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She is the author of eight books, including '''' (1985). She has provided briefings to the , February 7, 2005Julia Duin: State of 'dhimmitude' seen as threat to Christians, Jews , ''Washington Times'', October 30, 2002 EARLY LIFE Bat Ye'or was born in 1933 in , June 9, 2005 She describes how her experiences influenced her research interests: I had witnessed the destruction, in a few short years, of a vibrant Jewish community living in Egypt for over 2,600 years and which had existed from the time of Jeremiah the Prophet. I saw the disintegration and flight of families, dispossessed and humiliated, the destruction of their synagogues, the bombing of the Jewish quarters and the terrorizing of a peaceful population. I have personally experienced the hardships of exile, the misery of statelessness − and I wanted to get to the root cause of all this. I wanted to understand why the Jews from Arab countries, nearly a million, had shared my experience. She is married to British historian David Littman , with whom she frequently collaborates.Julia Duin: State of 'dhimmitude' seen as threat to Christians, Jews , ''Washington Times'', October 30, 2002 RESEARCH Her first book, ''The Jews in Egypt'', was published in 1971, along with a study of Egyptian Coptic Christians , under the Arabic '' Nom De Plume '' Yahudiya Masriya, meaning "Egyptian Jewess". She is known for employing the neologism ''''. She credits assassinated Lebanese president-elect and Phalangist militia leader Bachir Gemayel with coining the term. Ye'or describes dhimmitude as the "specific social condition that resulted from jihad," and as the "state of fear and insecurity" of "infidels" who are required to "accept a condition of humiliation."Julia Duin: [http://hss.fullerton.edu/comparative/islam.htm Interview with Bat Ye'or , ''California State University'', 2002 She believes that "the dhimmi condition can only be understood in the context of Jihad," and studies the relationship between the theological tenets of Islam and the sufferings of the Christians and Jews who, in different geographical areas and periods of history, have lived in Islamic majority areas.Bat Ye'or: Dhimmitude Past and Present : An Invented or Real History? (lecture at Brown University ), October 10, 2002Forrest W. Schultz: Important New Book on Islam Published (msg00000.html in ZIP archive), April 30, 2004 The cause of jihad, she argues, "was fomented around the 8th century by Muslim theologians after the death of Muhammad and led to the conquest of large swathes of three continents over the course of a long history."Donna Desrochers: Americans should educate themselves about jihad's "culture of hate," says WSRC speaker , ''Brandeis University'', February 28, 2002 She says: Dhimmitude is the direct consequence of jihad. It embodie all the Islamic laws and customs applied over a millennium on the vanquished population, Jews and Christians, living in the countries conquered by jihad and therefore Islamized. [We can observe a return of the jihad Ideology since the 1960s, and of some dhimmitude practices in Muslim countries applying the Sharia law, or inspired by it. I stress ... the incompatibility between the concept of tolerance as expressed by the jihad-dhimmitude ideology, and the concept of Human Rights based on the equality of all human beings and the inalienability of their rights.Rod Dreher: [http://www.nationalreview.com/dreher/dreher102902.asp Damned If You Do , ''National Review Online'', October 29, 2002 '', July 1, 2002 Bat Ye'or has focused on the rapid transformation of '', June 15, 2007 Use of the term "dhimmitude" has increased in recent years. Other issues Bat Ye'or has written on include:
''EURABIA'' In Bat Ye'or's most recent book, 2005's '''', April 5, 2005 She herself can take some credit for the term " Eurabia " in this context; though the term was first used as a title of a journal initiated in the mid-1970s by the European Committee for Coordination of Friendship Associations with the Arab world, she popularized it as a term for Arab/Islamic influence over Europe. She explains the term's origins in the book: Eurabia is a geo-political reality envisaged in 1973 through a system of informal alliances between, on the one hand, the nine countries of the European Community (EC) which, enlarged, became the European Union (EU) in 1992 and on the other hand, the Mediterranean Arab countries. The alliances and agreements were elaborated at the top political level of each EC country with the representative of the European Commission, and their Arab homologues with the Arab League's delegate. This system was synchronised under the roof of an association called the Euro-Arab Dialogue (EAD) created in July 1974 in Paris. A working body composed of committees and always presided jointly by a European and an Arab delegate planned the agendas, and organized and monitored the application of the decisions. VIEWS Bat Ye'or's work has attracted praise and criticism from academic historians and political commentators on Islam and the Middle East. British historian Sir . Review reproduced on the back cover of ''Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis''. calls her a " Cassandra , a brave and far-sighted spirit." Pryce-Jones, David . "Captive continent" , ''National Review'', May 9, 2005 Sidney Griffith, the head of the department of Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures at the Catholic University Of America wrote in a review of ''Decline of Eastern Christianity'' that Ye'or has "raised a topic of vital interest"; adding, however, that the "theoretical inadequacy of the interpretive concepts of jihad and dhimmitude, as they are employed here", and the "want of historical method in the deployments of the documents which serve as evidence for the conclusions reached in the study" serve as dual barriers. He goes on to say " {Link without Title} are presented out of context, with no analysis or explanation. One has the impression that in their bulk they are simply meant to undergird the contentions made in the first part of the book", concluding that thus Ye'or has "written a polemical tract, not responsible historical analysis." Griffith, Sidney H., "The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude", International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 30, No. 4. (Nov., 1998), pp. 619-621. Michael Sells , John Henry Barrows Professor of Islamic History and Literature at the University Of Chicago , argues that "by obscuring the existence of pre-Christian and other old, non-Christian communities in Europe as well as the reason for their disappearance in other areas of Europe, Bat Ye’or constructs an invidious comparison between the allegedly humane Europe of Christian and Enlightenment values and the ever present persecution within Islam. Whenever the possibility is raised of actually comparing circumstances of non-Christians in Europe to non-Muslims under Islamic governance in a careful, thoughtful manner, Bat Ye’or forecloses such comparison."Qureshi, Emran & Sells, Michael A. ''The New Crusades: Constructing the Muslim Enemy''. Columbia University Press, 2003, p. 364. ISBN 0-231-12667-0 In a review of ''The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude'' the American historian Robert Brenton Betts commented that the book dealt with Judaism at least as much as with Christianity, that the title was misleading and the central premise flawed. He said: "The general tone of the book is strident and anti-Muslim. This is coupled with selective scholarship designed to pick out the worst examples of anti-Christian behavior by Muslim governments, usually in time of war and threats to their own destruction (as in the case of the deplorable Armenian genocide of 1915). Add to this the attempt to demonize the so-called Islamic threat to Western civilization and the end-product is generally unedifying and frequently irritating."Robert Brenton Betts, "The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude".'' Middle East Policy '' 5 (3) (September 1997), pp. 200-2003 According to the American scholar Joel Beinin , Bat Ye'or exemplifies the "neo-lachrymose" perspective on Egyptian Jewish history. According to Beinin, this perspective has been "consecrated" as "the normative Zionist interpretation of the history of Jews in Egypt"; it draws its authority from Bat Ye'or's claim to authenticity as an Egyptian Jew and has "won broad acceptance among both scholars and the general public in Israel and the West." Joel Beinin, ''The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora.'' University of California Press, 1998, page 15 Johann Hari , a British journalist, writes that Bat Ye'or's works reveal "an Ideology startlingly similar" to Anti-Semitism . He likens Ye'or's views to "a 21st century Protocols of the Elders of Mecca" (a reference to the notorious twentieth century antisemitic forgery Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion ). Hari, Johann . "Amid all this panic, we must remember one simple fact — Muslims are not all the same" , ''The Independent'', August 21, 2006 Craig R. Smith in a '' New York Times '' article referred to her as one of the "most extreme voices on the new Jewish right."Smith, Craig R. The World; Europe's Jews Seek Solace on the Right , February 20, 2005 SELECTED WORKS ;On-line bibliography ;Books
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