Customer Reviews

Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

On a recent trip to Switzerland, I encountered a gigantic mural in the Zurich Airport which depicted a proto-typical Swiss goat and sheep herder leading his flocks over an Alpine mountain pass, meeting a fully cloaked and turbaned Arab camel herder. Below the mural, a caption read, "You never know who you'll meet in Switzerland". This bucolic image struck me as bizarre, not having been personally conditioned to Western Europe's deliberate sociopolitical transformation over the past 30 years. I was reminded of these prescient words, written a quarter century ago by the great historian of Medieval European Islam, Charles Emmanuel Dufourcq, who was concerned (even then) that historical and cultural revisionism might precipitate a recurrence of

"...the upheaval carried out on our continent (i.e., Europe) by Islamic penetration more than a thousand years ago...with other methods."

And Dufourcq characterized the original methods which facilitated the violent, chaotic jihad conquest of the Iberian peninsula, and other parts of Europe, indistinguishable in motivation from modern acts of jihad terrorism, like the Madrid bombings on 3/11/04:

"It is not difficult to understand that such expeditions sowed terror. The historian al-Maqqari, who wrote in seventeenth-century Tlemcen in Algeria, explains that the panic created by the Arab horsemen and sailors, at the time of the Muslim expansion in the zones that saw those raids and landings, facilitated the later conquest, if that was decided on: `Allah,' he says, `thus instilled such fear among the infidels that they did not dare to go and fight the conquerors; they only approached them as suppliants, to beg for peace.'"

Within a decade after Dufourcq's death in 1982, the historian Bat Ye'or (from a 1991 French interview, published in English translation in 1994) echoed his intuitive concerns about Europe's re-Islamization, and warned more broadly,

"I do not see serious signs of a Europeanization of Islam anywhere, a move that would be expressed in a relativization of religion, a self-critical view of the history of Islamic imperialism...we are light years away from such a development...On the contrary, I think that we are participating in the Islamization of Europe, reflected both in daily occurrences and in our way of thinking...All the racist fanaticism that permeates the Arab countries and Iran has been manifested in Europe in recent years..."

Bat Ye'or is the most informed and insightful contemporary scholar of those unique Islamic institutions which regulate the relations between Muslims and non-Muslims: jihad, and its corollary institution, dhimmitude, the repressive and humiliating system of governance imposed upon those non-Muslims (i.e., dhimmis) subjugated by jihad. Although she coined the term dhimmitude, Bat Ye'or's characterization of the salient features of this institution is entirely consistent with the views of seminal scholars from the early and mid 20th century, such as Sir Jadunath Sarkar, and Antoine Fattal. Bat Ye'or's seminal contribution to the study of jihad and dhimmitude has been her unparalleled ability to accomplish two related tasks: (I) methodically and compulsively pooling a vast, rich array of primary source data; (II) providing a brilliant synthetic analysis of these data to demonstrate convincingly the transformative power of jihad and dhimmitude, operating as designed, within formerly Christian societies of the Near East and Asia Minor.

Eurabia: the Euro-Arab Axis portrays Western Europe's recrudescent dhimmitude, chronicled in real time, by our most knowledgeable contemporary scholar of the dhimmi condition. Living as an eyewitness in Geneva - a major European center, with its United Nations, NGOs and other international fora - Bat Ye'or describes in painstaking detail, the ongoing transformation of Europe into "Eurabia," a cultural and political appendage of the Arab/Muslim world. The use of the term "Eurabia", she notes, was first introduced, triumphally, in the mid-1970s, as the title of a journal edited by the President of the Association for Franco-Arab Solidarity, Lucien Bitterlein, and published collaboratively by the Groupe d'Etudes sur le Moyen-Orient (Geneva), France-Pays Arabes (Paris), and the Middle East International (London). The articles and editorials in this publication called for common Euro-Arab positions, at every level - social, economic, and commercial - and were contingent upon the fundamental political condition of European support for the Arab (and non-Arab) Muslim umma's jihad against Israel. These concrete proposals were not the musings of isolated theorists - they in fact represented policy decisions conceived in conjunction with, and actualized by, European state leaders, their ministers of foreign affairs, and European Parliamentarians.

Bat Ye'or's "Eurabia" clearly transcends attempts to analyze the same contemporary phenomena by other pundits. This remarkable book is the product of her serendipitously apposite prior expertise, painstaking new research, brilliant insight, and intellectual courage. Bat Ye'or's analyses have profound implications for Western Europe which may be incapable of altering its Eurabian trajectory; her research may be even more important for the United States if it wishes to avoid Europe's fate:

"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...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 is the world's preeminent historian of Islam, jihad and dhimmitude--the reduced state of non-Muslim peoples living under Islamic rule. Here, she has masterfully portrayed the means by which the Euro-Arab Dialogue (EAD) unfolded over the past 30-plus years, and how that process relates to the World War II Axis--as well as the historical, 1,400-year jihad.

"There are three forms of jihad," says Bat Ye'or today, "the military jihad, the economic jihad and the cultural jihad." The EAD between the European Union and the Arab League has been a means of spreading the economic and cultural jihads from the Middle East to Europe.

The process outlined here began with Charles DeGaulle's 1967 pronouncement that henceforward, France would assume a pro-Arab policy. In 1971, France began selling arms to Qaddafi, a step from which the EAD flowed as naturally as it did from DeGaulle's policy initiative.

Another factor, according to Bat Ye'or, was the French desire to regain a leading role in European history; Georges Pompidou furthered the process in October 1973, following the Syrian and Egyptian Yom Kippur war with Israel.

At that time, the Arab world imposed an oil embargo on Denmark, Holland and the U.S., cut oil production and began to raise oil prices by five percent a month. These new global geopolitics terrified the leaders of Germany and France.

Before it agreed to establish the EAD, the Arab League had demanded that Europe establish pro-Arab and anti-American policies in all their united political, cultural and economic endeavors. The oil embargo was the catalyst which finally moved the European Economic Community to action. Now, writes Bat Ye'or, EEC ministers enacted resolutions that met the Arab demands, and which at the same time reversed the true intent of United Nations Resolution 242. Only then was the Arab oil embargo to Europe lifted.

Through this give and take, Europe was mostly on the losing end, for the EAD contained from the start a significant rider to its economic agreements concerning oil. Now, a process unfolded whereby Arab culture, politics and faith were imported into Europe along with a militant Muslim population that refused to assimilate into European culture. Arab culture did not change, while European universities and politics changed radically.

Bat Ye'or also shows how the EAD renewed and fostered Europe's Axis ties to the Middle East: In the late 1940s and 1950s war criminals fled Europe to Egypt, Syria and other Arab nations. Now, Axis links to Europe were rekindled through the Middle Eastern policies imported into Europe. The new Europe was built on a unified anti-Israel and anti-American policy.

As Bat Ye'or also suggests, America is the last frontier, and the American people should take it as their duty to avoid Europe's fate.

Read this book for the depressing details.

--Alyssa A. Lappen

The first chapter is weak, because the author gives opinions not facts. The remainder of the book is very factual, well researched, well presented.
Europe has been very servile to the Arab world since the oil boycot of 1973. Servile meaning: paying lots of $ for oil, taking an anti-American and anti-Israeli stand, and allowing massive moslim immigration into Europe. The author shows all of this in great and chilling detail.

Bat Yo'er provides an excellent historical overview of the systematic way in which Europe's elite (political, media, university, etc.) has conspired with the Arab world, especially since the Arab oil embargo of 1973. The author points out that Europeans sought to align themselves with the Muslim world for two major reasons - (1) To form a counterbalance to USA influence, and (2) To assure the flow of oil and the availability of Muslim markets for European goods.

In order to initiate this process, the Euro-Arab Dialogue (EAD) was formalized. This agreement was essentially an alliance that would quickly prove to be anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic, anti-American, and anti-Christian.

It appears that when agreement was initiated, Europeans, especially the French, believed they would regain a degree of control over their former colonies. In fact, it appears those colonies, and the Islamic faith that propels them toward "uniting" with Europe, have gained control over Europe. The Islamic colonization of Europe brought with it darkness and foreboding, as Islam robs Europe of its tolerant and pluralistic culture.

For years I wondered why my European relatives spoke more favorably of Islam than Christianity, and supported the "victim" Palestinians over the "oppressive" Israelis. Far from being an accidental consequence of open dabate, their views actually resulted from the conscious decisions made by European elites to allow massive immigration and cultural change. Because of those elite decisions, the citizens of Europe now face a frightening future, where demographic change favors an Islamic conquest of Europe.

Bat Yo'er thoroughly documents the process whereby Europeans have surrendered, or submitted, to the Muslim world. Is it coincidental that Islam means "submission"? Europeans believe, for the most part, that any potential enemy or oppressor can be overcome with dialogue. But through the EAD, they are discovering instead that dialogue is not leading to multiculturalism, but to submission on their part. This submission to the more aggressive culture has already resulted in dhimmitude, where European "infidels" are rendered subservient to the dominant, more aggressive, Muslims.

This book is a wake-up call to all Westerners. Hopefully, for Europe and also for the United States, it is not too late.

The reader is provided with an excellent, well written, presentation which investigates how the European Union has allegedly become overtly anti-American and anti-Israel.

Particular emphasis being placed on what is cited as the subversion of the European Union through Islamic hostility, towards what is described as the "Islamization" of the continent.

Attention being drawn to the EU's perceived `need' of the Arab bloc of nations in order that the EU can "establish itself as a strategic rival to America". The reader is presented with a succession of international agreements revealing an inferred European agreement to support the Arab/Islamic world's political aims - particularly its anti-Israel stance - in exchange for favoured treatment in Arab/Islamic world markets.

Indeed, whilst a plethora of related subjects are dealt with, perhaps the core issue revolves around policies, attitudes and politics pertaining to the Arab/Palestinian - Israeli issue.

The book discusses how the EU has made Israel the `cornerstone' of it's relations with the Arab world and the US - and even matters pertaining to the continent's own security. What is adjudged in this work to be the resulting "Euro-Arab Judeophobia" is alleged to have permeated virtually all levels of West European society.

Many questions are asked from the outset, that investigate such issues as the decision of the European Union to propose a constitution that renounces and denies it's Judeo-Christian roots.

Not least of the issues dealt with is how the EU's perceived relations with the Arab/Islamic world have allegedly permitted the `dismissal' of what is described as a "voluminous historical record of violations" to enable the EU to engagement in fruitful business and diplomatic ventures with what are termed "dictatorial regimes".

The book in essence discusses what is described as a creeping `Islamicization' of a "decadent European Christendom", where there is cited to have been a considerable shifting of European attitudes and politics into the Arab-Islamic sphere of influence. Such being purportedly based upon a repeated policy of appeasement, accommodation, and cultural abdication before Islam which has allegedly been embraced with the intention of isolating Israel.

EU involvement in the Middle East is discussed in the context of how there appears to follow a "well established pattern" whereby - to begin with - no interest is purportedly shown in calling on the Palestinian side to refrain from killing Israeli civilians and - secondly - the EU allegedly demonstrates no sympathy for the humanitarian and economic plight of Israeli civilians suffering from terrorism. The EU allegedly, instead, devoting itself to pronouncing extreme concern over the humanitarian situation in the "West Bank" and Gaza - but not in relation to the plight of the Israelis themselves. (Page 258).

Some analysis is also given to the alleged effect that such EU/Arab alliances have had upon the religious realm, under the title of "Palestinianism", which has allegedly distorted the Biblical/Jewish roots of Scripture into a perceived "moral justification" for the elimination of the State of Israel. (Chapter 14). A political and religious framework being demonstrated that allegedly "demonizes" the Jews and discredits/undermines the Jewish roots of Christianity.

Such pertinent issues being discussed are the place of "Palestinian Liberation Theology" & "Replacement Theology" within some elements of the professing Church today. Reference also being made as to how Palestinian politics and Christian theology have allegedly become inextricably linked in the Middle East. The effects that such have had upon the prevailing Islamic-Christian-Jewish relations in the region and the West itself are also examined.

Many readers will undoubtedly disagree with the views of the writer and find many of these issues to be extremely contentious. However, to each question asked, an analysis is provided, with due reference to evidence which demands a verdict in itself.

This is an absolute "must read" and will provide a ready explanation to those readers living in the EU, who find themselves becoming increasingly concerned with the issues discussed in this excellent work.

Living in Germany and knowing many European countries well, I must say it is a fact that, during the next 30 years, we will see a muslim majority in Europe, no doubt at all. Today, the majority of all children born in the entire Netherlands as well as in most cities of Germany, France, England and so on are muslim.
You do the maths. The majority of these is neither willing nor able to adopt to what we would consider a European, or western, way of life. So much for the facts.
Still, I do not agree with the author when it comes to the reasons for the developments that got Europe that far.
European governments apart from the French one have never been supporting Arab plans for expansion, they simply let it happen.
They let it happen because whenever you dare to speak out on immigration issues as a European, you're considered a fascist.
Probably that's something Americans cannot understand, but Europe after WWII has never recovered anything called pride, values, protection of its own people first....
Yes, it's a shame we let it happen.
Before you blame us the next time for not acting before it was too late, will you please take a look at California?
Anyway, I hope you read the signs and learn from our coming downfall before it may be too late for you folks as well!

This may have been the most eye opening book, about a topic I thought I knew, that I have ever read.
Ms. Ye'Or puts the facts, layer upon layer, over the world view that has turned the EU into a tool of the Islamists and their friends. She shows how a sinister desire to challenge the rise of US influence in Europe, by DeGaulle and others who showed no repect fot what America had done for them during WWII, became a virolent form of anti-semitism when mixed with Arabist dreams.
Read this and you will have the right answers the next time someone tells you that the US needs to be like Europe it our dealings with the Middle East.

Outside the fall of communism, the major event of the past twenty years was the swtich of the European Left from Israel to the Arab/Islamic cause. As late as 1967, Europe overwhelming support the Jewish state. Then came the oil embargo and France raised the white flag, switching allegiances in midstream. Others followed suit and today Israel (and Jews) are as isolated and resented across the continent as ever before. The question of why a society of alleged admirers of freedom prefer primitive dictatorships to a Western, open society is never raised. The answer would be too embarrassing. It's not only the Left but every facet of European society that demonizes "Zionists". Who says that unremitting propaganda does not work?

This is a story within a story. The larger picture is the total disentegration of Europe as a culture. Gone are former ties of religion, democracy and muscular nationalism. Instead there is a squishy socialism, a beauracracy of nobodies and a rampant loss of respect for any value except skepticism. Europe has made her decision to exit with a whimper rather than a bang. I am not sold on the author's insistence that there is a formal agreement between the two parties but that hardly matters. Both sides implicitely understand the arrangement - Europe is to lend unwavering support to the Arab cause, stop all aid to Israel, and in return will be given an easier slavery.

One sees the results of this alliance everywhere- agreement with Muslim demands, rabid anti-Americanism, support for "Palestine", scorn of democracy in the Middle East. Defense is redefined as slow surrender and an obsession to please at all costs. The other side does not matter - Iran, Iraq, China, Arabia - they are all to be placated with nice words and hard cash. And though I can buy the arguement that initially it was strictly monetary, the fact is that philosophically, Europe has crossed the Rubicon and is on a road with no return.

The author points out that most Europeans have knowledge of the dhimmitude within a Muslim society yet have inexplicably chosen this pathway. And unlike the Greeks, whose culture survived centuries of occupation, modern Europe has neither the will nor soul to fight. This book should server as a warning to all who say that values are not important. The future dhimmitude of Europe is the best antitode of that idea.

Bat Ye'Or has performed an invaluable service, by carefully documenting the history of the Euro-Arab Dialogue, the EU's agreement to accept Islamic colonization in return for security, oil, and the hope for power to rival America. The US stands, perhaps with only Israel at our side, as "The Land of the Free and Home of the Brave."

In this awe-inspiring work, Bat Ye'or chronicles the origins and course of the insidious cultural and economic Jihad of the past 30+ years against the West. She identifies the historical and spiritual dimensions of the current struggle against our civilization by detailing how the enemy has been weakening our culture in the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

Oil wealth has been harnessed to wage psychological and diplomatic warfare in order to subvert the Judeo-Christian and Enlightenment roots of Europe and turn it into a limp-wristed post-modernist culture as a prelude to subduing it completely. The most disturbing revelations concern the European intellectual and political elites that have colluded in this process of undermining our heritage.

The clearest signs of the extent to which they have succeeded are the Anti-American, Anti-Zionist and Pro-Palestinian attitudes of much of Europe nowadays, demonstrating the effects of the intelligentsia on ordinary people via the media. By playing on European resentment of American dominance, the enemy is succeeding in breaking up the Western Alliance.

There is also the gruesome convergence of a resurgent fascist Anti-Semitism with the Islamist resentment of the existence of Israel. One of its manifestations is Palestinianism, where the Western cultural pathology of guilt is being exploited to turn the West against Israel. Other forces are at work too, like French envy of Anglo-Saxon pre-eminence and the material benefits of close economic co-operation with the oil-rich countries of the Middle East and North Africa.

After the Yom Kippur War and the subsequent raising of oil prices, France threw itself into the arms of the oil-producers and influenced the European bureaucracy to follow suit, by means of the EAD (Euro Arab Dialogue) and the Parliamentary Association for Euro-Arab Co-operation (PAEAC).

Shamelessly abusing the western value of tolerance and leftist fads like relativist multiculturalism, the enemy has been gaining ground whilst giving nothing in return. Thus Israel has been turned into an international scapegoat while atrocities and genocide in places like Sudan, Chechnya and Rwanda plus human rights abuses in Islamic countries have been ignored.

The various strands of this European policy of dhimmitude encompass appeasement, bribery, and the encouragement of Anti-Americanism and Anti-Semitism in the guise of Anti-Zionism. Thus decades of Leftist undermining of Western values and multiculturalist indoctrination in academia are bearing their poisonous fruit. It is of the utmost importance for those who cherish the West to understand that the war against Israel is a war against all of us.

By denying its roots, Europe has destroyed its defences. For example, the socialist welfare state has contributed greatly to a declining birth rate on the continent. Now it must cope with millions of immigrants, many of whom are hostile to the host culture and refuse to integrate. What a horrible historical exchange took place: Six million Jews murdered and barely five decades later there are up to twenty million immigrants with a significant alienated component in their midst.

The Ottomans were halted at Vienna in 1683 but Europe now finds itself in a very vulnerable situation. Sold out by their elites, the ignorant taxpayers of Europe are subsidising the slow destruction of their civilization. Unless there is a spiritual re-awakening and a rediscovery of the European heritage, the future looks bleak.

Eurabia is a magnificent book, thoroughly researched and well written. Additional information on the current situation may be found in the books The Force of Reason and The Rage and The Pride by Oriana Fallaci, Decline and Fall: Europe's Slow Motion Suicide by Bruce Thornton, The Last Days of Europe: Epitaph for an Old Continent by Walter Laqueur and Menace in Europe: Why the Continent's Crisis Is America's Too by Claire Berlinski.