From “Triple-pronged Jihad — Military, Economic and Cultural,” an interview with Bat Ye’or by Alyssa A. Lappen, from the American Thinker:
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. 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”s 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.
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