Bernard Lewis constantly contradicts himself. At Harvard's Kennedy School, a few years ago, he noted that "reform" in the Islamic world -- not to be confused with "reform" of Islam -- took place because of what enlightened despots had achieved. And then, once the Iraq venture was underway, he co-signed (but claims he did not write) with James Woolsey an article in The Wall Street Journal about the usefulness of having such an enlightened despot in Iraq, and their suggestion was for an (unnamed) Hashemite Sunni monarch. This was merely a transparent piece of special pleading for plummy-voiced Prince Hassan of Jordan, a host and possibly friend of Lewis.
Later, he began to write about how those who denied a democratic strain in Islam were being unfair. This was not as vulgar as Bush's charge that it was "racist" to argue that Islam and democracy, as we understand that term in the advanced West, are incompatible, but unacceptable nonetheless. When Lewis confuses "democracy" with mere "consultation," and when he further ignores the question of how much "consultation" was done by the Ottoman Sultan with the heads of non-Muslim communities, or rayas -- just how much was there? -- he misuses his prestige, a prestige that in any case he, more than anyone else, has been chipping away at. Posterity will not be as kind to him as it might once have been.
He is reputed to have met, frequently, with Cheney. What did he tell Cheney about Islam? What did he tell him, and when, about the Light-Unto-the-Muslim-Nations project?
And then there is Natan Sharansky, who spoke at Harvard a few weeks ago. According to reports I received, Sharansky, known for promoting to Bush, who seized on with his characteristic unquestioning enthusiasm the notion that a lack of "democracy" is what ails the Islamic world (and not Islam itself), the naive (and wrong) idea that "democracies do not make war on each other." Sharansky now insists that all along he, Sharansky, had in mind "democracy" that would not be imposed but would begin from the bottom up, beginning with the creation of a "democratic culture." There is still no hint in Sharansky's insufficiently chastened presentation that a "democratic culture" and Islam are incompatible. When he was queried about this, he did not answer the question, but simply referred to the fact that he had met, on several occasions, with Bernard Lewis, and learned what he knew about Islam, and "democracy" as a cure for the ills of Muslim polities, from Lewis.
Lewis has a lot to explain. But the podhoretzes of this world think they can continue, formulaically and without challenge, to blandly refer to Lewis as "unquestionably the world's leading (foremost, number one) historian (scholar, student) of Islam." Others allow this formula to stand unchallenged. Yet Lewis is neither a scholar of the Qur'an, or of the Shari'a, or of the doctrine of Jihad (compare what Lewis writes about Jihad, at pp.77-78 of "The Political Language of Islam," with what Armand Abel writes, as quoted in "The Legacy of Jihad"). Nor has he bothered to study the dhimmi. In his 400-page "The Middle East" he devotes exactly three paragraphs, two of them exculpatory, to the treatment of non-Muslims under Muslim rule.
Will he explain himself now? Or is he unable at this point to do so? Will he ever explain, in detail, why he was such an enthusiast for the Oslo Accords, rather than simply say, laconically, "I was mistaken"? Will he locate his mistake in the nature of Islam? Or will he say that it was Arafat's fault, or the "time was not right," or locate the problem in something other than the doctrines of Islam about Infidel nation-states on land once part of Dar al-Islam? Will he ever concede that the dreams for Iraq were both naive and sentimental? Will he ever concede that the demographic conquest of Western Europe can best be prevented by those who are not inclined to be thinking always of how to appeal to Muslim "reformers" and the Muslim-for-identification-purposes Muslims, or those who at least are worldly Western men who do not take their Islam too seriously -- the very people, in Turkey, or in Amman, or elsewhere, whom Lewis meets with, and who pay him flattering visits, and are able, as others are not, to appreciate his objets d'art, his books, his linguistic gifts, his everything?
Is it just possible that Lewis has missed something important about Islam, beginning with the need, in the formulating of Western policy to preserve and protect the West, to consider how Islam holds in thrall not the people Lewis knows, not the Ahmad Chalabis and Prince Hassans and appreciative secular thoroughly westernized Turks among Ottomanist colleagues in Istanbul, but all the hundreds of millions of Believers Bernard Lewis has never met, and chooses to overlook: the primitive masses? What moves them, and will continue to move them, and who moves them, in the end, are what count.
Well, at least he was right on Iran . On August 8, 2006 he wrote in the Wall Street Journal: "There is a radical difference between the Islamic Republic of Iran and other governments with nuclear weapons. This difference is expressed in what can only be described as the apocalyptic worldview of Iran's present rulers." And "In this context, mutual assured destruction, the deterrent that worked so well during the Cold War, would have no meaning. At the end of time, there will be general destruction anyway. What will matter will be the final destination of the dead -- hell for the infidels, and heaven for the believers. For people with this mindset, MAD is not a constraint; it is an inducement."
"Well, at least he was right on Iran."
-- from a posting above
1. So he understands, as does half the world, and hardly had to be told by Lewis, that the present Iranian rulers are not subject to the deterrence that deterred, inter alios, the Soviet rulers.
2. Is his being "right on Iran" -- i.e., understanding that the cultists who now control the country are, from our point of view, demented (even Putin picked that up from his encounter with Ahmadinejad) -- sufficient for his having been such an enthusiast for the Oslo Accords, even telling others, who presented unpleasant evidence of "Palestinian" misbehavior, to keep it quiet? Does his being "right on Iran" excuse the folly of the Iraq venture, which Lewis now blames on the execution of the plan, and not on the schemes and dreams themselves, with so much faith put in those Shi'a-in-exile who were Western men, and had forgotten, or in some cases chose to overlook, what the Iraqi masses were like?
3. Does Lewis's use of his prestige, and his connections, to keep Bat Ye'or for so long from being given a respectful hearing in Israel, something that should be overlooked? She hasn't overlooked it. What about his own private strategy, of being careful to insistently understate what was inflicted on non-Muslims under Muslim rule. Compare Lewis with the admission of S. D. Goitein, in "Non-Muslim Sources on the Muslim Poll Tax," as to how much he had had to revise his long-held view of the Jizyah as a minor burden, and more generally, his -- Goitein's -- underestimate of the disablities associated with being a dhimmi:
"There is no subject of Islamic social history on which the present writer had to modify his views so radically while passing from literary to documentary sources, i.e., from the study of Muslim books to that of the records of the Cairo Geniza as the jizya..or the poll tax to be paid by non-Muslims. It was of course, evident that the tax represented a discrimination and was intended, according to the Koran's own words, to emphasize the inferior status of the non-believers. It seemed, however, that from the economic point of view, it did not constitute a heavy imposition, since it was on a sliding scale, approximately one, two, and four dinars, and thus adjusted to the financial capacity of the taxpayer. This impression proved to be entirely fallacious, for it did not take into consideration the immense extent of poverty and privation experienced by the masses, and in particular, their persistent lack of cash, which turned the 'season of the tax' into one of horror, dread, and misery."
And then there is Lewis's penchant for formulaically exaggerating the claims of the "greatness" of high Islamic civilization, and his comparison of it with what he describes as the darkest of Dark Ages in Europe (apparently Lewis has not kept up with Western scholarship on those so-called "Dark Ages" which turn out to be quite different from the way they were still depicted when Lewis was a student), and his failure to ever modify that wonted, and conventient exaggeration if greatness of the Islamic lands, or to recognize the role in that civilization of Christians and Jews, or of those Muslims who were a generation or two removed from being Christians and Jews but still grew up in the intellectual milieu that large numbers of both provided, despite the dominance as a political force of Islam?
You are too kind.
The disaster that faces Western Europe, and the squandering of resources in that Iraq misadventure, are such that kindness may no longer be appropriate.
"...to consider how Islam holds in thrall not the people Lewis knows, not the Ahmad Chalabis and Prince Hassans and appreciative secular thoroughly westernized Turks among Ottomanist colleagues in Istanbul, but all the hundreds of millions of Believers Bernard Lewis has never met, and chooses to overlook: the primitive masses? What moves them, and will continue to move them, and who moves them, in the end, are what count."
Yes what of the primitive masses. They are inert , disempowered , bound by superstition , grazing , asleep in their belief. (Stampedes, though can occur when grivence falls close though)There is no collective sentience just manipulation by "rageboy" who is really a "rentboy", directed by the 'movers' that are the clergy. But in turn the clergy are controlled by who ...the Westernised ruling elites. Of course these pious rulers wont admit anything other than a complete commitment to Islam ( as they partake of western pleasures in secret) Islam is a tool to keep those "primitive" masses "primitive", the Clergy is a tool to move these masses when it benefits the ruling clique or when they are just indifferent. Cartoon rage ? why not? The Koran and traditions , just words that 80% of Muslims cant read , and a good proportion of the rest probably dont take literally even if it is the words of Allah. In a Western environment , the Clergy's role is disminished and generally harmless ..though they still need gestures to curry favor and get that Saudi donation.
Ultimately it is the ruling elites or their conduits are the real players and have sway. It is they the West must wrangle and coerce and whisper in their ears. And this is why Bernard Lewis as well as Western leaders and their deputies, keep them close ... closest! Meanwhile Western culture incrementally erodes and dispossesses Islam from these "primitives" resulting in the inevitable backlash as a culture is deconstructed. But in the end , it is the West and the siren song of its culture that will neuter Islam ... we merely must manage the reactionary risks , we have nothing but time.
Damned unlikely.
================
What explanation could he offer? Temporary insanity?
His remarks were what is called an arbitrary assertion.
His words had nothing to do with reality, so he can't make a rational explanation.
He might, if assailed long and hard enough, do a little verbal tap-dancing to make himself look better, although to whom one can only guess.
Bernard Lewis wont engage in a unhelpful hysterical campaign of " fear and Loathing " and wilful misrepresentation undertaken by those who have no real answers to the complaints they raise. You crap about Lewis not seeing what you consider obvious truths and damning him for his blindness. There is a conquest of Europe? How can this " demographic conquest of Western Europe can best be prevented" if it is indeed a conquest....silence! Ban those boats? Deport those babies? Make the Muslims wear cresent badges? Open internment camps? Some land near Belsen I hear. There is such a thing as realpolitik ...there is a reality that exists when you switch the internet netherworld off. There is a current human reality in Europe that that requires no further inflamation , this informs the political...words said here by the cyber dwelling, intemperate , unpublished , unwashed ,invisible, blinkered would be prophets are different in weight to their opposite's words. And words can do much harm ...
"So he understands, as does half the world, and hardly had to be told by Lewis, that the present Iranian rulers are not subject to the deterrence that deterred, inter alios, the Soviet rulers."
Indicating that Bernard Lewis has done something right does not mean that I do not agree with Hugh’s arguments . But Bernard Lewis’s statements do have weight and that is precisely why the world should be told by Lewis what half of it already knows. Here is what I posted a year ago, and last week:
http://www.onejerusalem.org/blog/archives/2006/09/video_exclusive_5.asp
Bernard Lewis is concerned for the West because we can define neither the enemy nor ourselves . So why doesn't he as the doyen of Islamic studies in the Western world not help us do precisely that? Is the crux of the problem the Islamic concept of jihad and Islam's attitude towards the infidel? Surely Bernard Lewis can come up with a precise and honest, (not necessarily pragmatic) answer. Surely it is time for the West to honestly confront the question and come up with an explanation which could serve as the basis for our civilization to avoid being destroyed , as he put it. Is it really impossible for Bernard Lewis, Ibn Warraq, Bat Ye'or, Serge Trifkovic , Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes and Lawrence Auster to come up with a common position which could help the West survive this period worse even than May 1940?
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1181813030183&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Sir, - I would agree with Norman Podhoretz on all points except his last - reform in Islam and the prospect for democracy. I believe both he and the Bush administration have read too much Bernard Lewis and Natan Sharansky and not enough Bat Ye'or, Ibn Warraq, Robert Spencer and Serge Trifkovic ("A family affair," Interview with Ruthie Blum, June 8).
---
I still used Bernard Lewis’s quote in my article The National Intelligence Estimate and the 12th Imam http://web.israelinsider.com/Views/12462.htm. Is Israel being pushed to act as the 300 at Thermopylae?
"Is it really impossible for Bernard Lewis, Ibn Warraq, Bat Ye'or, Serge Trifkovic , Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes and Lawrence Auster to come up with a common position which could help the West survive this period worse even than May 1940?"
Bernard Lewis et al standing on a common platform as Lawrence Auster? I think even Hugh Fitzgerald would consider Auster Persona Non Gratia and would run a mile from any Auster endorsement...the 'race-centricity' of Auster necessitates a 'blogging' realpolitik which requires he, and any wiff of him be kept at arms length else one would suffer credibility free-fall. Of course no such leeway for Lewis who must enlist in the 'cause' , hell with any personal ramifications.
Bernard Lewis is a giant compared to most contemporary “scholars” of Islamic history and gives every indication that he is aware of the shortcomings of Islam. However, as indicated, his self deception regarding Islam is massive. In The Arabs in History he writes of the Prophet as follows:
"Much righteous indignation has been expressed … at the spectacle of an Apostle of God leading the faithful in predatory raids … but in the conditions of the time and to the moral ideas of the Arabs raiding was a natural and legitimate occupation, and no discredit attaches to the Prophet for having adopted it."
Thus, even that most authoritative contemporary historian of Islam, feels impelled to whitewash the record of Muhammad, having no thought that a holy man ought to set an example by behavior that is at least slightly above the standards of his time and culture. Lewis follows by using one brief and almost dismissive sentence to describe Muslim behavior following the victory over the Quraish after the battle of the ditch. “This victory was followed by the extermination of the Jewish tribe of Quraiza.”
In another work, The Middle East, Bernard Lewis writes regarding the Turks:
"Even the much-condemned devshirme levy had its positive aspects. By this means the humblest villager could rise to the highest and most powerful offices in the state. Many did so and also brought their families with them - a form of social mobility impossible in the aristocratic societies of contemporary Christendom."
As he did with the Prophet’s massacre of the Jews, Lewis dismisses the suffering and humiliation attendant on an institution which was of questionable legality even by the less than sterling standards of Muslim law. He makes the devshirme sound so attractive that perhaps we should consider reviving this practice in modern times.
Re a previous poster's reference to Larry Auster. Whatever his shortcomings Auster has been correctly warning us over the last twenty years of the dire consequences of massive third world immigration in general and Muslim immigration in particular. He also warned us regarding the climate of political correctness which required officials from the highest ranks of government down to the airport screener, who felt a chill looking into Atta's eyes, to censor their own thoughts. If we had heeded Auster two towers in downtown New York would still be standing. Now exactly what contributions to enhancing our national survival have been made by that poster and his fellow twirps who have wasted their college years uncritically imbibing the teachings of various unreconstructed left wing professors?
Hugh writes:
"Nor has he bothered to study the dhimmi. In his 400-page "The Middle East" he devotes exactly three paragraphs, two of them exculpatory, to the treatment of non-Muslims under Muslim rule."
Turning the brittle pages gingerly of Edward Lane's classic “Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians” (3rd ed. 1842 Vol 2 pp.424-5) Lane gives verbatim a prayer recited in many Cairo schools by the boys before going home each day. Part of it reads:
“…O God! Assist him [the Sultan], and assist his armies, and all the forces of the Muslims! O Lord of all creatures! O God! Destroy the infidels and polytheists, thine enemies, the enemies of the religion! O God! make their children orphans, and defile their abodes, and cause their feet to slip, and give them and their families and their households and their women and their children and their relations by marriage and their brothers and their friends and their possessions and their race and their wealth and their lands as booty to the Muslims!...”
That the Jews did not attract hatred and discrimination until and only in the 20th century, Lane notes, in 1842:
“…the Jews are detested by the Muslims far more than are the Christians. Not long ago, they used to be jostled in the streets of Cairo, and sometimes beaten merely for passing on the right hand of a Muslim. At present, they are less oppressed; but still they scarcely ever dare to utter a word of abuse when reviled or beaten unjustly by the meanest Arab or Turk; for many a Jew has been put to death upon a false and malicious accusation of uttering disrespectful words against the Kur-an or the Prophet. It is common to hear an Arab abuse his jaded ass, and, after applying to him various opprobrious epithets, end by calling the beast a Jew.”
(“Manners & Customs..” (Vol. 2 p.386)
Perhaps Lewis can no longer read the clear evidence, or remember what he might have once read.
Actually I only now began to realize why not many seem to appreciate Bernard Lewis’s quote on Iran. I wrote the following in my article ( I mistakenly added a dot at the end so the link did not work) : http://web.israelinsider.com/Views/12462.htm
--Why is the US less concerned than Israel about Iran? Simply put, the US is a huge country and could absorb a nuclear explosion or two and survive. Israel cannot. Israel is a "one-bomb country”. In addition, people do not seem to care as much until it is them who are the imminent target.--
Bernard Lewis clearly stated that MAD will not work from which follows that all those in Israel and the US, let alone Europe, who say we should learn to live with a nuclear Iran are dangerously deluded.
I am not sure the West understands the gravity of the situation. Even Daniel Pipes in his article “NIE Makes War against Iran More Likely” mentions Israel in passing, in the last paragraph: “Option #2 – war carried out by either U.S. or Israeli forces – becomes the more probable.” In fact, Israel is the key player here and Bernard Lewis’s statement is the starting link in the chain of reasoning that inevitably brings us to that conclusion.
MLaden
"I am not sure the West understands the gravity of the situation."
Perhaps Israel is the " Canary in a coal mine" , when the Canary dies , its time to act to save oneself.
This Canary will not die. It will act to save itself and consequently help Big Bird and everybody else.
In 1956 Mossad through its agent in Warsaw managed to get hold of Khrushchev's Secret Speech at the Twentieth Party Congress of the USSR. It was a historic intelligence coup since in the speech Khrushchev openly talked of the Stalin purges in the 1930s – a major change in policy . The copy was whisked to the CIA and the US intensified its cooperation with Israel.
In 1966 Mossad managed to get hold of an Iraqi MIG-21, the then state-of- the-art Soviet fighter jet. It smuggled the pilot's family out of Iraq and Israeli plots were sent to escort the defecting Iraqi into Israeli air space. The analysis of the performance characteristics of the plane both in Israel and the US helped locate its weak points and contributed to the overwhelming victory of the IAF in the Six-Day War.
The story with the 1981 Israeli raid on the Osirak is better known. But it took years before General David Ivry , the Israeli ambassador to the US and formally commander of the IAF, got the postcard with the blowup of the satellite photograph of the destroyed reactor, on which at the bottom was a handwritten note signed by Dick Cheney . The short note read : “With thanks and appreciation. You made our job easier in Desert Storm” . (see ‘ Raid on the Sun” by Rodger W. Claire, p 240)
"This Canary will not die. It will act to save itself and consequently help Big Bird and everybody else."
Yes I agree , despite suffering Ehud "tired of winning" Olmert whose contribution will probably increase any cost borne by Israel in saving itself. Of course the Democracts could take the White house in 2008 ( maybe that is why the NIE report is what it is , to forstall action until after the election of a Democractic administration.) adding further costs to any Israeli defensive action. The Democracts always seem less concerned with Israel being cut and slashed ...I could be wrong though.
I miss Ariel.
"In 1956 Mossad through its agent in Warsaw managed to get hold of Khrushchev's Secret Speech at the Twentieth Party Congress of the USSR. It was a historic intelligence coup since in the speech Khrushchev openly talked of the Stalin purges in the 1930s"
-- posted by Mladen
See "A Musical Interlude: In Honor Of Viktor Grayevsky (Spielman)" which can be found at www.newenglishreview.org.