An interview with Bat Ye'or...

Bat Ye'or is a European intellectual whose book, Eurabia, warns about the Islamification of Europe.

Chesler: What do you see is happening at this moment?

Bat Ye’or: The West is engaged in a very careful exercise of self-censorship. We are trying not to offend Muslim sensibilities. Western governments want to impose respect for Muslim sensibilities in the hope that this will avoid jihad. They are ready to suppress the truth.

Chesler: What do you think of an Obama Presidency?

Bat Ye’or: Obama and his supporters do not seem to understand that Europe has failed. Today, European dissidents are forming movements against the European Union whose policies have led to the Islamification of Europe. Europe is suffering from a huge Muslim immigration problem. The Muslim immigrants do not want to integrate into a modern, tolerant state and they want to impose Sha’ria law on us all.

Chesler: What does this remind you of?

Bat Ye’or: All these Western gestures of appeasement remind me of the dhimmi regulations. These are a whole set of regulations whose purpose is to respect Muslim sensibilities. Therefore, Christians must conduct “quiet” services and dhimmis (infidels) must wear special clothing so as not to shock or offend Muslims with their too-fashionable or too-expensive clothing. Long ago, infidels had to dismount from their donkeys when a Muslim approached and a dhimmi could only pass a Muslim on the left (or impure) side, not on the right side.

I am not in favor of inciting anyone but really, where will this all end? And why this super-sensitivity only to Muslims? There is only one answer. Our intellectuals and politicians want to have a good relationship with the Muslim world. They think they will always have the freedoms that they currently enjoy. They do not understand that those freedoms are at risk.

Chesler: Where does Israel fit into this picture?

Bat Ye’or: Europeans have imagined that the problem is only Israel. They were committed to allowing the Arabs to destroy Israel if that kept them, the Europeans, safe. But these Europeans do not seem to remember that Islam persecuted and then destroyed Christianity in Muslim lands. We see a repetition of this in Europe today.

Chesler: Such politicians and intellectuals are suicidal, don’t you think?

Bat Ye’or: Absolutely. But they want so much to be loved that they are reaching out to their enemy. This is the politics of self-destruction. They are making concessions about their basic security and freedom.