded in
Afghanistan to the Indus. From the 11th century, there was a second wave of
Islamization, which concentrated on Europe. Under the Ottomans it advanced
to the borders of Poland and Hungary and occupied the whole of Eastern
European countries who became part of the Muslim empire. The Ottomans were
stopped at the gates of Vienna in 1683.
All these lands were, at the beginning, populated by non-Muslim people. At
this time, these lands had armies and kings. The kings were deposed and the
armies disbanded, but the population stayed in the cities and the
countryside. So once a land has been Islamized, the whole colonization
process took place. These processes were based on legal texts written by
Arab theologians in the 8th and 9th centuries. The system of dhimmitude is
congenial with Muslim colonization. Non-Muslim majorities were either
totally eliminated or survived as small minorities, heirs of the big
civilizations that they represented before the conquest. The process of
dhimmitude, is of course linked to jihad.
Q. Let's talk about the economic portion of this war.
A. Well, first of all, terrorism destroys civilized life and the prevention
of terrorism is very expensive. Now with the weapons of mass destruction it
is possible to kill thousands of people at once and control a population by
terrorism. It happened in Spain. Zapatero, the President of the Spanish
government, like a dhimmi, pulled the Spanish army from Iraq and went to
Morocco to proclaim his love for Morocco and Islam. He said he would not
deal with terrorism through arms, but by giving aid. Paying money for your
security means ransoming. This is the policy of Europe.
Q. It is the policy of the U.S. also. We have given $50 billion to Egypt,
and they hate us. And a few hundred billion to all the other Arab countries,
probably, so it dwarfs any aid to Israel. Is this a bad thing?
A. It is bad policy to feed those who hate you. The help that is given must
be appreciated, because it is paid through the work of other people.
Government should not squander the money of the European taxpayers, who are
deprived of many services to which they are entitled for their work. The
European Union has paid billions to Arafat during the intifada. The more the
Palestinian terrorists killed Israelis, the more money they received. To the
Arabs, this is encouragement to continue.
Q. It seems that the U.S. government must be made aware that an economic
jihad is also a means to wage war.
A. Yes, jihad takes different forms. The military jihad is waged through
terrorism. The cultural jihad is done in the universities through the
subversion of western values. It developed under the aegis of the Euro-Arab
Dialogue. The economic jihad used the oil boycott. Arab countries rely
heavily on oil exports. Their economy is very dependent on Western products.
It is important to reduce our dependency on the Arab countries' oil, in
order to free ourselves from the economic jihad.
Q. Does corruption of officials that go with the jihad. Do you see any of
that in the U.S.?
A. Well, in the U.S. you have a different system, you have a much stronger
democracy. The people can control the policy of the government. It is under
strong scrutiny. But this is not so in Europe. The policy of Europe is
conducted at the top level, and this escaped the people's scrutiny. They do
not understand what is happening. And the whole foreign policy of the
Euro-Arab Dialogue was conducted by the European Community, the European
Counsel of Ministers, the European Parliament and the European Commission,
which are different bodies than each European country government.
Q. Right, but in the U.S. we also have the World Bank, the North American
Free Trade Agreement which is going to be expanded to South America, and I
presume that will have links to the EU and those things are not followed
here, either.
A. We live in a global world, and international organizations develop.
Americans should be aware of these developments and be diffident of the
United Nations, which is an extremely corrupted organization, which works
according to different standards. Here, it must be clearly stated that the
Arab Muslim countries, 56 countries, and the Palestinian Authority, which
will become a state soon, probably, operate according to Koranic justice,
which is not what we consider justice. It is based on the superiority of
Islam over non-Muslim countries, it justifies jihad and jihadists' values.
Those whom we call terrorists, are called freedom fighters, because fighting
against non-Muslims countries is a ~Sjust war~T. This is why the Palestinians
have a ~Sjust cause~T and conduct a ~Sjust war.~T The same in Darfur, in Sudan.
As long as we have different values, it will be difficult to agree on what
is just. For Muslim countries, Sharia rules take precedence over any other
rules, especially over man-made rules. They consider Western rules inferior
to their God given rules. For this reason, America is right to refuse to
participate in the International Court of Justice, which is dominated by
Islamic and European nations, both abiding to the Islamic principles of
justice.
Alyssa A. Lappen
--Boundary_(ID_TdtsoV/tcJEayTAR948xfg)--
American Thinker, AZ
April 5th, 2005
[In a wide ranging interview with Islamic scholar Bat Ye'or comes a frank
discussion of Eurabia: what it is, and what it means for Americans.
Interview by Alyssa A. Lappen]
In her new book, Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, Bat Ye'or takes a sweeping
view of history, not the one that most of us consider, just past the ends of
our noses. The world's preeminent historian of two unique Islamic
institutions, jihad and dhimmitude~Wthe latter, the humiliated, precarious
state of non-Muslim peoples living under Islamic rule~WBat Ye'or has
masterfully portrayed the means by which the Euro-Arab Dialogue unfolded
over the past 30-plus years. ~SThere are three forms of jihad,~T she says
today, ~Sthe military jihad, the economic jihad and the cultural jihad.~T The
EAD between the European Community and the Arab League has been a means of
spreading [the] economic and cultural jihad from the Middle East to Europe.
In November 1967, Charles De Gaulle announced at a press conference that
henceforward, France would assume a pro-Arab policy. His goals were to
prevent a return to intra-European wars and to help France resume its
leading role in European politics and history. Little could he have imagined
the far-reaching results. De Gaulle died in November 1970, but in October
1973, following Egypt and Syria's war against Israel, Georges Pompidou
picked up his policy reigns and led Europe into the Euro-Arab Dialogue
(EAD), a process that took hold and changed the face of Europe for the
worse.
On French initiative, the European Community sought to open a Euro-Arab
Dialogue, but the Arab League for their part made any dialogue dependent on
the establishment of an anti-Israel policy in Europe.
Outraged that Israel had won the war against all odds, with help from the
U.S., the oil-producing members of the Arab League unilaterally quadrupled
the price of oil and cut production by 5 percent a month. Additionally, they
imposed an oil embargo on the nations considered friendly to Israel--the
U.S., Denmark and Holland. France and Germany panicked. On November 6, 1973,
the nine countries of the European Economic Community met in Brussels and
issued a joint resolution that reversed the intent and meaning of United
Nations Resolution 242, and declared illegal all territory Israel had gained
in its defensive 1967 war. Furthermore, the EEC demanded that henceforward
~Sthe legitimate rights of the Palestinian people~T be included in any
definition of peace.
Having met the Arab League's preliminary demands, the EC recouped the free
flow of oil embargoed to Holland and Denmark the month before. Furthermore,
the EC was now free to pursue the EAD. The agreement to open discussions,
however, came with further conditions. France and all other European
Community nations had to agree to adopt pro-Arab and anti-American policies.
Thus, the free flow of oil came with significant political riders. This
little known dialogue, which subsequently burgeoned into an enormous
EU-funded apparatus, thus began to plant the seeds of political, economic
and cultural jihad in Europe. Less than 30 years after the end of World War
II, it also revived some of the policies of the Nazis. The policies had
migrated to the Middle East during World War II and afterwards, with the
flight of Nazi fugitives to Egypt, Syria and other Arab nations. Now, Nazi
ideology found its way back into European politics through the EAD launch of
a unified European anti-Israel policy.
European leaders hoped through the EAD to create "a global alternative to
American power." The Arab powers hoped to promote Islam and anti-Israel
policies worldwide. What followed, in addition to Europe's mass importation
of Middle Eastern ideas and culture was also mass Muslim immigration into
Europe. Europe gained new markets~Wand free-flowing oil~Wbut at the cost of
lost political independence, and lost independence for European Community
member nations. Recently, reporter Alyssa A. Lappen interviewed Bat Ye'or on
the far-ranging implications of these developments.
Q. Was it intentional that the Euro-Arab Dialogue had these results?
A. Of course, on the Arab side, the [intentions and] decisions were very
clear from the beginning. The idea was to develop good relations with Europe
in order to separate Europe from America, weaken the West, encourage Arab
Muslim immigration into Europe, organize a militant Islamic community in
Europe, and develop a strong European Islam with political and intellectual
influence on European development.
On the European side, opinions varied according to political views. There is
no doubt that the French goal to establish Euro-Arab links stood on strong
anti-American and Judeophobic grounds. The European parties willing to
follow the French lead shared with the Arabs an antisemitic/anti-Zionist
policy. During the Second Wold War, and even before, links existed between
the Arab world and pro-Arab, European anti-Semites. The whole Arab
nationalist movement of the early 20th century was constructed and supported
with the rejection of Israel in mind. Ba'ath Party founder and convert to
Islam, Michel Aflak, from the 1930s opposed the existence of the state of
Israel on religious and political grounds. Opposition persisted even in
England, which sought the mandate from the League of Nations for the Jewish
National Homeland in Palestine. After WWII, the European rapprochement with
Arab countries was just a continuation of the anti-Zionist policies that had
started in the beginning of the 20th century.
Q. How could the European countries turn against their policies and reverse
the entire result of World War II and all their ideological gains. Wasn't
this a complete reversal?
A. There was no reversal. In Europe, the Holocaust was in preparation before
it happened. There was a powerful European transnational anti-Semitic
movement checked by those who opposed it, who didn't seek the disappearance
of the Jews and did not expect a genocide. But World War II brought to power
with the Nazi occupation, those anti-Semitic leaders who planned and
collaborated in the genocide throughout Europe. The genocide of the Jewish
people stopped only because the war stopped. But had the war continued, the
Holocaust also would have continued. In Europe, there was no desire to stop
it. It would have continued were it not for the Allies, who brought the war
to an end. But until the last moment, French Vichy government trains
throughout France carried Jewish children to the gas chambers. And Maurice
Papon, a Vichy government minister during World War II, headed important
ministries for the governments which followed after the war. Vichy
government civil servants were still powerful after the war. Some
intellectuals turned their coats, some were killed, some were condemned.
After the war De Gaulle proclaimed a new start and a reconciliation with
Germany. This was part of the process of promoting peace in post-war Europe.
But the whole of occupied Europe had been fascist, Nazi and anti-Semitic. So
less than 20 years after the war, this anti-Semitic movement tried to
re-establish relations with Arabs, who were pro-Nazi during the war and
favored the Nazi cause. Therefore, the contacts continued, although in a
more clandestine way.
Q. So really, you seem to be saying that the Marshall plan was not
completely successful.
A. After the war, it was taboo to speak about the camps. The first books on
the Holocaust were published in America. A traumatized European Jewry could
not evoke this situation.
Now concerning the economy, the Marshall plan helped to reunite Europe and
reconstruct it. But there were strong Communist parties also, which were
hostile to America. So many Nazis recycled into the Communist and leftist
parties. This was a change, of course. They whitewashed themselves.
Q. Were there Europeans and European policy makers who opposed this
Euro-Arab Dialogue and fought it.
A. Yes, there were people who opposed the shift of Europe, and especially in
France. But the French government was the engine running this policy. If
France had not taken the lead to organize the unity of Europe as a
counterweight to America, and to build a Euro-Arab block against America,
the Euro-Arab Dialogue would not have happened. This is just a hypothesis.
But France took the lead because of strong affinities in the French colonial
class with the Maghreb. France had previously controlled all the Maghrebian
countries, Syria and Lebanon as well as African Muslim territories. Also,
France kept its relations with [indicted WWII criminal] Hajj Amin el
Husseini, a fervent collaborator with Hitler. De Gaulle saved Husseini from
the Nuremberg tribunal.
Q. I didn't know that.
A. Husseini was in Germany when the Allies arrived. He was handed over to
the Red Cross and he surrendered to the French forces stationed in Germany.
In May 1945 he was brought to France with Marshall Pétain. So Husseini was
controlled and protected by France. The British were searching for him to
judge him at the Nuremberg trial for his alliance with Hitler and his
collaboration in the genocide of the Jews. A year later De Gaulle's French
government helped him escape to Egypt. According to Husseini's memoir, he
promised that France could win the sympathy of the whole Arab people if it
established and led a European policy opposing Great Britain and Israel.
Talks on this matter started after the Second World War. At the time, De
Gaulle was Israel's best ally. But in the 1950s, many Nazis immigrated to
the Arab countries, especially Egypt and Syria, they maintained their
relations with French Nazi collaborationists and European neo-Nazis. In the
60s and early 70s, France took an increasingly anti-Israeli position. In
1971 it established a close relationship with Qaddafi's and engaged in
massive arm sales to Arab countries. Economic and political links developed.
By 1971, France had brought the European Community to share its pro-Arab
views.
Denmark and Holland were reluctant to follow the French anti-Israel line.
But at this time there was no united European community foreign policy. The
European Community was only based on economic agreements. There was no
common political vision.
In fact, it was only after the 1973 Kippur war, that this policy developed
thanks to French initiative. By then there were 9 countries in the European
community. For the first time they adopted a common foreign policy in
relation to the Arab world and based on oil. After the oil boycott imposed
by the Arabs, they linked Europe's oil supply to European support for the
PLO, Arafat and an anti-Israeli policy. As a condition for the start of a
Dialogue with the Europeans, they requested that the anti-Israeli policy be
linked to the economic sector of Euro-Arab exchanges. Hence the Dialogue
came to rest on two pillars, anti-American and anti-Israel policies. It is
absolutely extraordinary that less than 30 years after the end of World War
II, after America had saved Europe from destruction, the common European
Community foreign policy was based on an anti-Israel and anti-American
strategy. And from this followed the whole development that we see now.
Q. The thing that strikes me the most is how the EAD relates to the history
of Jihad. In the Decline of Eastern Christianity, it was clear that the
jihad was economic from the beginning. So this EAD did not just evolve in
the 1970s. First you buy off the ministers, then you send economic envoys,
then you pollute the political system, then you send the horsemen, and then
the whole society collapses.
A. Yes, the jihad is an ideological war, which is based on theology, its aim
was to conquer lands and impose the Koranic law. Often the tactic includes
the corruption of leaders. Terror is also a means of jihad: terrorized
people submit. In past centuries the corrupted leaders often opened the
city~Rs gates to the jihadist armies. Corruption is also used to encourage
conversions, particularly among high officials. And you have many
conversions now in Europe.
Q. Now?
A. Yes. Many people have converted to Islam. Some by conviction, some by
opportunism. They leave a civilization and a culture that they hate and join
one that they view as a winning one. There are many reasons why people
convert. Today Islam recruits in jails but also among intellectuals.
Q. But what about the leadership. Is it merely corruption?
A. There are different reasons. In Europe, the romantic view of Lawrence of
Arabia idealizes Islam. And thanks to the cultural components of the
Euro-Arab Dialogue - which encompasses many sectors - every book speaks
about the grandeur of the Islamic civilization, its superiority to Western
civilization [Note: this 12th century map serves as the cover to an official
publication of the Dialogue; it shows the Mediterranean literally turned
upside down, with the Arab world in a dominant position, situated above the
the geographic north of infidel Europe.] There is a whole apologetic
cultural trend about Islam, an ideological movement that glorifies it. Young
people are influenced. This developed in the 70s and 80s within the
Dialogue, raising an enthusiasm for Islam. It has led to several conversions
of intellectuals and politicians. The churches were also very pro-Islamic,
because they saw a way, in linking with Islam, to reconcile Islam and
Christianity against Israel. Much of the church was very anti-Semitic, in
spite of the Second Vatican Council in 1962 to 1965. In fact there were
those inside the church who opposed the rapprochement with the Jews. It was
not an easy thing. Priests who fought strongly for the reconciliation did
not succeed as well as they hoped. They just opened a door for
reconciliation, but they had to fight to keep the door open against the
opponents.
Q. Who are some of these people who have been converting.
A. Many are neo-fascists or neo-nazis or ex-communists. Many also come from
the extreme Left. The Italian Mario Scialoja was responsible for the Italian
section of the World Islamic League. Its vice-president for the Italian
section was also a convert. Converts gets money and prominent positions in
European Islam. They direct Islamic centers, publishing houses and
newspapers. Some collaborate with the powerful Muslim Brotherhood and are
viscerally anti-Christian and anti-Jewish.
Q. How did De Gaulle get this change going.
A. First, all this was not done until after his death. In 1967, de Gaulle
declared that the policy of France would be fundamentally an Arab policy.
But he died in November 1970. The whole thing started in 1973 under his
successors. The French did not like this policy, but it was a slow, gradual
movement.
Q. And even now, most Europeans do not know.
A. No, not about the Euro-Arab Dialogue. Some know the Mediterranean
partnership. But except for those involved in this policy, they do not know
about the Anna Lindh Foundation [to promote ~Sunderstanding between Europe
and the countries around the Mediterranean and the Middle East]. Europeans
work hard, there is much unemployment and they absorb the culture from the
media and television. Disinformation all around supports the pro-Arab
policy. Anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism are congenial to Palestinianism,
the new culture of Europe.
Q. What is of concern is that one sees the same thing already happening
here. The media is pro-Arab, it is impossible to get them to change, even
with the facts. The whole ideological aura has already infiltrated the press
and the universities.
A. You have to expose the cultural jihad, and discuss its consequences in
Europe, and the sub-culture of lies from which it is growing. The lies are
crumbling now as the jihadist ideology and war against the Western world
become more apparent. In fact, Europe has denied its own roots and the
spring from which its spiritual Biblical values emerged. It is a denial of
one~Rs own spirituality and sources. Now, in Europe, Israel is a demonized
word, a confiscated reality. European governments created an anti-Semitic
culture in order to integrate the Muslim immigration, but they have absorbed
also the values of a jihadist society. This is why Europe is
intellectually and spiritually confused and disoriented. You cannot ally
with jihadist forces that want to destroy you intellectually, spiritually
and politically, without being destroyed, and this is what is happening.
Q. Then why do you say the whole thing is crumbling. Clearly they are
winning.
A. There is so much hatred now in Europe, so many lies, so much confusion,
that people don't know where they are going. They don't understand what is
happening. They don't understand why they have to hate America, Israel and
why they have to hate themselves. They have no view of the future except the
economic extension of the EU. Our leaders commend that every effort should
be made to integrate the foreign immigrants. It is not the foreigners that
have to adapt in a country they have chosen to come. Foreigners were given
the right to immigrate with their own culture. So they have imported the
seeds of the culture of dhimmitude into Europe. This is their culture, this
is the type of relationship they had with Jews and Christians and they
brought it with them. This was the culture in which they were educated, and
this is what creates so much confusion in Europe.
Q. Europe is completely lost and nothing can be done?
A. I don't see a solution. Europeans are not reproducing. Soon, the 60- and
70-year-olds will die. And there are no Europeans to replace them. Suddenly,
millions of Europeans won't be there any more. And against that loss is a
mounting immigrant population, which refuses totally to integrate into a
society many hate. In some schools, the new generation rejects the
curriculum, under the pretext that it is not an Islamic history or culture,
or that it is a Judeo-Christian perspective. In a few years they will be
adults and have political power. Laws and institutions will change, already
there are pressures in schools and hospitals for sex segregation. Polygamy
is unofficially tolerated.
Q. So 15 million Arab Muslims out of 350 million can do this? Change an
entire continent? It's only 15 million.
A. No, it is over 20 million, but in fact you don't know their number,
because it is impossible in some countries to take a census on a religious
basis, and anyway there are always new immigrant waves, this is without
counting the clandestine ones, those who come without papers.
Q. So it could be 50 million.
A. I don't know, no one knows. It is not so much the number that counts, it
is the will to take the power, and to dominate. At the beginning of each
[historical Islamic] conquest, the Muslims were a very small minority. But
this colonizing minority became masters over overwhelming Christian
majorities.
Q. Let's talk about the universities because the same thing is beginning to
happen in the U.S. We have professors coming from the Middle East, spouting
anti-Israeli, anti-American propaganda, funded by the Saudis, and it is
getting very difficult to open your mouth in the universities.
A. Palestinianism started in the universities in Europe in the late 1960s.
The whole Left was pro-Palestinian because the Soviets supported them and
gave them training camps and arms to conduct their terrorist activities. The
agreements between the European and Arab leaders included in the Euro-Arab
Dialogue, mention that the Arabic civilization and Middle Eastern subjects
should be taught in European universities by Arabs from the Arab countries.
The Arab perspective of history whereby jihad was a peaceful conquest - not
really even a conquest - but a just war against unbelief, was imported
into European universities. The idealized Muslim vision of history, and
Islam's conception of tolerance towards infidels entered into the
educational system. This partial vision exists also here on campuses.
Q. I think it is, and you starting to see these Islamic centers, with Middle
Eastern professors coming.
A. [Philosopher and theologian] Jacques Ellul was totally opposed to what he
called ~Sthe subversion of Western culture,~T but his views caused him to be
marginalized by the Protestant church, the university, and the press. Many
people shared his opinion, but they were silenced by the network of the
Euro-Arab Dialogue supported by the government~Rs policy and the powerful
European Commission. Through the network of the EAD the Muslim policy and
culture infiltrated into the highest political and cultural levels in
European countries members of the EC. This is why it succeeded so well.
Q. Look, you could see something similar happen here, with the President's
nomination to the U.S. Institute of Peace. Daniel Pipes as you know was
nominated to that, but there was a huge war against his nomination, and
finally, the President appointed him by executive order during a summer
recess. But there are Islamists seeping into that institution and elsewhere
into the upper echelons of government. What can Americans do?
A. The history of jihad must be taught according to the Western perspective.
And the same for dhimmitude, its development and consequences. This is
extremely important, to prevent a return to the condition of dhimmitude.
Unfortunately, an institute to study the history of jihad and dhimmitude
worldwide has not been established.
Q. So you think an institute would help.
A. Of course. In Europe, this history has been totally erased, in order to
please the Muslim world. The Islamic view is taught whereby conquests were
achieved through peaceful means, with tolerance, which is the contrary to
the reality. In Europe, the Muslim groups always accuse the West, and take a
tack that makes them victims and victimized. All evil is projected on the
West and on Israel, and this vision gives the West a feeling of guilt
towards Arabs. In fact, what Arabs have done with the help of European
intellectuals engaged in the Euro-Arab Dialogue is to project the Jewish
history of victimhood onto the Arabs, in order to neutralize the West. They
have usurped the history of another people to create guilt among Western
countries and paralyze them. This process has eliminated the whole history
of jihad. We see that Europeans are incapable of understanding their past,
or even the current situation. This work was begun by Edward Said who
promoted European guilt toward the Arabs and Muslim people. He was totally
supported by high level governmental bodies and European universities.
Otherwise he would not have achieved such fame, his position being based on
historical ignorance and anti-Western racism.
Q. Could you briefly explain the history of jihad and dhimmitude.
A. The history of jihad started in the 7th century with the Islamic religion
and the conquests of Arabia by the followers of Mohamed. Arabia was
inhabited by a pagan majority, but there were also a great number of
Christians and Jewish peasants and artisans who cultivated the oases there.
Mohamed started his war against the pagans in Arabia, who opposed his
beliefs. He fled to Medina, where Jewish tribes lived. On their refusal to
convert to his belief, he attacked them and either expelled them or, as in
the case of the Qurayza tribe, he executed all the men and sold the women
and children into slavery. Then Mohamed continued his war to impose Islam on
the whole of Arabia. Finally, just before he died, he had converted the
whole of Arabia to his religion. Now Mohamed's tactic was in fact patterned
on the normal means of Bedouin war. But the founders of Islamic law
established a whole school, a jurisdictional process by which they made this
warfare into a sacred obligation to conduct a worldwide war against the
realm of unbelief. This ideology inspired from the life of Mohamed, either
true or invented, based on Koran, the hadith and the biographies of the
Prophet, became the sacred duties of jihad in order to Islamize the world.
Now the ideology and laws of jihad represent a system founded on Islamic
theological belief.
This is how jihad developed. Since then, the Arab armies were bent on always
conquering more territories in order to expand the rule of the Koran over
the earth. They conquered all the Christians lands west of Arabia in the
Middle East. They invaded Egypt, Syria, Palestine and the Maghreb. These
lands inhabited by Jews and Christians, were Islamized through different
procedures. Arab conquests expanded to Iberia (Spain) in Europe, Portugal
and up to France and Switzerland and were stopped in Poitiers in the 8th
century. In the East, the Muslim armies conquered Persia, Armenia and part
of the Byzantine empire, which was later totally dominated by the Turkish
tribes converted to Islam. Then, further East, Muslim power expanded in
Afghanistan to the Indus. From the 11th century, there was a second wave of
Islamization, which concentrated on Europe. Under the Ottomans it advanced
to the borders of Poland and Hungary and occupied the whole of Eastern
European countries who became part of the Muslim empire. The Ottomans were
stopped at the gates of Vienna in 1683.
All these lands were, at the beginning, populated by non-Muslim people. At
this time, these lands had armies and kings. The kings were deposed and the
armies disbanded, but the population stayed in the cities and the
countryside. So once a land has been Islamized, the whole colonization
process took place. These processes were based on legal texts written by
Arab theologians in the 8th and 9th centuries. The system of dhimmitude is
congenial with Muslim colonization. Non-Muslim majorities were either
totally eliminated or survived as small minorities, heirs of the big
civilizations that they represented before the conquest. The process of
dhimmitude, is of course linked to jihad.
Q. Let's talk about the economic portion of this war.
A. Well, first of all, terrorism destroys civilized life and the prevention
of terrorism is very expensive. Now with the weapons of mass destruction it
is possible to kill thousands of people at once and control a population by
terrorism. It happened in Spain. Zapatero, the President of the Spanish
government, like a dhimmi, pulled the Spanish army from Iraq and went to
Morocco to proclaim his love for Morocco and Islam. He said he would not
deal with terrorism through arms, but by giving aid. Paying money for your
security means ransoming. This is the policy of Europe.
Q. It is the policy of the U.S. also. We have given $50 billion to Egypt,
and they hate us. And a few hundred billion to all the other Arab countries,
probably, so it dwarfs any aid to Israel. Is this a bad thing?
A. It is bad policy to feed those who hate you. The help that is given must
be appreciated, because it is paid through the work of other people.
Government should not squander the money of the European taxpayers, who are
deprived of many services to which they are entitled for their work. The
European Union has paid billions to Arafat during the intifada. The more the
Palestinian terrorists killed Israelis, the more money they received. To the
Arabs, this is encouragement to continue.
Q. It seems that the U.S. government must be made aware that an economic
jihad is also a means to wage war.
A. Yes, jihad takes different forms. The military jihad is waged through
terrorism. The cultural jihad is done in the universities through the
subversion of western values. It developed under the aegis of the Euro-Arab
Dialogue. The economic jihad used the oil boycott. Arab countries rely
heavily on oil exports. Their economy is very dependent on Western products.
It is important to reduce our dependency on the Arab countries' oil, in
order to free ourselves from the economic jihad.
Q. Does corruption of officials that go with the jihad. Do you see any of
that in the U.S.?
A. Well, in the U.S. you have a different system, you have a much stronger
democracy. The people can control the policy of the government. It is under
strong scrutiny. But this is not so in Europe. The policy of Europe is
conducted at the top level, and this escaped the people's scrutiny. They do
not understand what is happening. And the whole foreign policy of the
Euro-Arab Dialogue was conducted by the European Community, the European
Counsel of Ministers, the European Parliament and the European Commission,
which are different bodies than each European country government.
Q. Right, but in the U.S. we also have the World Bank, the North American
Free Trade Agreement which is going to be expanded to South America, and I
presume that will have links to the EU and those things are not followed
here, either.
A. We live in a global world, and international organizations develop.
Americans should be aware of these developments and be diffident of the
United Nations, which is an extremely corrupted organization, which works
according to different standards. Here, it must be clearly stated that the
Arab Muslim countries, 56 countries, and the Palestinian Authority, which
will become a state soon, probably, operate according to Koranic justice,
which is not what we consider justice. It is based on the superiority of
Islam over non-Muslim countries, it justifies jihad and jihadists' values.
Those whom we call terrorists, are called freedom fighters, because fighting
against non-Muslims countries is a ~Sjust war~T. This is why the Palestinians
have a ~Sjust cause~T and conduct a ~Sjust war.~T The same in Darfur, in Sudan.
As long as we have different values, it will be difficult to agree on what
is just. For Muslim countries, Sharia rules take precedence over any other
rules, especially over man-made rules. They consider Western rules inferior
to their God given rules. For this reason, America is right to refuse to
participate in the International Court of Justice, which is dominated by
Islamic and European nations, both abiding to the Islamic principles of
justice.
Alyssa A. Lappen
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