Vol. IV:12 (No. 48)
December 2004 -
Kislev-Tevet 5765
EURABIA
The word "Eurabia" is of recent coinage, a
name for the political-economic-cultural entity lately formed by the merger of
Europe and the Arab world. That entity was so dubbed by the historian Bat
Ye'or, who discovered and revealed and explicated the existence of Eurabia.
"Bat Ye'or" is Hebrew for "Daughter of
the Nile". It is the pen-name of a scholar who comes from a Jewish family
long rooted in Egypt, was among the Jews expelled en masse from Egypt in 1955,
and has since lived in Europe. Her books on "dhimmitude" cast light
on a subject theretofore little noted or understood: That is, the plight and
depressed status of the
"dhimmi" -- the non-Muslim living under the rule of Muslims. [See
Issue No. 20] Now, her articles,
lectures, and forthcoming book Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis cast light on
a radical and drastic shift of national identities. [See also Issue No. 36]
* * * * * * * * * * * *
The European Union [EU] began around 1950 as the
European Community, then primarily an economic partnership and free-trade zone
composed of Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands,.
It now has twenty-five members, with additional memberships pending, and is
developing into a super-state, whose unelected and non-accountable
commissioners regulate more and more aspects of national and even personal
life. (Under EU law, all bananas must have the same angle of curvature. Under
EU law, a grocer in Great Britain was prosecuted and convicted of the crime of
letting his customers weigh fruits and vegetables in ounces and pounds instead
of grams and kilos.)
The member states surrendered independence and liberty
to the EU, and the EU collectively surrendered to the dictates of Islamism.
That is: Europe has adopted voluntary dhimmitude. It has bound itself to be the
henchman of the mortal foes of Israel and of the United States. It is crucial
that both Israel and the United States understand this, and understand that any
involvement of Europe in their own affairs and policies can be nothing but
pernicious.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
The EU has long expended what zeal it can still muster
on hostility toward Israel. Europe's anti-Israel posture is not caused by
anything Israel does or refrains from doing, and so Israel cannot by any means
affect or modify that posture. Europe is not misled by lies about Israel.
Europe actively invents and disseminates such lies. It sets its demands for
"peace" in the Middle East not because it does not understand the
terms are lethal to Israel, but because it understands that very well.
On the surface, this hostility is a continuation of
Europe's millennia-long Judeophobia, aggravated by vexation that Israel thrives
with creative energy, while a moribund Europe decays. It is now revealed that
below the surface this hostility comes not merely from inclination but from
formal political requirements: That Europe must work toward the destruction of
Israel is one of the terms of the contract by which it joined Eurabia.
There is a question-and-answer outline of the
construction and character of Eurabia, and its invention of Palestine in
"Eurabia, Eurabia", an interview with Bat Ye'or, FrontPageMagazine.com, 21 September, 2004:
FrontPage
First things first, can you explain the term "Eurabia" to our
readers?
Bat Ye'or: Eurabia represents a
geo-political reality envisaged in 1973 through a system of informal alliances
between . . . the European Union (EU) [and] the Mediterranean Arab countries.
[. . . . ] This system was synchronized under the roof of an association called
the Euro-Arab Dialogue (EAD) created in July 1974 in Paris. A working body
composed of committees and always presided jointly by a European and an Arab
delegate planned the agendas, and organized and monitored the application of
the decisions.
The field of Euro-Arab collaboration covered every
domain: from economy and policy to immigration. In foreign policy, it backed
anti-Americanism, anti-Zionism and Israel's delegitimization; the promotion of
the PLO and Arafat; a Euro-Arab associative diplomacy in international forums;
and NGO collaboration. In domestic policy, the EAD established a close
cooperation between the Arab and European media television, radio, journalists,
publishing houses, academia, cultural centers, school textbooks, student and
youth associations, tourism. Church interfaith dialogues were determinant in
the development of this policy. Eurabia is therefore this strong Euro-Arab
network of associations -- a comprehensive symbiosis with cooperation and
partnership on policy, economy, demography and culture.
Eurabia is the future of Europe. Its driving force,
the Parliamentary Association for Euro-Arab Cooperation, was created in Paris
in 1974. It now has over six hundred members -- from all major European
political parties -- active in their own national parliaments, as well as in
the European parliament. The creation of this body and its policy follow the 23
resolutions of the 'Second International Conference in Support of the Arab
Peoples', held in Cairo in January 1969. Its resolution 15 formulates the
Euro-Arab policy and its all-embracing development over thirty years in
European domestic and foreign policy.
It stated: 'The conference decided to form special
parliamentary groups, where they did not exist, and to use the parliamentary
platform for promoting support of the Arab people and the Palestinian
resistance'. In the 1970s, pursuant to the wishes of the Cairo Conference,
national groups proclaiming 'Solidarity with the Palestinian Resistance and the
Arab peoples' appeared throughout Europe. These groups belonged to different
political families, Gaullists, extreme left or right, communists, neo-Nazis --
but they all shared the same anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism. France has been
the key protagonist of this policy, ever since de Gaulle's press conference on
27 November 1967 when he presented France's cooperation with the Arab world as
'the fundamental basis of our foreign policy'.
[. . . .]
Eurabia is not only a web of various agreements
covering every field. It is essentially a political project for a total
demographic and cultural symbiosis between Europe and the Arab world, where
Israel will eventually dissolve. America would be isolated and challenged by an
emerging Euro-Arab continent that is linked to the whole Muslim world and
invested with tremendous political and economic power in international affairs.
The policies of 'multilateralism' and 'soft diplomacy' express this deepening
symbiosis. [. . . .]
It is a project that was conceived, planned and
pursued consistently through immigration policy, propaganda, church support,
economic associations and aid, cultural, media and academic collaboration.
Generations grew up within this political framework; they were educated and
conditioned to support it and go along with it. This is the source of the
strong anti-American feeling in Europe and of the paranoiac obsession with
Israel, two elements that form the cornerstone of Eurabia. [. . . .]
Last May the European ministers of foreign affairs
accepted the creation of the Anna Lindh Foundation for the Dialogue of Cultures
with its seat in Alexandria, Egypt. Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh,
murdered by an insane man, was a key advocate of the Palestinian cause and the
boycott of Israel. Lindh was known for her criticism of Israeli and American
policies of self-defense against terror. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana
was a close friend, calling her a 'true European'. [. . . .]
FP: What
is the significance of Solana's declaration?
Bat Ye'or:
Solana is strongly implicated in the EU Arabophile and pro-Palestinian policy
conducted intensively under Prodi as a European self-protective reaction to the
American war against terror. If one examines the EC/EU declarations since 1977
on the Arab-Israeli conflict, one notices that they espouse Arab League
decisions and positions: the 1949 armistice lines imposed on Israel, although
never recognized as international boundaries; the creation on those boundaries
of a Palestinian state not mentioned by UN resolution 242; the acknowledgement
of the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinian people, and of Arafat
as its leader, with the obligation for Israel to negotiate exclusively with
him; and initially the refusal of separate peace treaties. The EU adopted all
these Arab League requests as well as repeated threats of economic and cultural
boycott against Israel, constantly demanded by the Europeans' close Arab allies
and their powerful lobby, the ParliamentaryAssociation for Euro-Arab
Cooperation.
On 3 March 2004, EU foreign policy chief Javier
Solana, when asked about U.S. proposals to requested democratic reforms in Arab
states, declared: 'The peace process always has to be at the center of whatever
initiative is in the field. . . Any idea about [reform of] nations would have
to be in parallel with putting a priority on the resolution of the peace process,
otherwise it will be very difficult to have success.'
Solana just repeated the opinion of Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak after his meeting with him. Arab League Secretary-General Amr
Moussa shared this opinion and refused to consider any reforms in Arab
countries before the settlement of the Arab-Palestinian conflict, a settlement
whose overall conditions imply Israel's destruction. Hence, any democratization
and change of Arab societies demanded by the West are linked by the Arabs to
its participation in Israel's demise. [. . . .]
Eurabian notables, whether Chirac, de Villepin,
Solana, Prodi, or others, have continuously stressed the centrality of the
Palestinian cause for world peace, as if more European vilification of Israel
would change anything in the global jihad waged in the US, in Asia, and from
Africa to Chechnya the latest horrendous tragedy in Ossetia is but one example.
In such a view, Israel's very existence, not this genocidal jihadist drive, is
a threat to peace. The Euro-Arab linkage of Arab/Islamic reforms to Israel's
stand is spurious and only demonstrates, once more, Europe's subservience to
Arab policy. Numerous Arab and Islamic Summits have imposed the centrality of
their Palestinian policy on the world and requested that all political problems
should be subordinated to it. The EU likewise.
FP: You
often refer to a Euro-Arab Palestinian cult. What do you mean by it?
Bat Ye'or:
It means precisely this Palestinian centrality that's promoted in Europe as
a key to world peace. However, the Euro-Arab Palestinian cult goes much deeper
than a political tool used for a Euro-Arab Partnership policy against America
and Israel. It is linked to theological currents of Judeophobia and a
replacement theology based on the Palestinization of the Bible and the
rejection of its Jewish roots in order to delegitimize Israel's history and
rights on its land. The Euro-Arab Palestinian cult symbolized the redemption
of Christianity and Islam and their
reconciliation on the ashes of Israel, the work of Satan -- a belief propagated
by the media's continuous demonization of Israel, and Palestinian
victimization. This cult brings together neo-Nazis, Judeophobes,
anti-Americans, communists and jihadists. It is a revival of Nazi anti-Jewish
and anti-Christian trends, particularly in its hatred of Christian Bible
believers and America, the country that was determinant in the defeat of Nazism
and Communism. In the 1930-40s, the Nazis had strong links with Palestinians,
and those sympathies and alliances continued throughout the years after World
War II, thriving in the Euro-Arab Palestinian cult that submerged Western
Europe under the umbrella of the gigantic Euro-Arab Dialogue apparatus.
FP: But
what does the public in Europe think about their Eurabian future? Are they
aware of it? Do they go along with it?
Bat Ye'or:
The public ignores this strategy, its details and functioning, but there is a
strong awareness, anxiety and discontent over the current situation and
particularly the antisemitic trends. This Eurabian policy, expressed in obscure
wording, is conducted at the top political level and coordinated over the whole
EU, spreading an anti-American and antisemitic Euro-Arab sub-culture in every
social, media and cultural sector. Oriana Fallaci has given voice to this
general opposition. But there are also many others. They are boycotted,
sometimes fired from their jobs, victims of a type of totalitarian
'correctness' imposed mainly by the academic, media and political sectors. [. . . .]
America has the choice of forgoing its liberty and
adopting the European line of dhimmitude and supplication, or maintaining its
resolve to fight the war against terrorism for freedom and for universal human
rights values. [. . . .]"
* * * * * * * * * * * *
The role of the EU in promoting jihad against Israel
is further explicated in "Europeans Are Adopting the Arab Viewpoint -- And
Not By Accident", by Bat Ye’or, FrontPageMag, 27 July 2004:
Last Tuesday, the 25 nations of the European Union
(EU) voted unanimously to support a United Nations Resolution condemning
Israel’s defensive fence (ignoring that this barrier was constructed to
keep jihadist murderers from entering the nation via Judea and Samaria). The
EU’s craven, morally bankrupt stance was sadly consistent with Eurabian
policies evident now for three decades. [. . . .]
Disruption of the Western alliance by separating
Europe from America, and the piecemeal destruction of Israel were the pillars
of the Euro-Arab alliance that gave birth to Eurabia. The formation of this
tactical alliance can be traced clearly to a document issued 24 years ago [in]
the 1980 Venice Declaration. This declaration made clear that the EC, under
French leadership, had adopted Pan-Arab conditions regarding Israel without
qualification, including: the 1949 armistice as Israel’s legitimate
borders; Arab sovereignty over East Jerusalem; an Arab Palestinian state; the
recognition of the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinians, as well
as its participation in all negotiations, and the obligation of Israel to
negotiate with Arafat, exclusively; and the refusal to recognize a separate
peace between Israel and any Arab country, for the resolution of the
'Palestinian problem'.
By adopting all those conditions (which contradicted
UN Resolution 242) Europeans could in turn justify their ahistorical
designation of Judea and Samaria as occupied Arab land. Ultimately, the entire
European effort to delegitimize and vilify Israel hinges upon this inaccurate,
disingenuous formulation. In the 1970s and 80s, the Communist bloc and the
burgeoning Euro-Arab alliance granted international legitimacy to the denial of
Israel’s rights by the PLO. [. . . .\
Beyond a fleeting awareness, the overwhelming majority
of Europeans and Americans do not understand the new Eurabian entity, which
only the first step in a steady progression toward its Arabization and
Islamization. [. . . .] This evolution of Europe has been duplicated internally
within every EU country.
This deliberate, comprehensive process has taken place
through several means: the control of Middle Eastern Studies departments at
European universities, and the re-writing of historical textbooks; allowing
Euro-Arab bodies to screen cultural exchanges and publications relating to
Islam and the Arab Muslim world for unwelcome content; taboos imposed on issues
related to immigration and Islam; disinformation campaigns demonizing Israel
(and America), while fostering a comprehensive and “brotherly”
alliance between EU and Arab League countries on the political, economic,
cultural, and social levels; and the servile obedience of the EU's mainstream
media to all these initiatives. [. . . .]
The EU continues to proclaim that . . . the Middle
East conflict is at the center of world politics. . . . . EU’s unlimited
funds finance anti-Israeli and anti-American campaigns, as well as the
"dialogue" industry. Regarding Israel in particular, it appears as if
the EU has become the obsequious mouthpiece of the Arab League.
This Eurabian ethos operates at all levels of European
society. . . . . Eurabia’s destiny was sealed when it decided, willingly,
to become a covert partner with the Arab global jihad against America and
Israel. Americans must discuss the tragic development of Eurabia, and its
profound implications for the United States, particularly in terms of its
resultant foreign policy realities. Americans should consider the despair and
confusion of many Europeans, prisoners of a Eurabian totalitarianism that
foments a culture of deadly lies about Western civilization. Americans should know that this self-destructive
calamity did not just happen, rather it was the result of deliberate policies,
executed and monitored by ostensibly responsible people. Finally, Americans
should understand that Eurabia’s contemporary anti-Zionism and
anti-Americanism are the spiritual heirs of 1930s Nazism and anti-Semitism,
triumphally resurgent.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Bat
Ye'or's work provokes campaigns to silence her or drown her out. From
"Deadly Dangerous", by David Frum, National Review, 23
December 2002:
. . . criticism -- even strident and unjust criticism -- is something that most organized religions in our democratic society have learned to tolerate. Most -- but not all. Compare two recent cases, one famous, one not. Harvard professor Daniel Goldhagen [in his book A Moral Reckoning] argues that the Roman Catholic Church -- not just the Pope, but the entire hierarchy and the ancient doctrines -- should be regarded as complicit in the century's greatest crime. Strong stuff, and it has been strongly resented by many Catholics. Yet so far as I know, no Catholic has tried to kill Goldhagen -- the very idea would be ridiculous. When he lectures at universities, nobody shouts him down. Nobody tries to intimidate his publishers into discontinuing his work.
Now consider the story of Bat Ye'or. . . . . [T]he dominant religion she studies is Islam, and the minorities whose stories she tells are the dhimmi: Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians under Muslim rule. Hers is a deadly dangerous subject. From Pakistan to Britain, from Nigeria to France, writers who express skepticism about the teachings or record of Islam risk violent death. Bat Ye'or is a very great scholar: original, authoritative, lucid. [. . . .] Her native language is French, but her French publisher timidly let her book go out of print, despite scholarly accolades and strong sales. When she spoke at Georgetown [a university in Washington. DC], irate Muslim students shouted her down, unreprimanded by their university, and the same thing happened to her at the University of London and at Brown.
Bat
Ye'or's own comments are quoted in "Bat Ye'or on Jihad and
Dhimmitude", by Rod Dreher, National Review Online, 25 October
2004:
[. . . .] In Bat Ye'or's view, universities and naive Jewish and Christian religious leaders are carrying water for Islamists, as is the political Left ('The leftists were educated with hate of America and rejection of Judeo-Christian values', she said, and this perversely leads them to view Islamofascism uncritically). 'We have to understand the cultural war we're in," Bat Ye'or said. "The war is not only a terrorist war, but a cultural war on our values and on our integrity'.
:
Bat Ye'or was stunned to see how far the self-dhimmitization of Americans has already progressed, at least on elite American college campuses. Speaking at Georgetown the other day, she said about three-quarters of the students who turned up to hear her speech were Muslims, and they responded abusively. All they could say was that she was defaming Islam; they couldn't argue the facts with her. But that didn't surprise her. Said her husband, David Littman, who was there to speak on human rights under Islam, 'The amazing thing is the local Jewish group [at the university] had become dhimmis. Their leader was absolutely panicked when he saw the shouting of the Muslims. He told me he'd rather I not speak. I refused'. Added Bat Ye'or: 'There were Jews and Christians present who totally agreed with what we said, but when they came up after to thank us, we said, Why did you not speak? Why did you let us stand alone?' . . . . [Muslims] have such self-assurance. Jews and Christians, alas, do not. And the historian warns this is going to be our downfall."
The
embrace of dhimmitude in Europe is cited in
"The Islamization of Europe?" by David Pryce-Jones, Commentary
Magazine, December 2004:
[ . . . . ] European countries in the postwar period seemed largely to have lost the will to respond to aggressive challenges from without, . . . In the meantime, though, a battle of a different but no less decisive kind has been taking place within Europe, where some 20 million Muslims have settled. Thanks to their high birthrate and to the sub-replacement birthrate that has become the norm among other Europeans, the demographic facts alone suggest a continent ripe for a determined effort to advance the Islamist agenda.
[. . . .] [A] phenomenon familiar from the Soviet era has lately made a repeat appearance in the West, and that is voluntary accommodation, or fellow-traveling, among non-Muslims. Leftist fellow-travelers once helped to create a climate of opinion favorable to Communism. Many knew exactly what they were doing. Others merely meant well; they were what Lenin called 'useful idiots'. In like manner, Islamist fellow-travelers and useful idiots are weaving a climate of opinion today that advances the purposes of radical Islam and is deeply damaging to the prospects of reconciliation.
As in the 30’s and throughout the cold war, intellectuals and journalists are in the lead. Books pour from the presses to justify everything and anything Muslims have done in the past and are doing in the present. Just as every Soviet aggression was once defined as an act of self-defense against the warmongering West, today terrorists of al Qaeda, or the Chechen terrorists who killed children in the town of Beslan, are described in the media as militants, activists, separatists, armed groups, guerrillas -- in short, as anything but terrorists. [. . . . ]
One form of Islamist fellow-traveling masquerades as a call for 'tolerance' or 'diversity', and has penetrated right through the world of European opinion and European institutions. [. . . .] The institutions that have been affected by Islamophile correctness run the gamut. In Britain, a judge has agreed to prohibit Hindus and Jews from sitting on a jury in the trial of a Muslim. The British Commission for Racial Equality has ordained that businesses must provide prayer rooms for Muslims and pay them for their absences on religious holidays.
In a town in the Midlands, a proposal to renovate a hundred-year-old statue of a pig was rejected for fear of giving offense to Muslims. The British Council, an international organization for cultural relations, fired a staff member who published articles in the Sunday Telegraph arguing that the roots of terror and jihad were nourished in the soil of Islam, while the BBC canceled the contract of a popular television journalist for allegedly using negative language to describe the Muslim Arab contribution to mankind. [. . . .]
Religious society is not far behind: even as bin Laden speaks of wresting Spain (“al-Andalus”) from the infidels by violence, the cathedral of Santiago has considered removing a statue of St. James Matamoros (“the Moor slayer”), lest it give offense to Muslims. For the same reason, the municipality of Seville has removed King Ferdinand III, hitherto the city’s patron saint, from fiesta celebrations because he fought the Moors for 27 years. In Italy, where Islamists have threatened to destroy the cathedral of Bologna because of a fresco illustrating the Prophet Muhammad in the inferno (where Dante placed him), thought has been given to deleting the art-work from the walls. Even the Pope has apologized for the Crusades. In secular Denmark, the Qur’an (but not the Bible) is now required reading for high-school students. And so forth. [. . . . ]
[A]ppearing this year in London was Sheik Abdul Rahman al-Sudayyis, a senior imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca; among his many distinctions, al-Sudayyis has vituperated Jews as 'the scum of the human race, the rats of the world, the violators of pacts and agreements, the murderers of the prophets, and the offspring of apes and pigs'. Standing beside this apostle of 'diversity and equality' was a junior minister in the Blair government. [. . . .]
In the realm of classical Islam, Christians and Jews once lived as dhimmis -- that is to say, minorities with second-class rights, tolerated but discriminated against by law and custom. Many contemporary Muslims appear to idealize this long-lost supremacy over others, and aspire to reconstruct it. . . . . Summing up the collective achievement so far, Bat Ye’or, the historian of 'dhimmitude', has written that 'Europe has evolved from a Judeo-Christian civilization with important post-Enlightenment/secular elements to secular Muslim transitional society with its traditional Judeo-Christian mores rapidly disappearing'. She calls this evolving entity 'Eurabia'. If that is the case, or is becoming the case, is it any wonder that some Europeans are switching sides, so as to be on the winning one? [. . . .]"
* * * *
* * * * * * * *
His Excellency the Honorable Monsieur Gerard Araud is Ambassador of the French Republic to Israel. He thus represents a state whose President Chirac describes Israel as "a parenthesis in history".
Araud recently went on Israel Radio to complain that France is unfairly criticized by Israel even though "anti-Semitism in France is no different from that in other countries in Europe" Furthermore, a popular Israeli comedian makes fun of the French.
His Excellency gave as his professional diagnosis: "There is a sort of anti-French neurosis in this country , , , , I think there is a neurosis that causes anti-Frenchism."
END