Bat Ye'or

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Bat Ye'or (Hebrew: בת יאור, meaning "daughter of the Nile"); a pseudonym of Gisèle Littman, née Orebi, is an Egypt-born British historian specializing in the history of non-Muslims in the Middle East, and in particular the history of Christian and Jewish dhimmis living under Islamic governments.[1][2][3][4][5][6]

She is the author of eight books, including Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis (2005), Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide (2001), The Decline of Eastern Christianity: From Jihad to Dhimmitude (1996), and The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians Under Islam (1985).

She has provided briefings to the United Nations[7] and the U.S. Congress[8] and has given talks at major universities such as Georgetown, Brown, Yale, Brandeis, and Columbia.[9][10]

Contents

[edit] Early life

Bat Ye'or was born in Cairo, Egypt from a middle class Jewish family, but she and her father and mother were forced to leave Egypt in 1957 in reprisal to the Suez Canal War and the Israeli invasion of Sinai[11], arriving in London as stateless refugees.[12] Beginning in 1958 she attended the Institute of Archaeology at University College, London and in 1959 became a British citizen by marriage. She moved to Switzerland in 1960 to continue her studies at the University of Geneva.[13]

She described her experiences in the following manner:

I had witnessed the destruction, in a few short years, of a vibrant Jewish community living in Egypt for over 2,600 years and which had existed from the time of Jeremiah the Prophet. I saw the disintegration and flight of families, dispossessed and humiliated, the destruction of their synagogues, the bombing of the Jewish quarters and the terrorizing of a peaceful population. I have personally experienced the hardships of exile, the misery of statelessness − and I wanted to get to the root cause of all this. I wanted to understand why the Jews from Arab countries, nearly a million, had shared my experience.

She is married to British historian David Littman, with whom she frequently collaborates.[10]

[edit] Research

In 1971 her first history text was published (under the Arabic pen name "Yahudiya Masriya", meaning "Egyptian Jewess"), The Jews of Egypt, in which she chronicled the history of the Jewish community in Egypt. [14]

In 1980 Le Dhimmi: Profil de l'opprimé en Orient et en Afrique du Nord depuis la conquête Arabe (The Dhimmi : Profile of the oppressed in the Orient and in North Africa since the Arab conquest) was published. In this she provided a historical survey of the views of Islamic theologians and jurists on the treatment of non-Muslim populations in lands ruled by Islam from the 7th century onwards. The text was supplemented by voluminous primary source correspondence and testimonies of inside and outside observers over the centuries.[15]

In 1991 Les Chrétientés d'Orient entre Jihad et Dhimmitude: VIIe-XXe siècle.(The Christians of the Orient between Jihad and Dhimmitude: seventh to twentieth centuries) was published. The study aimed to analyze the function of "dhimmitude" within the context of jihad and sharia. The second half of the book was composed of extensive listing of passages from documents that the author saw as describing acts perpetrated by Muslims against the dhimmi population.

In 2002 Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide was published. In this study Bat Ye'or further examined the legal and social condition of "dhimmi" populations using various religious and historical sources.

Her most recent book Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis explored the history of the relationship from the 1970s onwards between the European Union (previously the European Economic Community) and the Arab states, tracing what she saw as connections between radical Arabs and Muslims, on the one hand, and fascists, socialists and Nazis, on the other, in what she identified as a growing influence of Islam over European culture and politics.[16] She popularized the use of term "Eurabia" in a particular sense, although though the term was first used as a title of a 1970s journal of an organization promoting European-Arab friendship. Her definition was as follows:

Eurabia is a geo-political reality envisaged in 1973 through a system of informal alliances between, on the one hand, the nine countries of the European Community (EC) which, enlarged, became the European Union (EU) in 1992 and on the other hand, the Mediterranean Arab countries. The alliances and agreements were elaborated at the top political level of each EC country with the representative of the European Commission, and their Arab homologues with the Arab League's delegate. This system was synchronised 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.

[edit] Theses

She is known for employing the neologism dhimmitude, which she discusses in detail in Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide. She credits assassinated Lebanese president-elect and Phalangist militia leader Bachir Gemayel with coining the term.

Ye'or describes dhimmitude as the "specific social condition that resulted from jihad," [1] and as the "state of fear and insecurity" of "infidels" who are required to "accept a condition of humiliation."[17] She believes that "the dhimmi condition can only be understood in the context of Jihad," and studies the relationship between the theological tenets of Islam and the sufferings of the Christians and Jews who, in different geographical areas and periods of history, have lived in Islamic majority areas.[18][19] The cause of jihad, she argues, "was fomented around the 8th century by Muslim theologians after the death of Muhammad and led to the conquest of large swathes of three continents over the course of a long history."[20] She says:

Dhimmitude is the direct consequence of jihad. It embodie[s] all the Islamic laws and customs applied over a millennium on the vanquished population, Jews and Christians, living in the countries conquered by jihad and therefore Islamized. [We can observe a] return of the jihad ideology since the 1960s, and of some dhimmitude practices in Muslim countries applying the sharia [Islamic] law, or inspired by it. I stress ... the incompatibility between the concept of tolerance as expressed by the jihad-dhimmitude ideology, and the concept of human rights based on the equality of all human beings and the inalienability of their rights.[21]

Jacques Ellul attempts to summarize her views in the foreword to The Decline (see below), saying that Ye'or focuses on "jihad and dhimmitude ... as ... two complementary institutions... [T]here are many interpretations [of jihad]. At times, the main emphasis is placed on the spiritual nature of this 'struggle'. Indeed, it would merely [refer to] the struggle that the believer has to wage against his own evil inclinations.... [T]his interpretation ... in no way covers the whole scope of jihad. At other times, one prefers to veil the facts and put them in parentheses. [E]xpansion [of Islam] ... happened through war!" [2] Though Bat Ye'or acknowledges that it is not the case that all Muslims subscribe to so-called "militant jihad theories of society," she argues that the role of the sharia in the 1990 Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam demonstrates that what she calls a perpetual war against those who won't submit to Islam is still an "operative paradigm" in Islamic countries.[22]

Bat Ye'or has focused on the rapid transformation of Eastern Christian lands into Islamic territories, concluding that corruption and division among Christians contributed[23] and may even have afforded Islam certain models of legal control of subjugated populations; she suggests that Yugoslavia is an example of the long-term scars of dhimmitude, where Christians were under that status for centuries.[24]

Other issues Bat Ye'or has written on include:

  • The existence or lack thereof of pluralism in Islamic culture, with a focus on Eastern Europe; [3]
  • Violations of human rights in Islamic cultures; [4]
  • The theological rules that govern jihad; [5]
  • How Muslims interpret the history of the dhimmi peoples; [6]
  • How the Muslim interpretation of religious scripture influences Islamic interpretation of history and modern-day events; [7]
  • The "dialog of civilizations" and the "negation of the other." [8]

A statement made to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights by NGOs including the International Humanist and Ethical Union described Bat Yeor as a leading expert on jihad and the concept of dhimmitude.[7]

[edit] Reception

Bat Ye'or's work has attracted praise and criticism from academic historians and political commentators on Islam and the Middle East.

British historian Martin Gilbert has called her "the acknowledged expert on the plight of Jews and Christians in Muslim lands"[25] In a Jerusalem Post interview, referring to Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis he stated "I've read Bat Yeor's book. I know her and have a great respect for her sense of anguish... I'm saying that her book - which is 100 percent accurate - is an alarm call that will ultimately prevent what she's warning about from taking place."[26]

Niall Ferguson, Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, wrote that "[n]o writer has done more than Bat Ye'or to draw attention to the menacing character of Islamic extremism. Future historians will one day regard her coinage of the term 'Eurabia' as prophetic."[27][28][29]

Robert Spencer, an American writer on the West's relationship with Islam, described her as "the pioneering scholar of dhimmitude, of the institutionalized discrimination and harassment of non-Muslims under Islamic law". He argued that she had turned this area, which he believed the "Middle East studies establishment" has hitherto been afraid of or indifferent to, into a field of academic study.[30] British writer David Pryce-Jones called her a "Cassandra, a brave and far-sighted spirit." [31]

Johannes J.G. Jansen, Professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at Leiden University, wrote that "In 1985, Bat Ye'or offered Islamic studies a surprise with her book, The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam, a convincing demonstration that the notion of a traditional, lenient, liberal, and tolerant Muslim treatment of the Jewish and Christian minorities is more myth than reality."[32]

Michael Sells, John Henry Barrows Professor of Islamic History and Literature at the University of Chicago, argued that "by obscuring the existence of pre-Christian and other old, non-Christian communities in Europe as well as the reason for their disappearance in other areas of Europe, Bat Ye’or constructs an invidious comparison between the allegedly humane Europe of Christian and Enlightenment values and the ever present persecution within Islam. Whenever the possibility is raised of actually comparing circumstances of non-Christians in Europe to non-Muslims under Islamic governance in a careful, thoughtful manner, Bat Ye’or forecloses such comparison."[33]

In a review of The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude the American historian Robert Brenton Betts commented that the book dealt with Judaism at least as much as with Christianity, that the title was misleading and the central premise flawed. He said: "The general tone of the book is strident and anti-Muslim. This is coupled with selective scholarship designed to pick out the worst examples of anti-Christian behavior by Muslim governments, usually in time of war and threats to their own destruction (as in the case of the deplorable Armenian genocide of 1915). Add to this the attempt to demonize the so-called Islamic threat to Western civilization and the end-product is generally unedifying and frequently irritating."[34]

According to the American scholar Joel Beinin, Bat Ye'or exemplifies the "neo-lachrymose" perspective on Egyptian Jewish history. According to Beinin, this perspective has been "consecrated" as "the normative Zionist interpretation of the history of Jews in Egypt"; it draws its authority from Bat Ye'or's claim to authenticity as an Egyptian Jew and has "won broad acceptance among both scholars and the general public in Israel and the West." [35]

Irshad Manji describes her as a scholar who dumps cold water on any dreamy view of how Muslims have historically dealt with the “other.”[36]

According to journalist Adi Schwartz from Ha'aretz, the fact that she is not an academic and has never taught at any university, but has worked as an independent researcher, has, along with her opinions, made her a controversial figure. He quotes professor Robert Wistrich, head of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, who notes that "[u]p until the 1980s, she was not accepted at all. In academic circles they scorned her publications. Only when Bernard Lewis published the book 'Jews of Islam' with quotations from Bat Ye'or did they begin to pay any attention to her. A real change toward her emerged in the 1990s, and especially in recent years."[37]

Craig R. Smith in a New York Times article referred to her as one of the "most extreme voices on the new Jewish right."[38]

Johann Hari, a British journalist, argues that "There are intellectuals on the British right who are propagating a conspiracy theory about Muslims that teeters very close to being a 21st century Protocols of the Elders of Mecca" and that Bat Ye'or is a "scholar" who argues that Europe is on the brink of being transformed into a conquered continent called "Eurabia".[39]

[edit] Works

On-line bibliography
Books
Book chapters
  • 17 chapters in Robert Spencer (ed.), The Myth of Islamic Tolerance: How Islamic Law Treats Non-Muslims, Prometheus Books, 2005. ISBN 1-59102-249-5.
  • "The Dhimmi Factor in the Exodus of Jews from Arab Countries" in: Malka Hillel Shulewitz (ed.), The Forgotten Millions. The Modern Jewish Exodus from Arab Lands, Cassell, London/New York 1999; Continuum, 2001, ISBN 0826447643 (pp. 33-51).
  • "A Christian Minority. The Copts in Egypt" in W. A. Veehoven (ed.), Case Studies on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. A World Survey. 4 vols. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976, ISBN 9024717795.

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Griffith, Sidney H. "The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude, Seventh-Twentieth Century by Bat Yeor, Miriam Kochan, David Littman", International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 30, No. 4, November 1998, pp. 619-621
  2. ^ Julia Duin ("Washington Times," October 30, 2002 State of 'dhimmitude' seen as threat to Christians, Jews Egyptian-born historian Bat Ye'or and her husband, David Littman, have been making the rounds of several campuses this month to lecture on "dhimmitude," a word she coined to describe the status of Christians and Jews under Islamic governments.
  3. ^ Amy K Rosenthal Azure Magazine 2006, Volume . 23 Bat Ye’or (a Hebrew pen-name which means “Daughter of the Nile”) is a scholar of Islam and a path-breaking researcher on “dhim­mitude”--a term that derives from the Arabic dhimmi, or non-Muslim peoples subject to restrictive sub­ordination in Islamic states. Ye’or has experienced this subordination first hand: The victim of persecution and discrimination in her native Egypt, she was forced to escape into exile in 1957.
  4. ^ Caroline B. Glick Jerusalem Post 04-08-2005 Mideast mythology Bat Ye'or, the noted scholar of jihad ideology and Arab-European politics makes crystal clear in her new book Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, Western European abandonment of its early support for Israel came not in the wake of Israel's stunning victory in the 1967 Six Day War, but in the aftermath of the OPEC oil embargo in 1973.
  5. ^ Daniel Pipes Miniatures : Views of the Islamic and Middle Eastern Politics pg 114 The scholar Bat Ye'or explains for non-Muslims that this has meant through history "war, dispossession, dhimmitude, slavery, and death."
  6. ^ Dadrian, Vahakn N. The History of the Armenian Genocide. Berghahn Books, 2003. ISBN 571816666, p. 147: "This reasoning is confirmed by the contemporary Israeli historian, Bat Ye'or..."
  7. ^ a b "Jihad Ideology and Negationism lead to an Exclusion from Humanity". E/CN.4/Sub.2/2005/NGO/31. 15 July 2005. Statement made to the UN Commission on Human Rights Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights Fifty-seventh session
  8. ^ Congressional Human Rights Caucus Members' Briefing: Human Rights and the Concept of Jihad
  9. ^ Nidra Poller: The Brave New World of Eurabia, NY Sun, February 7, 2005
  10. ^ a b Julia Duin: State of 'dhimmitude' seen as threat to Christians, Jews, Washington Times, October 30, 2002
  11. ^ Sir Martin Gilbert A History of the Twentieth Century, Volume III: 1952-1999 P127 "Also embarking on new lives as refugees were 25,000 Egyptian Jews, who, after many generations contributing to the life, prosperity and culture of Egypt, were forced to leave, following the Suez War and Israel’s attack in Sinai. More than half of them went to Israel, where, under a Law of Return passed six years earlier, any Jew arriving in Israel could become a citizen. Most of those who went elsewhere did so as ‘stateless refugees, among them Gisele Orebi (later Gisele Litrman), who was to become the acknowledged expert on the plight of Jews and Christians in Muslim lands, and their vigorous champion: her book The Dhimrni. Jews and Christians under Islam, written under the pen name Bat Ye’or, brought the issue of continuing discrimination to a wide public."
  12. ^ André Darmon Israel Magazine July 2007 Interview with Bat Ye'or Bat Ye'or - I was born in Egypt, in Cairo, into a family of the Jewish bourgeoisie, of an Italian father and a French mother. My grandfather, to whom Egyptian nationality was accorded by exception, was crowned Bey by the Ottoman sultan. My father decided to renounce Italian nationality as a result of Mussolini's racist laws, but when Nasser came to power, my mother's goods were confiscated because she was French and my father's because he was Jewish. We were forced to stay home, we were chased out of public places and at that moment we decided to flee Egypt. Many fled secretly from fear of being imprisoned. We were forced, like all Egyptian Jews, to sign papers according to which we renounced all our goods, our passport and our nationality, for those who had it, since the Jews had been for the most part Ottoman subjects and not Egyptian. The Jews promised in writing not to demand anything of the Egyptian State. The only right we had was to take one suitcase, which was searched and thrown to the ground and 20 Egyptian pounds that were taken from us anyway by the customs officials, not to mention the insults and acts of terror in front of my parents, both of whom were invalids.
  13. ^ Whithead, John W. "Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, An interview with Bat Ye'or", The Rutherford Institute, June 9, 2005
  14. ^ Jerusalem Post January 2007 Bat Ye'or J'avais commencé à écrire en Egypte, car je me suis toujours sentie comme un écrivain, mais j'ai tout brûlé... En Angleterre, j'ai recommencé à écrire, et c'est ce qui m'a aidée à surmonter l'expérience douloureuse du déracinement, en l'examinant du point de vue historique. Je me suis rendu compte que j'avais vécu la destruction d'une communauté juive qui existait depuis l'époque du prophète Jérémie, et qu'il n'existait aucun livre relatant cette histoire et l'agonie de cette communauté. C'est ce qui m'a conduite à écrire mon premier livre, Les Juifs en Egypte.
  15. ^ Leon Nemoy The Jewish Quarterly Review,New Ser.,Vol.76,No.2. (Oct.,1985),pp.162-164 Obviously the principal part of the book is the documentary section, which offers to the reader the original views of Muslim theologians and jurists on the general relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims, and on how non-Muslim minorities should be treated, as well as the testimony of both non-Muslim minority individuals and foreign observers as to what the Dhimmi's life was actually like. One might conceivably disagree here and there with Mme. Bat Ye'or's conclusions drawn from these documents, but one cannot challenge the original Muslim texts, or characterize all the factual accounts of both Dhimmis and foreign observers (some-if not most-of the latter were not exactly philosemites) as a pack of lies pikes justificatives are essentially highly reliable from beginning to end. These testimonies by eyewitnesses on the actual circumstances of non-Muslim life under Muslim rule throughout the medieval and modern periods of history.
  16. ^ Lappen, Alyssa A. "Triple-pronged Jihad — Military, Economic and Cultural", American Thinker, April 5, 2005
  17. ^ Julia Duin: Interview with Bat Ye'or, California State University, 2002
  18. ^ Bat Ye'or: Dhimmitude Past and Present : An Invented or Real History? (lecture at Brown University), October 10, 2002
  19. ^ Forrest W. Schultz: Important New Book on Islam Published (msg00000.html in ZIP archive), April 30, 2004
  20. ^ Donna Desrochers: Americans should educate themselves about jihad's "culture of hate," says WSRC speaker, Brandeis University, February 28, 2002
  21. ^ Rod Dreher: Damned If You Do, National Review Online, October 29, 2002
  22. ^ Bat Ye’or: Jihad and Human Rights Today, NRO, July 1, 2002
  23. ^ G. Richard Jansen: The Christian West Confronted by Militant Islam 632-2003 C.E., Colorado State University, January 1, 2003
  24. ^ G. Richard Jansen: Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo: An Abbreviated History-An Opening for the The Islamic Jihad in Europe, Colorado State University, June 15, 2007
  25. ^ Sir Martin Gilbert A History of the Twentieth Century, Volume III: 1952-1999 P127 " Most of those who went elsewhere did so as ‘stateless refugees, among them Gisele Orebi (later Gisele Litrman), who was to become the acknowledged expert on the plight of Jews and Christians in Muslim lands, and their vigorous champion: her book The Dhimrni. Jews and Christians under Islam, written under the pen name Bat Ye’or, brought the issue of continuing discrimination to a wide public."
  26. ^ Ruthie Blum. One on One with Sir Martin Gilbert: Hindsight and aforethought. The Jerusalem Post. The Jerusalem Post. “I've read Bat Yeor's book. I know her and have a great respect for her sense of anguish. She has studied the way in which the European Parliament and European institutions have become infiltrated by thoughts and legislation which are essentially seeking to appease fundamentalist Islamic activity - the ultimate dominance of the caliphate and Sharia law in Europe" [...] "I'm saying that her book - which is 100 percent accurate - is an alarm call that will ultimately prevent what she's warning about from taking place."”
  27. ^ Ferguson, Niall. Review reproduced on the back cover of Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis.
  28. ^ 'Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis by Bat Ye'or', Fairleigh Dickinson University
  29. ^ Fairleigh Dickinson University Press - EURABIA
  30. ^ Brian Lamb: Robert Spencer interview (transcript), C-SPAN, August 20, 2006
  31. ^ Pryce-Jones, David. "Captive continent", National Review, May 9, 2005
  32. ^ Johannes J.G. Jansen. "Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis". Middle East Forum. 
  33. ^ Qureshi, Emran & Sells, Michael A. The New Crusades: Constructing the Muslim Enemy. Columbia University Press, 2003, p. 364. ISBN 0-231-12667-0
  34. ^ Robert Brenton Betts, "The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude".Middle East Policy 5 (3) (September 1997), pp. 200-2003
  35. ^ Joel Beinin, The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora. University of California Press, 1998, page 15
  36. ^ Irshad Manji The trouble with Islam pg. 61 " Muslim tolerance of Jews and Christians has always been fragile. During the golden age, tolerance often resembled low-grade contempt, not acceptance. There’s an Egyptian-born European scholar who dumps cold water on any dreamy view of how Muslims have historically dealt with the “other.” Bat Ye’or is her name. Actually, it’s her pseudonym, adopted because what she argues drives a lot of Muslims into fits of fury. Ye’or coined the word dhimmitude to describe Islam’s ideology of wholesale discrimination against Jews and Christians. Why dhimmitude? It comes from al-dhimma, the Arabic term for those groups—our fellow Peoples of the Book—who are entitled to protection in Muslim societies. Protection? Let’s home in on the premise behind this principle. Why would Jews and Christians need special protection if they’re kindred People of the Book, deserving of rights and responsibilities equal to those of Muslims? That’s the problem. Muslim societies have a hard time treating Jews arid Christians (let alone anybody else) as equals in the dignity department."
  37. ^ Adi Schwartz from Haretz.com 'The protocols of the elders of Brussels' "Bat Ye'or's opinions have made her a controversial figure, as has the fact that she is not an academic and has never taught at any university. She conducts her research independently. Since the 1970s, Bat Ye'or, who is now 71, has published about 10 books, most of which deal with the life of the Christian and Jewish minorities in Muslim countries. "
  38. ^ Smith, Craig R.The World; Europe's Jews Seek Solace on the Right, February 20, 2005
  39. ^ Hari, Johann.Amid all this panic, we must remember one simple fact - Muslims are not all the same

[edit] Further reading