[1]
Huge, in all senses of the word

The indefatigable anti-jihadist Andrew Bostom's new book is out, and it is huge: not just because it is a massive compendium of information (700 pages in double columns), but because it will necessitate, for any honest analyst, a full-scale and thoroughgoing reevaluation of some of the core assumptions that prevail today regarding Islam and the Jews. The myth of a tolerant, pluralistic past dominates everywhere, supported by everything but the facts, and of course it has policy implications not only for the Israeli/Palestinian conflict but for other jihadist flashpoints where the learned analysts assure us that peace is right around the corner, as soon as we hit on the right mix of concessions.

The huge amount of documentation that Andy marshals here demonstrates that that is a pollyannaish view both regarding Israel and other conflicts as well. Islamic Jew-hatred (and one could also add hatred of all unbelievers, although the Jews are certainly singled out for especial vituperation) is deeply rooted in the Qur'an and Sunnah, and has been consistently acted upon throughout Islamic history.

The policy implications of this are clear, if difficult, but they aren't even close to being considered since the basic premises aren't even accepted, and mythology reigns in their stead. But it will be much, much harder for those myths to be sustained now that we all have access to [2] The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism.

At [3] The American Thinker, Robert Kaplan compares Bostom's data to the (universally accepted) assertions of one of the foremost proponents of the historical myth of tolerance, Bernard Lewis:

Bostom's book is part of an ongoing debate about the comparative situation of Jews under the crescent and the cross. In this debate Bostom is in sharp disagreement with Bernard Lewis, the well known and much quoted authority on the history of Islam. Lewis has written:

"On the whole, in contrast to Christian anti-Semitism, the Moslem attitude toward non Moslems [including Jews] is not one of hate or fear or envy but simply contempt."

"Jews of Christendom suffered incomparably greater persecution [than the Jews of Islam]. Persecution, that is to say violent and active repression was rare and atypical. Jews and Christians [dhimmis] under Moslem rule were not normally called upon to suffer martyrdom for their faith."

"They [the Jews] were not often obliged to make the choice which confronted Muslims and Jews in reconquered Spain, between exile apostasy and death."

How is it that Lewis and Bostom evaluate Islamic antisemitism and the experience of Jews living in Muslim societies so differently, given the fact that though they might disagree on a few particular points of fact, the body of information they begin with is essentially the same?

Bostom's picture of Moslem antisemitism is much more somber than Lewis's. One source of difference lies in the fact that compared with Lewis's his writing includes considerably more detail of the anti-Jewish elements in Islamic religion, culture and history. By quoting the words of Jews who lived under the Muslims and non-Moslems visiting their lands, Bostom's text conveys emotions of sympathy and indignation regarding the oppressed condition of Jews which Lewis's academic, non-emotional style largely omits.

The structure of Lewis's and Bostom's arguments are also quite different. Employing a genetic approach, Bostom shows that Islam's holy books, the Koran, the hadith and the sira all have sharply negative things to say about Jews, that these have been emphasized and reinforced by Moslem thinkers, jurists and preachers throughout the history of Islam, and that the attitudes and ideas engendered by them have directly influenced the actions of Moslem rulers, clergy and mobs both in their oppression of Jews as dhimmis and their aggressive excesses against Jews which have included pogroms, forced conversion, pillage and expulsion. The status of dhimmi to which Jews and Christians are relegated under Islamic law is one entailing serious suffering and indignity in the best of circumstances. Frequently circumstances were far from the best.

Lewis puts Islam's record regarding Jews in a favorable light mainly with the generalizations he makes rather than the particular facts he marshals. These generalizations, which crumble under the slightest scrutiny, are of four general types. One holds that the least onerous version of Moslem oppression is typical of Moslem practice [Lewis writes "dhimmitude was a minor inconvenience Jews learned to live with ...under Muslim rule the status of dhimmi was long accepted with gratitude by Jews." In making this improbable claim he gives no evidence or explanation. Could he mean that the Jews were grateful for not being killed?]

A second type of generalization claims that the worst of the behavior of Christians towards Jews was the norm. ["Jews of Christendom suffered incomparably greater persecution (than Jews of Islam). Persecution (under Islam), that is to say violent and active repression was rare and atypical. Jews and Christians (dhimmis) under Moslem rule were not normally called upon to suffer martyrdom for their faith. ...They (the Jews) were not often obliged to make the choice which confronted Muslims and Jews in reconqured Spain, between apostasy and death." Besides employing a peculiarly narrow definition of "oppression" which excludes all disabilities of dhimmitude, Lewis implies that Jews in Christendom were often obliged to suffer martyrdom for their faith or make a choice "between apostasy and death" -- both of which are simply untrue.]

A third variety of generalization employed by Lewis claims that Muslim abuses are far less bad than the worst imaginable abuses by non-Moslems. ["Dhimmitude involves some rights...and is surely better that no rights at all. It is certainly preferable to the kind of situation that prevails in many states at the present time where minorities and for that matter where the majority enjoy no civil or human rights." Offering no evidence or examples, Lewis writes as if there is any place on Earth where the majority of residents have "no rights at all."]

A fourth type of generalization ascribes to "human nature" rather than Islam, with no basis of evidence, the unattractive characteristics exhibited by Moslems [After describing the intense anti-Semitism in the Arab world today Lewis tacks on the generalization that "No people is immune from the universal disease of ethnic or social hostility and the Arabs are no exception. Obviously Arabs are as liable (my italics) as Germans, Russians or Jews or anyone else to develop hostilities against other peoples; and their history and literature bear ample witness to this." Lewis's suggestion that hatred is a trait shared by all peoples equally -- Germans, Russians and Jews, Britons, Italians, Canadians, Australians -- as if raging mobs, as familiar in the annals of Moslem history as to today's television viewers, are typical of all peoples; as if hate filled speeches by clerics are common in all religions; as if survey statistics of harbored hatred are not vastly higher among Moslems than among others; as if Moslem converts to Christianity do not regularly report their revulsion at the hatred which saturates the Moslem religion with which they were familiar. Replace Moslems with Danes, British, Russians Jews, Brazilians, Japanese or whoever and imagine, if you can, raging mobs rioting and killing over a newspaper cartoon.]

This is very, very important. Please [4] read it all. And get [5] the book.