Bingo! As always (armchair historian that I seem to be becoming) I want to add the bit about 1400 years during which Jews, who already lived in Middle Eastern lands when they were colonized by Arabs, became subject to dhimmitude (second class status) and jizia tax, which entrenched their identity, to Muslims, as inferior. I would say that’s an important factor in their being perceived as “uppity”, in the 19 & 20th centuries, when the idea of self-determination started to become real. ;) But thank you for elucidating, as always, the world’s greatest hypocrisy!
"These violent pogroms were symptoms of rampant Muslim antisemitism, sparked partly by the very idea that Jews would be so uppity as to believe that they had a right to their own country."
Exactly - I don’t think the Arabs knew or cared about what Napoleon did in emancipating the Jews of Europe - the hate and disdain existed since the 7th century, in the religion, culture, custom and institutions of the conquered ME. It was precisely the “uppity” nerve of subjugated Jews - who lived there before the Arabs even arrived - to dare to be sovereign and independent in their ancestral homeland, after it was colonized by a succession of empires, some Islamic. It’s a feature of the dogma, not a bug.
Thats a neat trick the Muslims worked out with the help of leftists and cowards. Criticize them for their vile actions beliefs or behavior and YOU are the one who is prejudiced. Neat trick if you can do it. Too bad the Nazis didn't have today's leftists to help them turn their genocide around on their critics.
The self identified anti racist progressive left - at least the vocal group that wants to globalize the intifada - are more revolting than the neo Nazis, who don’t cloak themselves in moral righteousness.
This is a very important topic, one that Western journalists and politicians rarely touch because they are afraid of being called “Islamophobic”. That is the purpose of the word and that Western elites have fallen for it shows a certain kind of decadence as well as weakness. Islam has been antisemitic and anti-Christian from its earliest days, and people need to hear the truth.
Islamophobia was a term coined by the Iranian fundamentalists who took over Iran in 1979. Originally, it was meant to intimidate Muslims who might question the Koran. It became a propaganda tool used by the Muslim Brotherhood and migrated West. The disaster was when politicians and journalists picked it up and accepted it. They are voluntarily making themselves dhimmis, one step away from adopting anti-blasphemy laws.
Do we ever hear the anti-Western and anti-Christian Muslims called Christianophobic? No. Why not? After all, Muslims live with equal rights in every Western country as well as in Israel. In many of these countries, they are treated with more deference than the Christians and Jews. Now think of being Christian in a Muslim country. They are second class citizens or worse. Many have been driven out. We in the West need to stop being a propagandist for Islam. We must stop using the word Islamophobia.
Too many Jews (I call them “As a Jew” Jews) happily support the “antisemitism is not the same thing as anti-Zionism” lie. It infuriates and depresses me.
When your theology teaches you that all humans are born Muslim, and it's only due to parental ignorance or neglect that you're raised in another faith, you're bound to hold negative opinions of "the other". Similarly the belief that once a territory is conquered by Islam it must remain Islamic land. And somehow the Islamic Conquests don't rate as "colonialism" in the eyes of the anti-Zionist proponents of "decolonization".
The German scholar of Muslim antisemitism, Mattias Kuntzel points to the Nazis seeing a natural ally among the newly established Egyptian Islamist Muslim Brotherhood leaders back in the 1930s. As Nazi "race" theory didn't get much traction with an Arab audience, the Nazis instead funded "research" for a religiously-based animosity towards Jews, which they found easily enough in the post-Medina period portion of the Quran, which is roughly the last two thirds of the text.
Of course Muslim animosity towards Jews didn't start in the 20th century. There were many instances of fanatics being particularly violently disposed towards Jews that kept them a heavily oppressed minority in our ancient homeland under various caliphates and in the diaspora, including early 19th century Shiraz, where Shi'ite fanatics made life so unbearable that the Jews fled to Isfahan, also early 19th century Yemen where the ruling Emir passed an edict that compelled widowed Jewish women to marry Muslim men so that their inherited wealth came under Muslim control, the Damascus Blood Libel in Syria (also early 19th century) and a few pogroms in Safed.
Then there's the late 20th century racism of low expectations that explained away the violent displacement of between 800,000 and a million Mizrachi Jews from the MENA as a "natural response" to Zionism, that followed Israel's founding but was already on the boil a few decades earlier.
Excellent post as always Pat. Thank you! For clarity with respect to "failed states" I'd like to add the following for historical and financial accuracy.
Your column positions Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria as failed states, with Jordan as a stable exception. However, Jordan’s stability, under the Hashemite monarchy—installed by the British post-WWI to govern "Transjordan" as a compromise for Arab allies from the Hejaz, are not indigenous to the region—Jordan relies heavily on U.S. and Israeli aid, without which it risks collapse. With ~50–60% of its population of Palestinian descent, largely from 1948 and 1967 refugee waves, Jordan’s demographic and economic challenges (ie. failure to function as a country) mirror those of its neighbors.
U.S. Aid (2005–2025): ~$22–25 billion, including $1.45–1.72 billion annually, funds budget, military, and water infrastructure.
Israel’s Aid (2005–2025): ~$1.2–2.4 billion in low-cost clean water (50–150 MCM/year), plus trade/security support, addressing water scarcity.
Economic vulnerabilities: 94% debt-to-GDP (2017), 25% unemployment (50% youth), and 1.3 million Syrian refugees strain stability.
Without this external support, the Hashemite regime, seen by some as non-native, could face unrest from its majority Palestinian population, pushing Jordan toward failure like its neighbors. Currently, it is in the interest of Israel and the US to support the regime to prevent regional chaos. Jordan's overthrow would only facilitate the rise of yet another terror state on Israel's border
One forgets that Syria and Lebanon, and technically Jordan were all born from the same cloth as Israel, yet as you say, are ignored as failed states.
I don’t have detailed historical knowledge, but there were centuries when the Christians under the Crusades were at war with Islam. Today, it is Judaism which has risen, with the advent of Israel reborn in its original homeland, and Judaism is at war with Islam.
Israel’s rebirth over the last 78 years is a modern day miracle.
The war with Islam is made worse by the centuries old anti Semitism in Christianity which is never very far from the surface.
October 7 taught us is that humanity hasn’t changed in ~3,000 years. So many of us thought post WWII and post the Holocaust and post the civil rights movement that humanity had evolved. October 7 taught us that it hasn’t, and it’s been heartbreaking for so many of us.
Great piece, Pat, as always. The hypocrisy surrounding the discussion of the modern State of Israel and other countries created out of the British and French Mandates of Palestine (Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq) is mind boggling. Let me focus on a couple of points that you have raised: anti-Zionism and Islamophobia.
First, anti-Zionism is most definitely antisemitism, because it is the denial of the right of a Jewish state to exist. And that by extension, is the denial for Jews to exist safely in a country of their own. We can go down the rabbit holes of history all we want. Many countries that exist today in the form, and within the borders, that they do have come to be so through many turbulent political, economic and military events. No one suggest that Irish shouldn't live in Ireland, even though Ireland used to be colonized by Britain? Israel and Judea were colonized by Romans, Arabs, Turks and then Brits. So Zionism is a Jewish national movement to have an independent state like many others we know and unquestionably accept.
On Islamophobia - this is where the argument over multiculturalism completely diluted the sense of justice and fairness and, in fact, perverted those concepts. If our society wants be truly accepting and fair and equitable, we need to make sure that each member of said society is held to the same standard. If one commits a crime, they should pay for it the same way regardless of their race, ethnicity or religious creed. What is a hate speech for one cannot be a freedom of expression for another, and vice-versa. It seems that we are generally losing the plot on this.
This is what Ive been trying to tell my well-meaning 'both-sides', 'why do you guys hate each other?', 'but Zionists have 'expansionist goals' friends.
Thank you for putting it so clearly and so beautifully.
Just an additional point. Mohammed designated Hebron (al-Khaleel) an Islamic waqf when neither he nor any of his followers had ever set foot there. According to the Islamic concept of 'waqf' - Hamas is declaring that all of Israel is a waqf - it is akin to a change in sovereignty, dedicated to Allah in perpetuity never to pass into non-Muslim hands again.
How did he justify this? By what right? Well, according to the Koran - every word of which was uttered by Mohammed at surprisingly convenient moments in the course of his 'prophethood' - Abraham was a Muslim: as was Adam, as was Moses, as were ALL the prophets. Consequently, the 'holy land' was given to the Muslims - the 'true' monotheists. According to the Koran - the Jews believe that Ezra was the son of God in the same way that Christians claim Jesus was the son of God and this is anathema to Islam. That Jews and Christians rewrote their scriptures to edit Mohammed out.
Two Billion Muslims are supposed to believe this. But do they really? After all, an entire chapter of the Koran is called 'the spoils of war' - there's a lot of booty to be acquired by showing up after the fact and usurping the labour of others.
Koran 33:27 "And He caused you to inherit their land and their homes and their properties and a land which you have not trodden. And ever is Allah , over all things, competent."
ps There's been a big push re the '3 Abrahamic Faiths' in the last few decades coupled with 'Dawa' - proselytizing for Islam at 'dialogue' events, and Middle East funding pouring into Western Universities. How long before everyone is convinced of this fallacy, not just Muslims. Is this what's been taught at the Universities - does anyone really know what's being taught? These courses aren't vetted by people who oppose sharia - they're vetted by people who adhere to it.
I find that many Liberals, even some who support Israel, have a really hard time accepting that Muslim opposition to Israel is primarily based on the Muslim land concept. That no non-Muslim State can exist in a formerly Muslim land.
Bingo! As always (armchair historian that I seem to be becoming) I want to add the bit about 1400 years during which Jews, who already lived in Middle Eastern lands when they were colonized by Arabs, became subject to dhimmitude (second class status) and jizia tax, which entrenched their identity, to Muslims, as inferior. I would say that’s an important factor in their being perceived as “uppity”, in the 19 & 20th centuries, when the idea of self-determination started to become real. ;) But thank you for elucidating, as always, the world’s greatest hypocrisy!
Indeed the ‘uppity’ to which I presume you are referring, is the emancipation of the Jews in Europe by Napoleon.
It's in the article text:
"These violent pogroms were symptoms of rampant Muslim antisemitism, sparked partly by the very idea that Jews would be so uppity as to believe that they had a right to their own country."
Exactly - I don’t think the Arabs knew or cared about what Napoleon did in emancipating the Jews of Europe - the hate and disdain existed since the 7th century, in the religion, culture, custom and institutions of the conquered ME. It was precisely the “uppity” nerve of subjugated Jews - who lived there before the Arabs even arrived - to dare to be sovereign and independent in their ancestral homeland, after it was colonized by a succession of empires, some Islamic. It’s a feature of the dogma, not a bug.
Imagine someone saying they are anti Arab nationalism and anti Islamic countries, but not anti-Arab or anti-Muslim. No one would believe them.
Thats a neat trick the Muslims worked out with the help of leftists and cowards. Criticize them for their vile actions beliefs or behavior and YOU are the one who is prejudiced. Neat trick if you can do it. Too bad the Nazis didn't have today's leftists to help them turn their genocide around on their critics.
The self identified anti racist progressive left - at least the vocal group that wants to globalize the intifada - are more revolting than the neo Nazis, who don’t cloak themselves in moral righteousness.
• 1972 — Munich Olympics massacre, Germany — 11 Israelis killed.
• 1983 — US Embassy bombing, Beirut, Lebanon — 63 killed.
• 1983 — Beirut barracks bombing, Lebanon — 241 US Marines + 58 French killed.
• 1985 — EgyptAir Flight 648 hijacking, Malta — 60 killed.
• 1985 — Rome & Vienna airport attacks, Italy/Austria — 19 killed
• 1993 — World Trade Center bombing, USA — 6 killed.
• 1994 — AMIA Jewish center bombing, Buenos Aires, Argentina — 85 killed.
• 1995 — Riyadh car bombing, Saudi Arabia — 5 US personnel killed.
• 1996 — Khobar Towers bombing, Saudi Arabia — 19 US airmen killed.
• 1997 — Luxor massacre, Egypt — 62 tourists killed by Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya.
• 1998 — US Embassy bombings, Kenya & Tanzania — 224 killed.
• 2000 — USS Cole bombing, Yemen — 17 US sailors killed.
• 2001 — 9/11 attacks, USA — ~3,000 killed.
• 2002 — Bali bombings, Indonesia — 202 killed.
• 2003 — Casablanca bombings, Morocco — 45 killed.
• 2003 — Riyadh compound bombings, Saudi Arabia — 39 killed.
• 2004 — Madrid train bombings, Spain — 193 killed.
• 2004 — Beslan school siege, Russia — 334 killed.
• 2005 — London 7/7 bombings, UK — 52 killed.
• 2005 — Sharm el-Sheikh bombings, Egypt — 88 killed.
• 2005 — Amman hotel bombings, Jordan — 60 killed.
• 2006 — Mumbai train bombings, India — 209 killed.
• 2007 — Algiers bombings, Algeria — 33 killed (UN office targeted).
• 2008 — Mumbai attacks, India — 166 killed (hotels, train station, Chabad House).
• 2010 — Moscow Metro bombings, Russia — 40 killed.
• 2011 — Domodedovo Airport bombing, Moscow, Russia — 37 killed.
• 2012 — Toulouse shootings, France — 7 killed
• 2013 — Westgate Mall attack, Nairobi, Kenya — 67 killed.
• 2014 — Peshawar school massacre, Pakistan — 149 killed, mostly children.
• 2015 — Charlie Hebdo, France — 12 killed.
• 2015 — Paris attacks (Bataclan etc.), France — 130 killed.
• 2016 — Brussels bombings, Belgium — 32 killed.
• 2016 — Nice truck attack, France — 86 killed.
• 2016 — Istanbul Atatürk Airport attack, Turkey — 45 killed.
• 2016 — Berlin Christmas market truck attack, Germany — 12 killed.
• 2017 — Manchester Arena bombing, UK — 22 killed.
• 2017 — London Bridge + Borough Market attack, UK — 8 killed.
• 2017 — Barcelona van attack & Cambrils, Spain — 16 killed.
• 2017 — Sinai mosque attack, Egypt — 311 killed.
• 2018 — Mogadishu hotel bombing, Somalia — 52 killed.
• 2019 — Easter Sunday bombings, Sri Lanka — 269 killed.
• 2020 — Murder of Samuel Paty, France
• 2020 — Nice basilica stabbing, France — 3 killed
• 2021 — Kabul airport bombing, Afghanistan — 170+ killed.
• 2023 — Hamas October 7 attacks on Israel — ~1,200 Israelis killed.
• 2024 — Moscow Crocus City Hall attack, Russia — 145 killed (ISIS-K claimed).
This is a very important topic, one that Western journalists and politicians rarely touch because they are afraid of being called “Islamophobic”. That is the purpose of the word and that Western elites have fallen for it shows a certain kind of decadence as well as weakness. Islam has been antisemitic and anti-Christian from its earliest days, and people need to hear the truth.
Islamophobia was a term coined by the Iranian fundamentalists who took over Iran in 1979. Originally, it was meant to intimidate Muslims who might question the Koran. It became a propaganda tool used by the Muslim Brotherhood and migrated West. The disaster was when politicians and journalists picked it up and accepted it. They are voluntarily making themselves dhimmis, one step away from adopting anti-blasphemy laws.
Do we ever hear the anti-Western and anti-Christian Muslims called Christianophobic? No. Why not? After all, Muslims live with equal rights in every Western country as well as in Israel. In many of these countries, they are treated with more deference than the Christians and Jews. Now think of being Christian in a Muslim country. They are second class citizens or worse. Many have been driven out. We in the West need to stop being a propagandist for Islam. We must stop using the word Islamophobia.
Thank you for the great informative cimnent
Excellent post, Pat!
Too many Jews (I call them “As a Jew” Jews) happily support the “antisemitism is not the same thing as anti-Zionism” lie. It infuriates and depresses me.
When your theology teaches you that all humans are born Muslim, and it's only due to parental ignorance or neglect that you're raised in another faith, you're bound to hold negative opinions of "the other". Similarly the belief that once a territory is conquered by Islam it must remain Islamic land. And somehow the Islamic Conquests don't rate as "colonialism" in the eyes of the anti-Zionist proponents of "decolonization".
The German scholar of Muslim antisemitism, Mattias Kuntzel points to the Nazis seeing a natural ally among the newly established Egyptian Islamist Muslim Brotherhood leaders back in the 1930s. As Nazi "race" theory didn't get much traction with an Arab audience, the Nazis instead funded "research" for a religiously-based animosity towards Jews, which they found easily enough in the post-Medina period portion of the Quran, which is roughly the last two thirds of the text.
Of course Muslim animosity towards Jews didn't start in the 20th century. There were many instances of fanatics being particularly violently disposed towards Jews that kept them a heavily oppressed minority in our ancient homeland under various caliphates and in the diaspora, including early 19th century Shiraz, where Shi'ite fanatics made life so unbearable that the Jews fled to Isfahan, also early 19th century Yemen where the ruling Emir passed an edict that compelled widowed Jewish women to marry Muslim men so that their inherited wealth came under Muslim control, the Damascus Blood Libel in Syria (also early 19th century) and a few pogroms in Safed.
Then there's the late 20th century racism of low expectations that explained away the violent displacement of between 800,000 and a million Mizrachi Jews from the MENA as a "natural response" to Zionism, that followed Israel's founding but was already on the boil a few decades earlier.
Excellent post as always Pat. Thank you! For clarity with respect to "failed states" I'd like to add the following for historical and financial accuracy.
Your column positions Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria as failed states, with Jordan as a stable exception. However, Jordan’s stability, under the Hashemite monarchy—installed by the British post-WWI to govern "Transjordan" as a compromise for Arab allies from the Hejaz, are not indigenous to the region—Jordan relies heavily on U.S. and Israeli aid, without which it risks collapse. With ~50–60% of its population of Palestinian descent, largely from 1948 and 1967 refugee waves, Jordan’s demographic and economic challenges (ie. failure to function as a country) mirror those of its neighbors.
U.S. Aid (2005–2025): ~$22–25 billion, including $1.45–1.72 billion annually, funds budget, military, and water infrastructure.
Israel’s Aid (2005–2025): ~$1.2–2.4 billion in low-cost clean water (50–150 MCM/year), plus trade/security support, addressing water scarcity.
Economic vulnerabilities: 94% debt-to-GDP (2017), 25% unemployment (50% youth), and 1.3 million Syrian refugees strain stability.
Without this external support, the Hashemite regime, seen by some as non-native, could face unrest from its majority Palestinian population, pushing Jordan toward failure like its neighbors. Currently, it is in the interest of Israel and the US to support the regime to prevent regional chaos. Jordan's overthrow would only facilitate the rise of yet another terror state on Israel's border
Pat, what a brilliant article.
One forgets that Syria and Lebanon, and technically Jordan were all born from the same cloth as Israel, yet as you say, are ignored as failed states.
I don’t have detailed historical knowledge, but there were centuries when the Christians under the Crusades were at war with Islam. Today, it is Judaism which has risen, with the advent of Israel reborn in its original homeland, and Judaism is at war with Islam.
Israel’s rebirth over the last 78 years is a modern day miracle.
The war with Islam is made worse by the centuries old anti Semitism in Christianity which is never very far from the surface.
The Jews aren’t at war with anyone. We’re perfectly happy to be left to our own devises.
But October 7th taught us AGAIN that putting down our weapons means suicide.
Not wanting suicide we are forced to defend ourselves.
Peace when Arubs love their children more than they hate Jews.
Well said !
October 7 taught us is that humanity hasn’t changed in ~3,000 years. So many of us thought post WWII and post the Holocaust and post the civil rights movement that humanity had evolved. October 7 taught us that it hasn’t, and it’s been heartbreaking for so many of us.
Great piece, Pat, as always. The hypocrisy surrounding the discussion of the modern State of Israel and other countries created out of the British and French Mandates of Palestine (Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq) is mind boggling. Let me focus on a couple of points that you have raised: anti-Zionism and Islamophobia.
First, anti-Zionism is most definitely antisemitism, because it is the denial of the right of a Jewish state to exist. And that by extension, is the denial for Jews to exist safely in a country of their own. We can go down the rabbit holes of history all we want. Many countries that exist today in the form, and within the borders, that they do have come to be so through many turbulent political, economic and military events. No one suggest that Irish shouldn't live in Ireland, even though Ireland used to be colonized by Britain? Israel and Judea were colonized by Romans, Arabs, Turks and then Brits. So Zionism is a Jewish national movement to have an independent state like many others we know and unquestionably accept.
On Islamophobia - this is where the argument over multiculturalism completely diluted the sense of justice and fairness and, in fact, perverted those concepts. If our society wants be truly accepting and fair and equitable, we need to make sure that each member of said society is held to the same standard. If one commits a crime, they should pay for it the same way regardless of their race, ethnicity or religious creed. What is a hate speech for one cannot be a freedom of expression for another, and vice-versa. It seems that we are generally losing the plot on this.
This is what Ive been trying to tell my well-meaning 'both-sides', 'why do you guys hate each other?', 'but Zionists have 'expansionist goals' friends.
Thank you for putting it so clearly and so beautifully.
Pat..as always 💯! Still hope to get together for a chat…😊
Right on!! Why aren't the Liberetards understanding this??
Just an additional point. Mohammed designated Hebron (al-Khaleel) an Islamic waqf when neither he nor any of his followers had ever set foot there. According to the Islamic concept of 'waqf' - Hamas is declaring that all of Israel is a waqf - it is akin to a change in sovereignty, dedicated to Allah in perpetuity never to pass into non-Muslim hands again.
How did he justify this? By what right? Well, according to the Koran - every word of which was uttered by Mohammed at surprisingly convenient moments in the course of his 'prophethood' - Abraham was a Muslim: as was Adam, as was Moses, as were ALL the prophets. Consequently, the 'holy land' was given to the Muslims - the 'true' monotheists. According to the Koran - the Jews believe that Ezra was the son of God in the same way that Christians claim Jesus was the son of God and this is anathema to Islam. That Jews and Christians rewrote their scriptures to edit Mohammed out.
Two Billion Muslims are supposed to believe this. But do they really? After all, an entire chapter of the Koran is called 'the spoils of war' - there's a lot of booty to be acquired by showing up after the fact and usurping the labour of others.
Koran 33:27 "And He caused you to inherit their land and their homes and their properties and a land which you have not trodden. And ever is Allah , over all things, competent."
ps There's been a big push re the '3 Abrahamic Faiths' in the last few decades coupled with 'Dawa' - proselytizing for Islam at 'dialogue' events, and Middle East funding pouring into Western Universities. How long before everyone is convinced of this fallacy, not just Muslims. Is this what's been taught at the Universities - does anyone really know what's being taught? These courses aren't vetted by people who oppose sharia - they're vetted by people who adhere to it.
I find that many Liberals, even some who support Israel, have a really hard time accepting that Muslim opposition to Israel is primarily based on the Muslim land concept. That no non-Muslim State can exist in a formerly Muslim land.
Grade III starts in September. Enrol now.