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Interview with Bat Ye’or on Eurabia

Nov 25, 2004 5:24 pm By Robert Spencer

The great pioneering historian of dhimmitude speaks. From Stephen Crittenden’s Religion Report, with thanks to waterdragon 52:

Stephen Crittenden: Welcome to the program.

Today”s guest is Egyptian-born Jewish historian, Bat Ye”or who I interviewed a few weeks ago at her home in Switzerland. Bat Ye”or is a pseudonym meaning “˜Daughter of the Nile” in Hebrew.

For many years Bat Ye”or has studied and written about the history of the non-Muslim subject, or Dhimmi, peoples such as Jews and Christians, who came under Muslim rule from the7th century to the present day in Spain, the Balkans and the Middle East. She refers to the special mindset of “being grateful for being tolerated” as dhimmitude.

She is a fierce opponent of the late Edward Said, who she holds responsible for the way contemporary society has buried the history of this subjection. She calls him “˜the gravedigger of Western culture”, and you thought that role was reserved for some super heavyweight, like Richard Wagner or Adolf Hitler.

Bat Ye”or has just written a new book, “˜Eurabia”, and it’s sure to be one of the most controversial publishing events of 2005. It’s the history of 30 years of pro-Arab policy in Europe, which she says has now reached the point where countries like France, Germany and Sweden have lost control of their population policy, but the politicians can’t admit that there is a crisis.

Following the ritual murder of Dutch film director Theo Van Gogh; with three Dutch politicians under protections from Islamic extremist death threats, and mosques across Western Europe under surveillance, Eurabia is a powerful imaginary space.

Bat Ye”or.

Bat Ye”or: Eurabia is a continent constituted by the countries of the European Union and the Arab-Muslim countries of the Mediterranean. And this continent has the same policy, the same culture, and is constituted by freedom of travelling, freedom of movement between people, and many agreements between the universities, the banking, the economic and media and political sectors.

Stephen Crittenden: So what you”re saying is that the Arabic world and the European world have increasingly interpenetrated each other?

Bat Ye”or: Yes, exactly, this is a fact, yes.

Stephen Crittenden: What was the motivation on the part of European politicians at the very beginning, to create this situation that you describe?

Bat Ye”or: Well it was first a Gaullist policy, before “62 already.

Stephen Crittenden: de Gaulle?

Bat Ye”or: de Gaulle, yes. And it was promoted by Arabists and by the peoples who surrounded him, of the intellectuals, or people from the Arab colonies, French Arab colonies which had to leave the Arab colonies, because of their colonisation. Those people were nostalgic of this French Arab empire, and they wanted to keep it for political and economical reasons. They wanted to keep the French glory by keeping this enormous territory when you think that the French had colonies from Algeria till Syria, so it covered the whole Mediterranean border.

Stephen Crittenden: Well tell us about this policy. Tell us about the structures that have helped to put it in place. You talk about the Euro-Arab Dialogue, the EAD, what is that and when was it started?

Bat Ye”or: Yes, it started with France, between France and Libya with Colonel Gadaffi, and first of all it started a long time in the French surrounding of General de Gaulle. There were pressures brought onto him to open to the Muslim world, and that meant to cool its relations with Israel, which were very friendly at this time. So it was one or the other. So we see this policy already put in place by General de Gaulle, but General de Gaulle, in the construction of Europe, France was small, it was one element. So General de Gaulle tried to bring Germany into the scheme. It was the two motors of Europe at this time. Europe was represented, the European Community was represented by six countries and then by nine countries, but Germany and France were the important and they imposed on the other countries which were Belgium, Luxembourg, small countries and Italy; they imposed the vision of Eurabia which according to the arrangements to the agreement between the European Community and Arabic countries, would be based on a European policy different from America, which will bring Europe as a counterweight to America and American policy, and a hostile policy towards Israel. It means that the Europeans will recognise the existence of the Palestinian people, that it will recognise the PLO and allow them to open representations in the European capitals; it will recognise Arafat as the sole legitimate representative of the PLO, and it will work for the legitimisation of the PLO and its view. It is not only political, the organisation of the Islamic Conference and the Arabic have made the point of supporting the PLO against Israel; a cardinal point for economic arrangements and markets with Europe. Whoever would support the PLO would obtain tremendous petrodollar market. It was the PLO which would open the door of Europe towards the Arab world.

Stephen Crittenden: I can imagine a lot of our listeners immediately saying Bat Ye”or’s concern, her opposition to Eurabia has less to do with her feelings about it being bad for Europe than it has to do with her pro-Israeli position.

Bat Ye”or: Well I don’t think so, because people who would say that do not understand the position of Israel in the context of Europe. For instance, I consider Europe built on a Biblical moral, and it is a Judeo-Christian civilisation, which has of course also integrated the rational Greek mind, the Roman also, the Hellenistic past. But in fact European civilisation is basically a Biblical civilisation.

Stephen Crittenden: But hasn’t there always been a Muslim presence in Europe? And isn’t that part of Europe’s history as well?

Bat Ye”or: Yes, of course. But this Muslim presence was brought by the jihad and by the imposition of the law of dhimmitude to Jews and Christians which deny totally two very important elements: the freedom of man and the equality of man.

Stephen Crittenden: But isn’t it true that Europe’s current Muslim minority, the Turks in Germany, the Arabs in France for example, the Pakistanis in Britain, have not come there because of Jihad, they”ve come there because they belong to former colonies, they”ve come there because these are countries that want cheap labour, and they”ve come there most interestingly, because Islam doesn’t work in their own countries.

Bat Ye”or: This is true that after the colonisation, there was great Muslim immigration into Europe, but this immigration entered into a certain policy that was accepted by the European countries from the early “˜60s, and this policy was the vision of Arabia, and this is based on facts and on texts which I am publishing in my book.

Read it all. Then read it all again.

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