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The current fighting in the Gaza Strip raises again, in an acute but familiar form, the agonizing question: What kind of accommodation is possible, if ever, between Israel and the Arabs? For a long time it was generally assumed, in the region and elsewhere, that peace was impossible, and that the Arabs' struggle against Israel would continue until they achieved their aim of destroying the Jewish state. Meanwhile, Israel could survive and even serve a useful purpose as the one licensed grievance in the various Arab dictatorships, providing a relatively harmless outlet for resentment and anger that might otherwise be...

He is one of the world’s foremost scholars of Islam and the Middle East. Bernard Lewis shares his thoughts on Iraq, “Islamofascism,” the roots of terrorism, and the two biggest misperceptions about the Muslim faith. Foreign Policy: What do you see as the biggest misperception about Islam? Bernard Lewis: Well, there are two. Sometimes one, sometimes the other, predominates. It depends when and where. I would call them the negative one and the positive one. The negative one sees Muslims as a collection of bloodthirsty barbarians offering people the choice of the Koran or the sword, and generally bringing tyranny...

Lewis’s Claim (1): What we are seeing now in much of the Islamic world could only be described as a monstrous perversion of Islam. The things that are now being done in the name of Islam are totally anti-Islamic. Take suicide, for example. The whole Islamic theology and law is totally opposed to suicide. Even if one has led a totally virtuous life, if he dies by his own hand he forfeits paradise and is condemned to eternal damnation. The eternal punishment for suicide is the endless repetition of the act of suicide. That’s what it says in the books....

Scholar: MAD doctrine does not apply to Iran Feb. 25, 2008 JERUSALEM — Iran could welcome a nuclear war with Israel or the United States. A leading U.S. scholar on the Middle East has asserted that Iran's leadership does not resemble the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Bernard Lewis, a professor at Princeton University, said the mullah regime in Teheran believes that the Shi'ite messiah would be ushered by a nuclear war, Middle East Newsline reported. "It's not an Arab country, but rather a Muslim country, ruled now by a Muslim theocracy, which calculates its policies not by Iranian...

Herb Denenberg: The Advocate As Europe Yields To Islamofascism, Is U.S. On The Same Path? By Herb Denenberg, The Bulletin 02/13/2008 The once mighty, the once invincible, the once courageous and brave-beyond-belief Britain is in the process of surrendering to Islamofascism without firing a shot. Here are the latest examples indicating how far along that process has gone: British government ministers have declared that Islamic terrorism will no longer be so described. In the future, Muslim fanatics, murderers and suicide bombers will be referred to as pursuing "anti-Islamic activity." This new language, turning the truth on its head, was announced...

During the Cold War, two things came to be known and generally recognized in the Middle East concerning the two rival superpowers. If you did anything to annoy the Russians, punishment would be swift and dire. If you said or did anything against the Americans, not only would there be no punishment; there might even be some possibility of reward, as the usual anxious procession of diplomats and politicians, journalists and scholars and miscellaneous others came with their usual pleading inquiries: "What have we done to offend you? What can we do to put it right?" A few examples may...

At 91, Bernard Lewis, the doyen of Middle Eastern Studies who for more than half a century has been considered one of the West's foremost scholars of Islamic history and culture, is the author of more than two dozen books, most notably The Arabs in History, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, The Political Language of Islam, and The Muslim Discovery of Europe and is the subject of envy because of his remarkably lucid mind and memory. Both qualities were on display on Wednesday evening, May 2, 2007 when he addressed an overflow audience in the ballroom of the Loew’s Philadelphia...

The Third Islamic Wave by Bernard Lewis On March 7, The American Enterprise Institute granted Professor Bernard Lewis the Irving Kristol Award, an honor whose past recipients have included former President Gerald Ford, Henry Kissinger and Justice Antonin Scalia. Professor Lewis was also selected to deliver the Irving Kristol Lecture. Below are excerpts from that lecture. A favorite theme of the historian is periodization—dividing history into periods. Periodization is mostly a convenience of the historian for purposes of writing or teaching. Nevertheless, there are times in the long history of the human adventure when we have a real turning point,...

In a recent interview, Prof. Bernard Lewis, famed historian and leading expert on Islam, warned that "Muslims seem to be about to take over Europe." Was the fall of Europe inevitable? No, according to Prof. Lewis, who says it's coming about because "Europeans have surrendered on every issue regarding Islamic demands, due to political correctness and multi-culturalism." Europe has become woefully secular and its tepid attachment to a forgotten and dismissed Christianity is no match for the zeal of Muslims who remain fervent in their faith. Having been force fed that all cultures are equally valid, Europeans consider it unenlightened...

Islam could soon be the dominant force in a Europe which, in the name of political correctness, has abdicated the battle for cultural and religious control, Prof. Bernard Lewis, the world-renowned Middle Eastern and Islamic scholar, said on Sunday. The Muslims "seem to be about to take over Europe," Lewis said at a special briefing with the editorial staff of The Jerusalem Post. Asked what this meant for the continent's Jews, he responded, "The outlook for the Jewish communities of Europe is dim." Soon, he warned, the only pertinent question regarding Europe's future would be, "Will it be an Islamized...

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about why I voted against Dr. Gates and lay out in detail the concerns I have about the security posture of the United States today and how I do not believe that Dr. Gates is the appropriate choice to confront them. While I think he certainly has a lot of positive qualities, and in normal times I would certainly defer to the President's judgment on this, we are not in normal times. I believe we need a Secretary--and I think we need leaders in this country, particularly the Secretary--who has insight...

James Baker's "Iraq Study Group" seems to have been cast on the same basis as Liza Minnelli's last wedding. A stellar lineup: Donna Summer, Mickey Rooney, the Doobie Brothers, Gina Lollobrigida, Michael Jackson, Mia Farrow, Little Anthony and the Imperials, Jill St. John. That's Liza's wedding, not the Baker Commission. But at both gatherings everyone who was anyone was there, no matter how long ago it was they were anyone. So the fabulous Baker boy was accompanied by Clinton officials Leon Panetta and Bill Perry, Clinton golfing buddy Vernon Jordan, Clinton's fellow sex fiend Chuck Robb, the quintessential ''moderate'' Republican...

The following is adapted from a lecture delivered by Bernard Lewis on July 16, 2006, on board the Crystal Serenity, during a Hillsdale College cruise in the British Isles. By common consent among historians, the modern history of the Middle East begins in the year 1798, when the French Revolution arrived in Egypt in the form of a small expeditionary force led by a young general called Napoleon Bonaparte--who conquered and then ruled it for a while with appalling ease. General Bonaparte--he wasn't yet Emperor--proclaimed to the Egyptians that he had come to them on behalf of a French Republic...

Occasionally I will hear a friend say, as he contemplates the utter wasteland our urban public schools have become, and as he views the deterioration of American society, ‘what this country needs is another depression”. Having been a young child during the ‘Great Depression’, and having therefore the interest in learning all I could about it, I do not agree with the thought. I do not agree that we need to go through another era when millions lived in abject poverty. I do agree with the concerns for our country, as teachers, numbed by classroom experiences and handcuffed by politically...

By common consent among historians, the modern history of the Middle East begins in the year 1798, when the French Revolution arrived in Egypt in the form of a small expeditionary force led by a young general called Napoleon Bonaparte—who conquered and then ruled it for a while with appalling ease. General Bonaparte—he wasn't yet Emperor—proclaimed to the Egyptians that he had come to them on behalf of a French Republic built on the principles of liberty and equality. We know something about the reactions to this proclamation from the extensive literature of the Middle Eastern Arab world. The idea...

The victor of the war on terror is far from clear, the historian Bernard Lewis told a Hudson Institute conference. The British-born professor of Near Eastern studies at Princeton said Monday that he was "more optimistic about the future of our struggle" in the early 1940s — when the French had capitulated to the Germans, when Stalin was Hitler's ally, and when America was still neutral — than he is today. "Hitler would have won under these conditions," Mr. Lewis said, citing America's inability to clearly define the war on terror and exactly who its enemy is. The professor, whose...

Is Iran planning an apocalyptic strike against Israel and/or the United States for August 22? If so, what should the U.S. do to protect Americans and our ally? Such questions are worrying a growing number of officials in the White House, at the CIA, and at the Pentagon, and for good reason.

Better cancel those holidays. We now have a date for Armageddon, and it's a week on Tuesday - August 22. This information comes from no lesser source than the Wall Street Journal, where Bernard Lewis, President Bush's favourite historian, provides the details. "In Islam, as in Judaism and Christianity," the professor writes, "there are certain beliefs concerning the cosmic struggle at the end of time - Gog and Magog, anti-Christ, Armageddon, and for Shiite Muslims, the long-awaited return of the Hidden Imam, ending in the final victory of the forces of good over evil, however these may be defined. "Mr...

In Islam, as in Judaism and Christianity, there are certain beliefs concerning the cosmic struggle at the end of time--Gog and Magog, anti-Christ, Armageddon, and for Shiite Muslims, the long awaited return of the Hidden Imam, ending in the final victory of the forces of good over evil, however these may be defined. Mr. Ahmadinejad and his followers clearly believe that this time is now, and that the terminal struggle has already begun and is indeed well advanced. It may even have a date, indicated by several references by the Iranian president to giving his final answer to the U.S....

Chpt. 1 Slavery In 1842 the British Consul General in Morocco, as part of his government's worldwide endeavor to bring about the abolition of slavery or at least the curtailment of the slave trade, made representations to the sultan of that country asking him what measures, if any, he had taken to accomplish this desirable objective. The sultan replied, in a letter expressing evident astonishment, that "the traffic in slaves is a matter on which all sects and nations have agreed from the time of the sons of Adam . . . up to this day." The sultan continued that...

On fighting the war on terror I am familiar with this slogan. I feel that while we are indeed engaged in a war against terror, it is inadequate and even misleading. If Churchill had informed the country in 1940, "We are engaged in a war against bomber aircraft and submarines," that would have been an accurate statement but not a very helpful one. To say we are engaged in a war against terror is of the same order. Terror is a tactic. It's a method of waging war. It is not a cause, it is not an adversary, it is...

<p>Bernard Lewis is arguably the most important living scholar of Islam in the West. Author of more than two dozen books, the retired Princeton professor, who turned 90 earlier this year, has long been an adviser to governments and policymakers seeking to understand the intricacies of Islam and its relationship to the Western world.</p>

On May 31, Princeton professor emeritus of Near Eastern history Bernard Lewis will be celebrating his 90th birthday, but the festivities have already begun. On May 1, he was honored at a luncheon in Philadelphia, where Vice President Dick Cheney displayed unnatural humility in calling him the "very ideal of the wise man." In the Wall Street Journal's opinion section, Fouad Ajami of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies published a warm tribute, calling Lewis "the oracle of this new age of the Americans in the lands of the Arab and Islamic worlds." And on his website, Israeli-American...

There is a well-worn platitude that we have all heard many times before: it is perfectly legitimate to criticize the actions and policies of the state of Israel or the doctrines of Zionism without necessarily being motivated by anti-Semitism. The fact that this has been repeated ad nauseam does not detract from its truth. Not only do I accept it, but I would even take it a step further with another formulation that may perhaps evoke surprise if not shock: it is perfectly possible to hate and even to persecute Jews without necessarily being anti-Semitic. Unfortunately, hatred and persecution are...

“Europe will be Islamic by the end of this century at the very latest.” The floodgates opened with that comment from Bernard Lewis. Since its publication in Die Welt in July 2004, countless responses have appeared from writers as varied as George Weigel and Patrick Buchanan. The latest is Mark Steyn, in a New Criterion essay (reprinted in the Wall Street Journal) titled, in his customary understated style, “It’s the Demography, Stupid.” An unusual unanimity has prevailed – almost every writer concurs with Lewis that Europe is a lost cause, a casualty in the war against Islamofascism. The argument is...

Changing perceptions For Muslims as for others, history is important, but they approach it with a special concern and awareness. The career of the Prophet Muhammad, the creation and expansion of the Islamic community and state, and the formulation and elaboration of the holy law of Islam are events in history, known from historical memory or record and narrated and debated by historians since early times. In the Islamic Middle East, one may still find passionate arguments, even bitter feuds, about events that occurred centuries or sometimes millennia ago — about what happened, its significance, and its current relevance. This...

George Walden reviews From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East by Bernard Lewis One of the most instructive pieces in this collection of articles, essays and scholarly papers written over five decades by the historian Bernard Lewis explains the role of the dragoman - the interpreter - in Middle Eastern history. The region's many languages and civilisations meant that their power to ease or impede communication, to inform or skew policy, was immense. The most frequent complaint about the breed was less the inaccuracy of their renderings of foreign texts or tongues (though they were not above embellishing them...

The U.S. turn to the United Nations for help in Iraq raises two questions, one of perception, the other of substance. There can be no doubt that this appeal, in the context of the events in Fallujah, will be perceived in many circles in the Middle East — and not only in the Middle East — as signifying fear and flight, in other words, as the beginning of a scuttle. It is now clear that what happened in Fallujah in March was a carefully staged replay of what happened in Somalia in October 1993, when American soldiers were seized, lynched,...

On Sunday, May 16 at 1:30 pm and Monday, May 17 at 5:00 am From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East Bernard Lewis Description: From George Washington University in Washington, DC, Bernard Lewis discusses the history of the Middle East over the past few centuries. Professor Lewis talks about how such terms as freedom and justice have been interpreted in the region and analyzes the reaction to Western influenced modernization. He also talks about the prospects for democracy in Iraq and the influence of Wahhabi Islam in Europe and the United States. Includes Q&A. Author Bio: Bernard Lewis, emeritus...

Bernard Lewis talks about his seventy years spent studying the Middle East—and his thoughts on the region's future In the foreword to an Arabic edition of one of Bernard Lewis's recent books, published by the Muslim Brotherhood, the translator included a few words of ambiguous praise for the author. Lewis was, he wrote, "one of two things: a candid friend or an honorable enemy," but certainly not one to dodge the truth. In the West, critics' views on the eighty-seven-year-old known as "the dean of Middle Eastern scholars" are more clear-cut. Conservatives tend to hail him as a priceless gem—the...

In the next National Review — available digitally tomorrow — we have a piece on Senator Kerry's Latin America record. It's pretty sorry. Remember the "'Dear Comandante' Democrats" — the ones who would send those sweet, appeasing notes to Daniel Ortega, addressed "Dear Comandante"? Well, Kerry was a big one of those. And would you like to hear Kerry's evaluation of our Grenada invasion (related to Latin America)? "A bully's show of force against a weak Third World nation." Anyway, I don't want to get into all that just now, but the record is pretty damning, in my view. In...

The West and the Middle East. (history of relations) Bernard Lewis From Foreign Affairs, January 1997 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. His books include Cultures in Conflict: Christians, Muslims, and Jews in the Age of Discovery and, most recently, The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years. In 1593 an Ottoman historian, Selaniki Mustafa Efendi, recorded the arrival in Istanbul of an English ambassador. He was not very interested in the ambassador, but he was much struck by the English ship in which the ambassador traveled. "A ship as...

Bernard Lewis, the 87-year old Emeritus Professor of Islamic and Near Eastern Studies at Princeton, is not your garden-variety professor. A celebrity of sorts who has often been invited to address White House staffers, members of the National Security Council and the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, Lewis also happens to be an unabashed bigot who has contributed in no small measure to the promotion of Islamophobic sentiment in the US, and to lending credence to the notion that that there is today a “clash of civilizations” between the Euro-American and Islamic worlds. The Wall Street Journal recently devoted a lengthy...

<p>A Princeton historian's diagnosis of the Muslim world's malaise, and his call for a U.S. military invasion to seed democracy in the Mideast, have helped define the boldest shift in U.S. foreign policy in 50 years.</p> <p>Bernard Lewis often tells audiences about an encounter he once had in Jordan. The Princeton University historian, author of more than 20 books on Islam and the Middle East, says he was chatting with Arab friends in Amman when one of them trotted out an argument familiar in that part of the world.</p>

<p>Bernard Lewis often tells audiences about an encounter he once had in Jordan. The Princeton University historian, author of more than 20 books on Islam and the Middle East, says he was chatting with Arab friends in Amman when one of them trotted out an argument familiar in that part of the world.</p>

The way Muslim apologists speak of Bernard Lewis one might believe they think him the Devil incarnate. Famed anti-Orientalist Edward Said, for one, never missed an opportunity to execrate Lewis. Intrigued by all this calumny I picked up a copy of Lewis’ latest book, What Went Wrong, in which Lewis cursorily examines Islamic civilization, trying to tell us, well, what went wrong. I’d like to say I found out what it was, but I didn’t. Lewis never answered the question. While he thoroughly details the historical problems Muslim societies have faced when confronting with the modern West, he doesn't dig...

<p>PRINCETON, N.J.--The professor leaned forward, his face, briefly, a picture of fun: "Pay attention to the joke," he said. "The joke is the only form of political comment that is authentic in the Middle East--and for the most part uncensored." He then told a joke now doing the rounds in that part of the world: "Two Iranians lament the state of their country. Finally, one says to the other, 'What we need here is a bin Laden.' 'Are you crazy?' his friend gasps. 'No!' the first Iranian says. 'That way the Americans would come and rescue us.'"</p>

<p>For a long time now it has been our practice in the modern Western world to define ourselves primarily by nationality, and to see other identities and allegiances—religious, political, and the like—as subdivisions of the larger and more important whole. The events of September 11 and after have made us aware of another perception—of a religion subdivided into nations rather than a nation subdivided into religions—and this has induced some of us to think of ourselves and of our relations with others in ways that had become unfamiliar. The confrontation with a force that defines itself as Islam has given a new relevance—indeed, urgency—to the theme of the "clash of civilizations."</p>

Friday » April 11 » 2003 Baghdad falls The new American era of peace through power Robert Fulford National Post National Post columnist Robert Fulford explains how the war in Iraq marks a turning point in world history. - - - A monstrous bronze version of Saddam Hussein, its elephantine arm outstretched, towered above Paradise Square in the core of Baghdad, one of the hundreds of self-glorifying symbols that he installed in his capital and across the country to tell the world that he was omnipresent as well as all-powerful, the only man of consequence in the Republic of Iraq....

<p>Among the many arguments that have been adduced for not taking action against the present regime in Iraq, two have received special emphasis. The first is that the governments and peoples of the Middle East attach far greater importance to the Arab-Israeli conflict than to Iraq or any other problem in the region, and that therefore one should begin by solving that. The second is that even a successful attempt at regime change in Iraq would have a dangerous destabilizing effect on the rest of the region, and could lead to general conflict and chaos.</p>

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