Under the title: “Roots of hatred” and what looks like the
subtitle of an article, but may well be that of a book: “Nazis, Islamists, and
the making of the Modern Middle East,” David Pryce-Jones has written what must
be the review of a book that will no doubt sound like a practical joke. The
full article was published in the March 10 issue of National Review; a short
version of which was published in the Online edition of march 7, 2014.
Pryce-Jones says that the book itself was written by Barry Rubin and Wolfgang
G. Schwanitz.
I have not read the book, and have not seen the print
version of the article. What follows is my reaction to what appears in the
Online version. I sense that the book will instantly be thought of as a practical
joke because the moment that you look at it, you will form the image of a quiet
man walking in the street minding his own business, and there comes a crazy guy
who grabs him by the collar and shouts hysterically: “Why are you insulting me,
you crazy, f**ing sonofabitch?”
Baffled, the quiet man says: But I haven't said anything. Yes,
you did, says the crazy guy. How did you make that out? Asks the quiet guy, and
the crazy guy replies: Everybody hates me, you are part of that everybody,
therefore you must hate me too. All of you have hated me since time immemorial,
and have persecuted me ever since. And the quiet guy asks: But do you love me?
Do you love humanity? And the crazy guy replies: Are you nuts? I hate you all.
I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. In fact, I am writing a book about how much
all of you hate me so that you know how much I hate you back. This is a book of
hate – hate, hate, hate – it is a mirror that lets you see how much your hatred
of me made me hate you. You may hate me no more but you did once, and my hatred
of you is eternal. It will never die.
Most people who have a casual interest in these matters will
drop the subject at this point and go on to mind their own business. But some
scholars may wish to verify the assertions made in the book, and will want to
see what is meant by: “Muslims are advised several times in their canonical
writings and by Middle Eastern rulers that the rightful ordering of the world
depends upon destroying Jews for fear Jews may destroy them.” The scholars will
find no such thing in Islam or the Arab countries.
Pryce-Jones goes on to say: “The Jewish state is conceived
as the outcome of a criminal conspiracy involving Britain
and now the United States .”
To begin with the Middle Eastern rulers prefer not to mention Israel at all.
They avoid the subject if they can, but when Israel does something that cannot
be ignored, they downplay the significance of what happened, and go on to talk
about something else. In fact, when the Jews – especially American Jews – speak
of the Arab obsession with Israel ,
they mean their own obsession with the Arab countries. And there is no better
proof of this than the book being reviewed. Furthermore, look into any American
publication at any time, and you will find something about an Arab or a Muslim
country. Then look in the Arab publications, and you may go for a month before
you find one or two lines mentioning Israel in passing.
As to the conspiracy that our author says involves Britain and America ,
there is the Sykes-Picot agreement which divided the Middle
East into what it is today. It involved not Britain and America
but Britain and France at the
start of the Twentieth Century. You will find more written about this subject
in the European publications than the Arab or Muslim ones.
Besides that, there is at times animosity that flares up
between Israel
and one or the other of the Muslim countries. You look into the Israeli
publications and the Jewish publications outside of Israel , and that's all they talk
about. A great deal of hate, and more hate is spilled with every sentence that
is written even when nothing is happening in the Middle
East . But when something happens such as Israel bombing the unarmed Palestinians, a group
will stand somewhere in Iran
or Turkey and shout down
with Israel or death to America that supplies Israel with those instruments of
death.
But that does not make them obsessed with Israel as much as
the obsession you see in newspapers, magazines and books as well as the
audio-visual publications – those put out by Jews about the Arabs and the
Muslims.