Eurabia: the Euro-Arab AxisBat Ye'or
Book Reviews
Bat Ye’or’s scholarship is again highly impressive in her most recent book, Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis. Ye’or was born in Egypt, and has been a British citizen living in Switzerland since 1960. Her work examines the historical relationship between the European Union and the Arab states from the 1970s. “The decisive shift in European policy” came after the Yom Kippur War and “as a result of the oil crisis of 1973” (p. 10). Eurabia, therefore, is the Arab/Islamic influence upon Europe; it is the shifting of Europe into the Arab-Islamic sphere of influence, which is accomplished through European-Arab collaboration developed at all levels: political, cultural, social, economic, and technological spheres of influence. The Euro-Arab collaboration became the means for Arab immigration into Europe, leading to what Ye’or called a pseudo-culture imported from Arab countries, which is characterized by anti-Americanism, Judeophobia, and a universal hatred of the West. This pseudo-culture that Ye’or described is evident in its anti-Christianity, anti-Westernism, and anti-Zionism. Ye’or believes the demure response to violent Muslim protests is ingrained in a multiform European symbiosis with the Arab world. Since Eurabia began in the 1970s, Europe has still been unable to resist the Muslim world, even when the nation’s own basic ethics are being threatened. Indeed, such impotence has determined Europe’s relentless anti-Zionism and its anti-Americanism. Europe renounced its Judeo-Christian heritage and set the stage for its own Islamicization. A continual decline in the European population and sustained increase in Arab immigration have coincided. The result is a revered welfare state among an aging, decreasing population that is dependent upon new immigrants who are predominately if not wholly Muslim. A youthful Muslim society to the south and to the east of the Mediterranean is fully prepared to colonize. The decline of European Christianity makes the prospect even more significant. Less than ten percent of the population attends church once a month or more. Europe renounced its Judeo-Christian heritage because European intelligentsia believed consideration and secularism for Islamic beliefs would benefit the nation, but it only encouraged and strengthened Muslim fundamentalism. The combination of a decreasing population, predominately Muslim immigration, religious tolerance, and decadent social and sexual freedoms has left Europe anemic in the face of fanaticism. The creeping Islamicization of a decadent Christendom in Europe should be a concern to all. Europe is oblivious to the reality that the clash of cultures war is already occurring, and the nation is feebly equipped in a post-Christian nation has empowered the Muslim colonies in their religious observance. Ye’or examined a wide range of contemporary and historical facts and sources to document the Islamicization of the European Union that is affecting the ethics and values of Europe itself. The Euro-Arab Axis is mandatory reading. Ron J. Bigalke, Jr., Journal of Dispensational Theology, March 2007 Ye’or, an independent scholar, is known for her controversial works on “dhimmitude,” a word she coined to encompass the diverse types of existence of the non-Muslim peoples subjected to Muslim rule. She argues the Europe is being transformed from an essentially Judeo-Christian civilization, which includes secular elements, to one that is becoming subservient to the Islamic ideology of jihad (struggle) and to the expansion of dhimmitude. The book traces the origins and historical development of Eurabia, the Mediterranean partnership between Europe and the Arab countries, with increasing political, economic, and cultural ties between them. It details the instruments created since 1973 that decide and implement policies. The author stresses the convergence of EU and Arab policy in relation to the US and to Israel, argues that important manifestations of Eurabian policy are anti-Americanism, anti-Zionism, and anti-semitism, and suggests that a major pillar of the policy is “Palestinianism.” Like other writings of the author, this original book is a strongly pointed, controversial work, both scholarly and polemical, which many will find useful and relevant to discussion of the relationship between Europe and the Middle East. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above
--M. Curtis, emeritus, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick
Choice (October 2005)
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Photograph courtesy of Louise Dell-Bene Stahl © 2001