Interview with Daniel Pipes.......

Interview with

Daniel Pipes

22.06.2008, Helsinki. By Iivi Anna Masso.

Daniel Pipes is a distinguished US scholar of the Middle East and the director of the think tank Middle East Forum (www.meforum.org). He has written and edited a dozen books about the Middle East and Islam, and is an active discussant on subjects such as Islamism as a political ideology, the American “War on terror” and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This interview is done in Helsinki, where Mr. Pipes visited briefly during Midsummer.

Q: European media often treats Israel as the rouge state of the region. It has been even suggested that the creation of the state was a mistake. Do you see Israel as a “rogue state”?

DP: It’s strange that one should have to argue that Israel’s not a rogue state, and that it is a state worthy of support, because it is by any standard a free state, a prosperous state, a state that has the rule of law. It is in short a Western state with the standard of living and the way of life similar to that one finds in Europe and very much different from that of its enemies – in the Palestinian territories, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iran and so forth. It is a turning around of the facts.

A Flash Eurobarometer poll in November 2003 established that Europeans saw Israel as the most dangerous state of the world. It’s an extraordinary view, one that reflects not on Israel but on the sorry state of European politics, a lack of knowledge about the Middle East, the Arab-Israeli conflict, about who one’s allies are and who one’s enemies are, about problems and solutions. It is a very distressing development.

Q: Do you see the relationship between Europe and Israel getting better of worse?

DP: I think there has been some improvement in recent years, in particular with the change of government in a number of countries towards a more favorable one, most dramatically in France. But the reputation of Israel has been very low for some years now and it’ll take considerable work to see that changed.

Q: Do you think Hamas should be respected as a legitimate political force, because the Palestinian people supported it in democratic elections?

DP: Hamas is an Islamist movement that has heavily relied on terrorism to achieve its goals, and its primary goal is the elimination of Israel, its replacement by an Islamist order. It is terrorist and Islamist, it is the enemy. It is strange to me that anyone in the West should wish to support Hamas or help Hamas when it’s clearly not just the enemy of Israel but the enemy of the West as a whole. I think it’d be a great mistake to legitimize it and to deal with it.

Q: You wrote the foreword to a forthcoming book by Jonathan Schanzer about the conflict between Hamas and Fatah. Can that conflict be seen as part of the development of a Palestinian democracy?

DP: Hamas and Fatah share the same goals, both wish to eliminate Israel. But they have different approaches, different philosophies, different personnel, different tactics. So, sometimes they work together and sometimes they fight, there’s no permanent fight or a permanent cooperation, its fluid, it changes over time. At the moment it has been very bad for a couple of years but it could well improve.

Q: Is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict political (nationalist) or theological?

DP: Ultimately the Arab-Israeli conflict rests on a Muslim assumption that territory that has been ruled by Muslims must not be ruled by non-Muslims, that it is permanently Muslim territory. That a non-Muslim people should come, take it over, and rule it is deeply inimical.

That said, there have been four different stages of the Arab-Israeli conflict over the past century, four different stages of Arab approach. The first was pan-Syrian, to create a greater Syria; the second was pan-Arab, to create a greater Arab state, the third was Palestinian nationalist, and now the fourth is Islamist. There could be a fifth and a sixth. The key here is not the approach which changes every few decades, but rather the deep belief among Muslims that Israel is an illegitimate state because it is in a territory that for over a millenium was controlled by Muslims.

Q: Do you see an end to this conflict?

DP: I do see a possible end. I don’t see it going on forever, as no conflict goes on forever. I do see that it’s possibly going to end in 20-30 years, when the Palestinians are convinced that Israel is there and it’s permanent, and realize that there’s nothing they can do about that, accept it, and instead of trying to eliminate Israel will try to fix their own polity, economy, society and culture.

Islam

Q: You have written extensively about the distinction between Islam and “Islamism”, also called “militant Islam”, or “fundamentalism”. How do you explain the difference?

DP: Islam is a personal faith, and there are many different ways of understanding what it means to be a Muslim. One can be a Sufi, a mystic, one can be someone who lives by the law in a very strict way, one can be a nominal Muslim, who does not pay that much attention to his faith; all these and other ways are possible within the religion of Islam.

Islamism is a very specific approach, one that holds that Muslims would be powerful and rich were Muslims to follow the Islamic law in its complete detail. Islamists aspire to apply that law everywhere in the world, and see non-Muslims as inferior, and to be defeated. It’s an ideology that has its roots at the origins of Islam, but developed in its present state about 80 years ago. It is part of Islam, but not the whole of Islam.

Q: However, hard-line Muslims as well as some critics of Islam insist that you cannot be a real Muslim unless you follow the Islamic law – that would make the distinction between Islam and Islamism disappear?

DP: It is curious to note that Islamists and those who say that Islam itself is the problem both agree that I’m wrong, and that Islamism is Islam. The Islamists say that because they want to portray their version of Islam as the only one. And those who see Islam as the problem, conflate the religion and the ideology. I think it a mistake. Even if you believe that’s the case, and you’re a Westerner and a non-Muslim, I would argue that you’d have to adopt my point of view, because a Western government cannot fight Islam. Ours are not crusader states. Therefore, you have to fight the ideology of Islamism, not the religion of Islam. We know how to fight ideologies. We fought Fascism and Communism and now there’s Islamism. We can’t fight a religion. So if it’s reduced to a religion, then we lack the tools to protect ourselves.

Q: Would non-Islamist Islam mean a secularized, privatized Islam?

DP: Secularism means two different things. A secular person is one who is not religious. A secular society is one that divides religion from politics. Non-Islamist Islam needs not be secular in a personal sense; a person can be pious, but not Islamist. But it does mean secular in the latter sense, in that society divides politics from religion. For example, the Atatürk regime in Turkey is secular, you can be religious, but you cannot bring religion into the political sphere.

Q: What do you think about the term “Islamophobia” – it has been used a lot in Europe lately?

DP: “Islamophobia” is a fundamentally flawed notion, because the people who are worried about Islam are not phobic. “Phobic” implies they have an unjustified, wrongful dislike of something, whereas people who are worried about terrorism, about the imposition of the Islamic law, or the Sharia, are dealing with an actual set of problems. To call them names is both unfair and delegitimizing. Their concerns are real and legitimate, and need to be addressed.

Europe

Q: In a recent video interview you said about the future of Islam in Europe that there’s a 5% chance of harmony, and 47,5% chance for either Islam becoming dominant and Europeans reasserting control, and that the latter option might imply a civil strife? Would you explain what you mean?

DP: It’s striking to see that the default assumption of most Europeans is that somehow the European-Muslim relationship will work out. There may be problems today, but in the future it will be resolved. And yet I can’t see the sources of that optimism. If one looks at Muslims living in Europe one finds retreat rather than engagement. The children of the immigrants are more hostile toward existing European civilization than are the immigrants themselves. On the European side one finds increasing worry, concern, fear of the Muslim presence. So the hope that everyone will get along seems to be not based on reality. Therefore I give it a very low possibility of working out. Not zero, but minimal.

On the other hand, the alternatives between Muslim domination and European reassertion seem to me rather balanced. I can’t predict which of them is more likely to happen. Crises ahead that have not taken place, will help determine which way Europe goes.

Q: What kind of crises are to be expected, beyond those we have already seen?

DP: There have been small crises. The Rushdie affair. The Foulard affair. The pope affair. But these are not real crises. Little riots here and there. But nothing that has really led to major changes. So I think there’s a gap of five, ten, fifteen years to the future. I can’t predict but it could be something like the French riots of 2005, but far more violent – not burning cars but killing people. It could be the election of a government that could decide to send Muslim immigrants back to their home countries. I’m unable to predict the specific nature, I just think there are problems ahead that will show us which way Europe is likely to head.

Q: What could Europeans do to prevent a worse crisis?

DP: There are many steps that Europeans could take. For example, there is the step of integrating the Muslim immigrants. In general European countries are what I call large families. You are a member of a country because you come from the bloodline of that country, went to school there, and know its language, and share its religion. And now first time ever many European countries, indeed all European countries except France, are faced with the question: what does it mean to be Finnish, or Swedish, or Estonian. You did not have to explain that until now. Now you do. This is a crisis. I think it is a crisis that needs to be attended to. What does one do with people that look different, pray differently, eat differently? How does one create a nationality that includes them?

Also, Europeans need to have more children, if they’re going to sustain their civilisation. Your birthrates are very low now. Short of some significant increase, it’s hard to see how a century from now there will be a Europe that is still the Europe of today.

On the immigrant side, there needs to be a greater willingness to participate, and to accept the existence of the European civilisation, and not try to change it, but live within it.

Freedom of Speech

Q: You wrote a book about the “Rushdie Affair” in 1990, right after it happened. Now there have been several similar conflicts about “offending Islam” in the West. Has anything changed from Rushdie affair to today?

DP: The Rushdie affair came as a shock, because for the first time ever Muslims said what could and could not be written about, or stated, in the West. The other examples, of which there have been quite a few, have reiterated and confirmed that point. As time goes by, Muslims have become more determined to restrict free speech; they are going to the UN, for example, to have legal basis for prohibiting such speech. Westerners in general, Europeans in particular, are increasingly uneasy with such restrictions.

Q: With the pressure in the UN to ban “defamation of religion” worldwide, will the West just have to accept that in the increasingly intertwined and multicultural world the freedom of speech will not be what it used to be for at least the last decades?

DP: One can see a real reduction of the freedom of speech in many Western countries. One curious development took place in Saudi Arabia earlier this year when the Saudi Consultative Council was asked to confirm the idea that no criticism of religion could take place. But the Council rejected it, because the members noted it would recognize polytheistic religions, which they found “unacceptable”. So really what it’s meant to do is protect Islam, and I would be surprised if such legislation passed.

Q: So if the restriction of critique of religion would concern all equally, Muslims do actually not want it?

DP: Right.

Q: Regarding what we can and cannot say, you have written that the West itself, even the US have increasing problems naming the enemy in the “war on terror”?

DP: It is difficult for the modern Western person to speak bluntly about the problem of this sort. That results from a sense of confidence, and a feeling that it’s impolite and unnecessary to speak bluntly. It is enough to speak obliquely and carefully. However, I think it is necessary in a time of war to speak clearly about the identity of the enemy. If one traces, for example, President George W. Bush’s statements, one finds that they began very vaguely and then became more accurate and now they’ve become vague again. That’s rather typical of the West as a whole, in its uncertainty how to understand who the enemy is, and what the nature of this war is. That’s problematic. It’s now almost seven years since 9/11, it’s almost 30 years since the Iranian seizure of the American embassy in Teheran, and in all these years the US government still has not figured out who the enemy is, and what the problem is.

Q: How would you name the enemy?

DP: I would name the enemy as radical Islam or Islamism. It’s a movement, a body of ideas. Like Fascism and Communism.

Q: Has talking about this conflict become even harder during the last few years?

DP: There are so many conflicting currents. It’s hard for me to generalize, to say what the trend is, which way things are going. One could say that one finds a great deal of euphemism and indirect speech at this point and it’s not getting better.

Q: Before 9/11, even left-wing papers wrote about “Islamic Fascism”, now it seems unthinkable.

DP: One has seen an increase in a Left-Islamist alliance. It goes back to Michel Foucault’s visit to Teheran in 1978-79. He was very exited to see what was taking place. And initially his view met with considerable resistance on the left, but with time that resistance has eroded. I think the major event was in February 2003 when throughout Europe Islamists and leftists organized together against the forthcoming war in Iraq. This created the basis of the bond.

One finds they have the same opponents – they oppose the same ideas and institutions, countries and people. They are not in favor of the same thing, but they’re against the same things. So they’re not really deep allies, they don’t have a strategic co-operation, they have a tactical co-operation. One finds it over and over again throughout the West.

Interestingly one does not find it in the Muslim world. For example in Turkey, if you were against the Islamists in the elections a year ago, you voted for the Left. Over and over again one finds that the Left and the Isamists in Egypt, Pakistan, elsewhere are opposed to each other. But in the West, they work close together, and not just the West: in India too, one finds the same thing. And it is very troubling. It is an alliance that is comparable to the Hitler-Stalin alliance, that was a brown-red alliance and this is a green-red alliance, green in the sense of the color of Islam. It’s a great danger to the civilized world.

Q: This alliance is particularly confusing because the goals of the Islamist movement look rather like far right than left.

DP: If you look at it as a negative, then you understand it better than when you try to see what they have in common. They don’t have principles in common. Socialism, gender equality and elief in God are not in common. But if you look at what they are against – George W. Bush is a symbol of it, but more broadly Western civilization, specifically the US, the UK, Israel, Jews, practicing Christians, globalization – that is what they are against.

Q: So when academic, pro-gay-rights feminists declare Hamas and Hizbollah “progressive”, this is what it is about – a common enemy?

DP: Feminists who ignore what Islam says do so because that is tactically useful at the moment. Like in Iran in the 1970s, the Left and the Islamists worked together against the shah. Once they defeated the shah, they had completely opposite goals, and one defeated the other. So this is tactical, it’s just so long as the opponent is there. But if the opponent would be defeated, then their differences would come out, as each works for its own very different goals.

US politics

Q: What do you think about the term “neo-consevative”? Would you accept it describing yourself?

DP: I’m ambivalent. Neoconservatives may number 40 or 50 in the world. It’s not exactly a big movement. And they are considered to have so much power. So I’d rather like the idea of being one of them. On the other hand, when you look at specific policies, such as the war in Iraq, or the effort rapidly to democratize the Middle East, I’ve real differences. So I don’t think that the term fits me.

Q: You have recently written about the possibility of US attacking Iran. In this conflict, Europe again sees the US as the main potential aggressor.

DP: Europeans have the luxury of not having to make hard decisions. Because they know that the US will be there and do it for them, and then they can criticize the US. I think that the US has made a mistake since World War II of taking on too much responsibility. I think we should have said vis-a-vis the Soviets and others: Look, if you don’t think we are doing this correct, then you do it. If you don’t like it, if you don’t want Pershing missiles in 1981-82, fine – you figure out your relationship with the Soviet. And now it’s the same thing: if you think Iran having missiles is fine, ok – we won’t protect you. That would create a much greater sense of realism. But unfortunately, as it is, we take initiative, and then others criticize us for that. It would be far more constructive for Europeans to have to make hard decisions themselves than simply criticize us. We Americans are making Europeans act as children who don’t have to make key decisions, they are made for them. I don’t think that is healthy for Europeans or ourselves.

Q: Would tightened European integration make Europe a more “grown up” unit?

DP: I believe European Union has its limits. I think it’s useful economic and political union, but I don’t think it should try to be more than a confederation. I don’t think it should become a single state. That would be a mistake, given the history of Europe. Turning EU into a military unit would also be a mistake. I think NATO is far better.

Q: In what sense is the upcoming US presidential election important for the world?

Barack Obama would turn US government policy into European policy. The US would be another European polity as opposed to what it has been at least for decades. So it’s a very fundamental set of choices – more fundamental than any time since 1972, when [the Democratic candidate] George McGovern also had a left-wing, European approach.

Bat Ye'or Interview.......

Jul 9, 2008 20:35 Updated Jul 10, 2008 9:08
One on One:

A 'dhimmi' view of Europe

By RUTHIE BLUM

'I always thought I'd be writing novels," says Bat Ye'or, her wistfulness somehow adding an extra touch of class to her thick French accent. "Not such serious work."

Given the gravity of her subject matter, and what some might consider her alarmist way with words, this is hard to believe. But then, so is the historian's life story, which is the stuff that sagas are made of.

Hers began in Egypt during World War II. The daughter of a middle-class Jewish family named Orebi, Bat Ye'or (her trademark pseudonym, which in Hebrew means "daughter of the Nile") fled with her parents to England in 1957 - after suffering the brunt of the anti-Semitism she claims characterized the entire Arab world.

In 1959, she married a Briton - also a historian - whom she prefers not to name, to protect his and her privacy. The couple then moved to and settled in Switzerland in 1960, where they raised their children and continue to reside.

She is the author of eight books, including The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam (1985); The Decline of Eastern Christianity: From Jihad to Dhimmitude (1996); Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide (2001); and - the one which captured international attention and catapulted her into the center of controversy - Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis (2005). Saying that Europe is basically finished, due to its kissing up to the Arabs, will do that.

Here recently to promote the release of her best-selling "cautionary tale" in Hebrew (EuroArabia, Schocken Publishers; translation by Arie Hashavia), Bat Ye'or explains why she believes the West in general, and Europe in particular, is in state of denial at best, and dhimmitude at worst. To make matters more complicated, she asserts, though the citizens of European countries long to preserve their individual and collective cultures of freedom and democracy - which they have been exhibiting at the polls - the European Union, influenced by the UN-backed Islamic leadership, advocates appeasement and passivism.

In an hour-long interview on the terrace of her Mishkenot Sha'ananim digs overlooking the Old City of Jerusalem, Bat Ye'or expounds on her bleak prognosis in an articulate tirade, raising her voice now and then for emphasis, pausing occasionally to laugh. What she has to say about the state of the world, however, is more likely to make one cry.

Why do you use a pseudonym?

For many reasons. First of all, when I left Egypt and started living in Europe, I found that I had changed - that I was no longer the person I had been before.

Secondly, I have always preferred to keep my personal and professional lives separate. I have always wanted my social standing to be distinct from my being the wife of my husband, the daughter of my parents and the mother of my children. It is a matter of independence.

Why did your family leave Egypt?

We left as part of the big exodus of Jews from Arab-Muslim countries. Jews suffered from severe anti-Semitism, especially in Egypt. There was a powerful Nazi community, established by [then Egyptian president Gamal Abdel] Nasser. There were many anti-Jewish laws. There was a general feeling of insecurity. There was open hatred expressed by the Muslim Brotherhood, especially in relation to the Palestine issue. As early as World War II - particularly after the November 1945 pogroms in Egypt - Jews began leaving the country. Many went to Israel. At that time there was a Zionist underground. Zionism was made a criminal offense for which you could be jailed or even tortured. So, many young people left. For the old people, of course, it was difficult, because many were members of the bourgeoisie, and it was forbidden for Jews to take any money or assets out of the country when they left. My parents' assets were confiscated, for example, which created economic problems for our family.

Are you saying that as World War II ended, and in Europe Nazism became taboo, it was gaining strength in the Arab world?

Yes, but even before and throughout the war, both Nazism and fascism were strong in the Arab world. Hitler and Mussolini were heroes. The whole Middle East was in turmoil because the Arab-Muslim populations were all favorable to Nazism and anti-Semitic policies.

How much of what was going on in the death camps in Europe were you and other Jews in Egypt aware of at the time?

We knew everything. I remember my parents listening very carefully to the radio. And it was also in the newspaper. But also, my mother's family was in France, and they were forced to wear the yellow star. So we knew.

When you heard about the peace treaty that Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin signed with Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1979, how did you feel?

I wasn't following it that carefully, due to family problems. Nor was I familiar with Israeli politics at the time. But I trusted Begin to do the best thing for Israel. So, I did have hope. Still, what you have to understand is that the problem is much larger than Egypt. The whole Muslim world is becoming more and more radicalized - more rooted in Shari'a, and less open to anything outside the religion. This is due to the policies of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), with 57 Islamic member states and a permanent delegation to the UN. At its last summit in December 2005, it decided upon a 10-year plan, one of whose resolutions was to root the Islamic uma - the world Muslim community - in the Koran and the [oral tradition of the] Hadith, which, of course, means Wahabbism. They also resolved to make the Palestinian issue the central issue of international politics. This is why we see relentless pressure on Israel from different countries. Because the OIC is an extremely powerful body, demographically, politically and economically.

The OIC is an Islamic body. How has it managed to turn the Palestinian issue into a Western focus? And to what do you attribute the political and cultural success of its ideology in Europe and the United States?

First of all, a distinction has to be made here between Europe and America, which have chosen opposite paths in relation to the Middle East.

As for OIC influence on Europe: It is visible in immigration policy toward Muslims, and in the Muslims' refusal to integrate into European societies.

The OIC considers nationalist-European movements, European history, European culture, European religions and European languages as Islamophobic. Why? Because Europeans have begun to feel that they are losing their own identity, due to their efforts to welcome immigrants who don't want to integrate. As a result, they have adopted measures to stop illegal immigration, to control legal immigration and to curb terrorism. Europeans fear losing their historical and cultural assets - particularly those of democracy and human rights - to Shari'a law. They want one law for everybody - and it's not Shari'a, which involves things like honor killings. It is thus that in all international forums, the OIC attacks Europe and demands that it apply multiculturalism.

Now, Europeans do not want multiculturalism. But this is a problem, because European governments - and especially the European Union - do not want to fight the OIC, and so they collaborate with it. Therefore, what we have inside Europe is a clash of interests between the European citizens and their governments.

A similar claim is often made about Muslim-Arab citizens and their governments - that a majority of the former is moderate, while the latter is extremist. Do you agree with this assessment?

No, I don't agree with it at all. In fact, the opposite is the case. In the Arab world, it is the governments - as we see so well in Egypt - that are at the mercy of the radicalized, Islamized, anti-Western, anti-American and anti-Israel masses who are in a dynamic of jihad. Certainly the majority of Muslims follow the ideology of conquest; it is in the Koran and the Hadith! And every time they go to the mosque, they hear it. I mean, the first shura, that is recited five times a day, is anti-Christian and anti-Jewish. So they cannot escape from it.

Unfortunately, the Muslims who are against this trend don't have the courage to make the effort to change it. And those who do have the courage are threatened with losing their jobs and having harm done to them and their families. So Islamism is the natural culture of the Arab-Muslim world. Even in Turkey an Islamist government has taken over. So, how can we deny the reality? And anyway, if the moderates were in the majority, they would be making protests and issuing manifestos against Osama bin Laden, instead of against America and Israel.

The environment is one of jihad on the one hand and of dhimmitude [the state of being a non-Muslim subject living in a country governed by Shari'a law] on the other. European countries are becoming dhimmi countries, and people don't realize it, because they don't know what jihad and dhimmitude are, so they don't recognize what condition they're in. When you have an illness, but are unfamiliar with its symptoms, you don't know that you are sick. You feel sick, but you don't know what you've got. You therefore can't make a diagnosis or embark upon a method of treatment to cure yourself. This is the current condition of Western civilization right now.

How, then, do you explain the electoral victories of France's Nicolas Sarkozy, Germany's Angela Merkel, Italy's Silvio Berlusconi and London's replacement of mayor Ken Livingstone by Boris Johnson? Wouldn't you consider this phenomenon as indicative that Europeans are making a diagnosis of and seeking a cure to the illness you say they suffer from?

Oh yes, they are extremely important developments which prove what I am saying about European citizens having had enough of this attempt to merge - culturally, religiously and demographically - the Arab and European sides of the Mediterranean. But the pressure exerted by the OIC on European governments is very strong. In addition, there is the pressure of terrorism inside and out of Europe, and that of the oil. So the task of these new governments you refer to will not be easy, to say the least. I don't doubt their good intentions. But I don't know if they will succeed in bringing about the change their citizens want.

Furthermore, unlike President Bush - who recognizes that Israel has a legitimate right to exist as a normal nation in its homeland - the Europeans think that Israel's legitimacy should be granted by the Palestinians and the Arab states. In other words, Europe is putting Israel into a position of dhimmitude, whereby it will be recognized by Muslims if it abides by certain rules and duties.

This is in keeping with its own mentality. When the European community, in December 1973, published its document on European identity in the Copenhagen Declaration, they themselves were adopting a dhimmi mentality toward the Arab League countries. After World War II, Europeans decided that they didn't want any more wars. Then, when they suffered aggression, such as the oil boycott and Palestinian terrorism that emerged in Europe in the late 1960s, instead of fighting, they joined their aggressors. This was their concept of multilateralism - thinking that by joining those who attacked them, they would be protected. This is when a tremendous Muslim immigration into Europe began.

You keep referring to immigration. Isn't childbirth also a demographic factor, particularly since Muslims tend to have many children, while some European countries suffer from zero or minus population growth? Is it possible that by virtue of their numbers, Muslims in Europe are influencing policy - and that it is not just due to the power of the OIC?

Yes, but you have to understand that those who plan policy are Europeans. In other words, Muslim politics are conducted in Europe by Europeans themselves, based on the interests of Muslim lobbyists.

Isn't Eastern Europe different from Western Europe in this respect?

Yes, and Eastern Europe is more pro-American than Western Europe - which is what the Muslims want. It is easier to take over the West as a whole when it's divided.

How has this affected European academia?

European universities - like those in America - are totally controlled by the Arab-Islamic lobby, as are the schools. A teacher who attempts to teach according to the European view of history is thrown out. Indeed, the freedom of expression and thought that has been so crucial for European democracy has disappeared.

Many Israeli academics bemoan a similar situation in Israel. Do you see the mind frame you're describing infiltrating the Jewish state?

Yes, because the EU is spending a lot of money on Israeli NGOs in order to promote policies which will lead to the destruction of Israel. The EU considers Israel to be an accident of history that has to disappear. It thinks that if Israel disappears, relations between Europe and the Arab world will be much better. Now, the EU doesn't come out and actually say this, but all its policies, statements and actions are indicative of its aims. These aims could be developed in Israel and in America - especially when there is a new president.

Speaking of which, there is a concern among many Jews and Israelis that if Barack Obama becomes president, he will lean toward the kind of alliance with the Arab world that the EU promotes.

Yes, because he has a kind of "Third Worldism" - you know, the view that we all have to get together and appease the enemy. I'm no specialist on Obama. But I think that Bush has been a great politician, and that history will show he was right. Aside from everything else, he has woken up Europe to the calamity of global terrorism - and this is what brought about the coming to power of Merkel, Sarkozy and Berlusconi. And Europe can no longer be as anti-American.
That's ironic, isn't it, considering that most Americans now hate Bush?
That's because they don't understand what is really going on.

Given your bleak view of Europe, how is it that you didn't end up living in Israel or the US?

I love Europe. It is part of my family history and my culture. I can criticize it because I love it and want to help it. Look what Europe has given to the world: democracy and human rights, the love of peace. Look at its achievements in the field of literature, music, law, architecture. There is a tremendous richness. But we have to fight for all those values and accomplishments. Otherwise, we will be living as dhimmis in barbarity.

Finally, how do you envision Western civilization 10 years from now? The Mishna says, "You are not required to finish the task, but neither are you free to desist from it."

Well, I feel that though I may not have done enough, I have tried the best I could. As for the future, it is difficult to say, but we must have hope. We have to educate the European, American and Israeli youth to recover their culture and values, since it is they who will have to continue the efforts to preserve freedom and democracy - and they who will have to fight to defend them.

Palestinian Authority Libel: Prisoners are used for Nazi-like medical experiments

By Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook

Introduction: The Palestinian Authority is intensifying its longstanding blood libel campaign against Israel, falsely accusing Israel of conducting horrific Nazi-like medical experiments on Palestinian prisoners. These fabrications have been featured repeatedly in the Palestinian Authority's official newspaper, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, which is under the direct authority of Mahmoud Abbas. In the past week alone there were three new examples of this libel:

"The method employed by the Israeli Occupation in which they [are] instigating slow death ... doctors in Israeli prison clinics use the prisoners as guinea pigs for clinical drug testing under the pretense of 'treatment.'" [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 6, 2008]

"Many of the male and female inmates received injections from needles they had not seen before, and which caused their hair and facial hair to fall out permanently ... others lost their sanity, or their mental condition is constantly deteriorating... and some are suffering from infertility." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 4, 2008]

"The doctors in these prison clinics are using the prisoners as guinea pigs for clinical testing of drugs and treatment-methods." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 3, 2008]

Giving voice to blood libels and slandering Israel are essential tools used by the Palestinian Authority to demonize Israel and to inflame hatred against Israel, especially on the highly sensitive subject of Palestinian prisoners. It is therefore not surprising that the Palestinian public places the release of Palestinian terrorists from Israeli prisons as a national cause, and justifies all means -- including the abduction of Israeli soldiers - to free the prisoners from their supposed mistreatment.

Al-Hayat Al-Jadida has attested that reports about such "experiments" performed on Palestinian prisoners serve to "mobilize each and every human-being as such... to actively participate in activities aimed at their release and their return to freedom, properly meant as a return to life... all of us! all of us! all of us! - to confront the enemy in the war it wages." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Sept. 3, 2007]

These new accusations build on earlier libels that Israel conducts the same kind of experiments on Palestinian prisoners as the Nazis did in the concentration camps:

"We have many examples of experiments conducted by the Nazis, but we shall bring one example that exhibits a great similarity [to the Israeli experiments]: They would insert poisons into the prisoners' food in order to study the effect of the poisons on people, with the purpose of performing autopsies on the bodies of those who died from the poison. He mentioned multiple cases of the mass poisoning of Palestinian and Arab prisoners in several Israeli prisons and detention centers. He did not rule out the possibility that the mass poisonings were done deliberately." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Sept. 1, 2007].

Furthermore, the libel adds that Israel is deliberately laboring "to increase the suffering of the prisoners and to murder them slowly, or to render them hollow, fragile and sickly bodies that will be a burden to their families and their nation after their release..." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Sept.1, 2007].

According to the libel, because Israel views the prisoners as guinea pigs, "the terrible crime, unimaginably horrific, that was committed by the executioner jailers of the occupation forces... demonstrated that the prisoner is treated like a lab -mouse." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Sept. 3, 2007].

In an attempt to increase the credibility of the libel about the treatment of prisoners, the Palestinian Authority daily last week repeated a media invention from a previous article. It said that Dalia Itzik, Speaker of the Knesset, said in 1997 that Israel conducts "thousands of medical clinical trials," and that "experiments with dangerous drugs are performed each year on Palestinian prisoners." The story also rehashed the fabrication that an Israeli named Amy Laftat, who was presented as Head of the Pharmaceutical Division in the Ministry of Health, reported that "there is a 15% annual increase in the number of permits granted by her office for conducting research on dangerous medications on Palestinians" [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 4, 2008].

Palestinian Media Watch checked with Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik and the Ministry of Health, and confirmed that these statements were never made, and in fact that there is no one named Amy Laftat working for the Pharmaceutical Division. (The Israeli responses are below). Following are more complete texts of the Prisoners Libel, as promoted by the Palestinian Authority's official Daily, al-Hayat al-Jadida:

1: "Prisoners lost their eyesight and the functionality of their nervous system"

"The Occupation forces continue to conduct medical experiments on Palestinian and Arab prisoners in their prisons, in defiance of every international treaty and code of ethics. This is not limited to their policy of medical neglect, but rather the violations even extend to exploitive use of the prisoners as testing subjects for pharmaceutical drugs. Dalia Itzik, then a member of the Israeli Knesset and head of the Science Committee in the Israeli parliament, revealed in July 1997 that thousands of medical clinical trials, experiments with dangerous drugs are performed each year on Palestinian prisoners. At that time, she added that her office held thousands of permits issued by the Israeli Health Ministry for large Israeli pharmaceutical companies permitting the performance of thousands of clinical trials on Palestinian and Arab prisoners in Israeli prisons.

Additionally, 'Amy Laftat,' Head of the Pharmaceutical Division in the Israeli Health Ministry, revealed before the Knesset in that same meeting that there is a 15% annual increase in the number of permits granted by her office for conducting research with dangerous drugs on Palestinians and Arabs in the Israeli prisons.

It should be mentioned that many of the male and female prisoners were given shots from needles they had not seen beforehand, and which caused their hair and facial hair to fall out permanently, and there were other prisoners who lost their eyesight and the functionality of their nervous system, and others who lost their sanity, or whose mental condition is constantly deteriorating, and still others who suffer from infertility and are unable to bear children, etc. [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 4, 2008]

2. "Doctors in Israel use the prisoners as guinea pigs under the pretense of "treatment""Abu Al-Hajj [Director of the Abu-Jihad Center for Prisoner Affairs in Al-Quds University] referred back to the period of the British Mandate and its usual method of execution - using the hanging noose that is on display in the museum ... Fahd Abu Al-Hajj went on to mention the subsequent method employed by the Israeli Occupation, in which they finish off by instigating slow death, which the prisoners suffer at the hands of the prison authorities. He added that as a result of this method, 226 prisoners have died as shahids (martyrs) in the prisons... Abu Al-Hajj pointed to the fact that... clinic doctors in Israeli prisons are using the prisoners as guinea pigs under the pretense of "treatment."[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 6, 2008]

3. "The prisoner is treated like a lab mouse."

Heading: "Drugs and Lab-Mice" ..."The reports came gushing in... of the terrible crime, unimaginably horrific, that was committed by the executioner jailers of the occupation forces; the occupation forces used several of the freedom prisoners as lab accessories for conducting medical trials. This crime committed by the occupiers demonstrates... that the prisoner is treated like a lab mouse - who will either be killed by an inappropriate drug, or will be hurt by an electrical shock. Otherwise the experiment should inflict a permanent disability or deformity upon him... this is something that mobilizes each and every human-being as such... to actively participate in activities aimed at their release and their return to freedom, properly meant as a return to life... all of us! all of us! all of us! - to confront the enemy in the war it wages against those of us who are alive and those who are dead"...[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Sept. 3, 2007]

4. "Prisoners as guinea pigs for drug and treatment clinical testing."

Headline: "Reports given by two lawyers after visiting [prisons] indicate an increase in the policy of provoking the prisoners".The director of the Center for the Defense of Freedoms and Civil Rights, "Hurriyat", Hilmi Al-Araj said that the reports given by the two lawyers from the center, Ibtisam Al-Anati and Raed Al-Zabi, clearly point to a documented increase in the Israeli Prison Authority's policy of provoking the male and female prisoners and of treating them inhumanely; this includes, most notably, a policy requiring the prisoners [to wear] an orange garment, and the use doctors in these prison clinics make of the prisoners as guinea pigs for drug and treatment clinical testing." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 3, 2008]

5. "Most suffer infertility problems, others have lost their eyesight."

Headline: "Most suffer infertility problems, others have lost their eyesight and their sanity after the occupation has injected them with unidentified substances and drugs - Israel continues to use prisoners as guinea pigs for pharmaceutical drug-testing.""Abd Al-Nasser Piroanah, researcher and head of the Statistical Department in the [Palestinian] Ministry of Prisoner and Released Prisoner Affairs, said in his report that the Occupation Authorities conduct clinical testing on Palestinian and Arab prisoners in prisons, in defiance of every international treaty and code of ethics.

The general tragic state of the prisons escapes no one, and the medical situation all the more so... In order to increase the suffering of the prisoners and to murder them slowly, or to render them hollow, fragile and sickly bodies that will be a burden to their families and their nation after their release...

Further, he stated: This is not limited to their policy of medical neglect, but rather the violations even extend to exploitive use of the prisoners as testing subjects for pharmaceutical drugs.

Knesset Member Dalia Itzik and former Head of the Science Committee revealed in July 1997 that thousands of medical clinical trials, experiments with dangerous drugs are performed each year on Palestinian prisoners. At that time, she added that her office held thousands of permits issued by the Israeli Health Ministry for large Israeli pharmaceutical companies permitting the performance of thousands of clinical trials on Palestinian and Arab prisoners in Israeli prisons. Additionally, 'Amy Laftat,' Head of the Pharmaceutical Division in the Israeli Health Ministry, revealed ... that there is a 15% annual increase in the number of permits granted by her office for conducting research with dangerous drugs on Palestinians and Arabs in the Israeli prisons.

The researcher concluded that this crime is only becoming more widespread... under the auspices of the Israeli Health Ministry ... These crimes reflect clearly on the degree of racism which abounds in the Israeli system as a whole... He brought many examples of male and female prisoners who were given injections from needles they had not seen before, and which caused their hair and facial hair to fall out permanently, and there were other prisoners who lost their eyesight and the functionality of their nerve system, and others who lost their sanity, or whose mental condition is constantly deteriorating, and still others who suffer from infertility and so forth...

Piroanah mentioned that the first to use prisoners for medical experiments were the Nazis, who did it in the detention centers of the German army during WWII...
He added: We have many examples of experiments conducted by the Nazis, but we shall bring one example that exhibits a great similarity [to the Israeli experiments]: They would insert poisons into the prisoners' food in order to study the effect of the poisons on people and with the purpose of performing autopsies on the bodies of those who died from the poison. He mentioned multiple cases of the mass poisoning of Palestinian and Arab prisoners in several Israeli prisons and detention centers. He did not rule out the possibility that the mass poisonings were done deliberately.

He said the Ministry of Prisoner Affairs has been conducting activities in the past months... aimed at pressuring international opinion to act urgently and to adhere to its moral and human responsibility to save the prisoners... and to investigate the serious medical circumstances found in Israeli prisons, and to bring the war criminals to international courts." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Sept. 1, 2007]

6. "Clinics are nothing but open grounds for experimenting with dangerous drugs.""Dr Awda emphasized that health conditions in Israeli prisons are bad and dangerous... She emphasized that the clinics are nothing but open grounds for experimenting with dangerous drugs on the sick prisoners. She proved this with a statement given by the Head of the Knesset Science Committee Dalia Itzik on July 10, 1997, in which she claimed that every year 1000 clinical trials of dangerous pharmaceutical drugs are conducted using Palestinian prisoners as subjects." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 17, 2008]

Israeli Officials Respond Office of Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik: "Knesset Speaker Itzik never made the statements attributed to her. Knesset Speaker Itzik is certain that incidents of this kind do not occur in Israel; this is not how Israel conducts itself." Ministry of Health's Response: "Clinical testing on prisoners in prison was never approved, never performed, and is most certainly not taking place at present. Furthermore, there is no person named Amy Laftat working for the Pharmaceutical Division.