The Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East has unsettled the world for over half a century. What are the roots of this violence? Is it simply the 'normal' prejudice found through time between neighbouring peoples of different cultural traditions or ethnic origins? Or is hostility toward Israel a unique case of anti-Semitism that goes beyond normal prejudice in ascribing to the Jews a quality of cosmic evil? The thesis of this deep and brilliant history is that, while both kinds of prejudice are involved in the Middle East, the newest prejudice - virulent anti-Semitism - so long a poison in the bloodstreams of Christendom, seems to have entered the body of Islam. To understand how this has happened, a great scholar of the Middle East leads us step by step up through the history of the Semitic peoples and languages.
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About the Author:
Bernard Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. Formerly Professor of Middle Eastern History at the School of Oriental & African Studies, London, 1949-74.
From Publishers Weekly:
According to Lewis, the first Arab protests against Zionist settlement in what is now Israel were not anti-Semitic in nature. The Princeton professor and author (The Arabs in History insists here that opposition to Israel is not necessarily an expression of anti-Jewish sentiment. Yet he describesand is alarmed bya virulent strain of anti-Semitism that presently pervades the Arab states and traces this prejudice back to the early 1930s when racist Nazi tracts surfaced in the literature of such groups as Young Egypt. Current Arab demonization of the Jew, Lewis points out, makes no distinction between Jews, Israelis and Zionists. This clearsighted, dispassionate analysis of anti-Semitism includes a chapter debunking the notion that both Jews and Arabs are "Semites" (Semitic refers to a linguistic group) and an illuminating comparative history of Jewish existence under Christian and Muslim rule. First serial to New York Review of Books.
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- PublisherPhoenix Giant
- Publication date1997
- ISBN 10 0753800330
- ISBN 13 9780753800331
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages304
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