Welcome back.
We’re going to talk again about the Crusades
in this lecture.
I want to draw some conclusions here and I
want to link the events of the Crusades to
the events that are taking place today.
You may remember in 2003, when the United
States invaded Iraq, that President Bush used
the phrase, quote – this crusade, this war
on terrorism – as he announced our invasion
of Iraq.
Of course, that word, crusade, was not chosen
lightly, it was chosen because Bush’s speechwriters
knew that the American people would associate
crusades with, if not religious war, then
at least Western war against a dangerous infidel
or enemy.
You might also remember Osama Bin Laden.
I know there were some videos released after
9/11, showing Bin Laden speaking, delivering
his message.
He called for quote – a new battle, similar
to the great battles of Islam, like the conqueror
of Jerusalem – and of course, Bin Laden
here is talking about Saladin, who we talked
about in our last lecture.
Bin Laden goes on, he says, quote – I envision
Saladin coming out of the clouds carrying
his sword with the blood of unbelievers dripping
from it.
Again, the ability of Arabic Muslims to constantly
reference the people and events of the Crusades
strengthens them, while we in the West, of
course, remain entirely ignorant of these
things, and I think this is a weakness for
our country in this ongoing struggle against
Islamic radicals.
You might remember President Saddam Hussein,
whom we hung a few years ago.
He made much of the fact – in fact, he mentioned
this in virtually every speech – that he
and Saladin were born in the same town, Tikrit.
In 2000, during the intifada, the uprising
in the West Bank, the Palestinian youths there
are fighting the Israeli army, throwing Molotov
cocktails and rocks and what have you at the
armed Israelis.
They organize themselves in what they called
quote/unquote – Saladin Brigades.
Again, the language, the Arabic hero of the
Crusades, reverberates around the Middle East
today.
This is Ehud Barak, who was briefly prime
minister of Israel; I believe he’s the defense
minister now.
This is an interview with him, in the New
York review of books, he said, quote – The
Palestinians will push for a binational state
with a Muslim majority and a Jewish minority.
This would mean the destruction of Israel
as a Jewish state.
This, I believe, is their vision.
They may not talk about it openly, but this
is their vision.
Yasser Arafat sees himself as a reborn Saladin,
the Kurdish Muslim general who defeated the
Crusaders in the 12th century, and they see
Israel as just another ephemeral Crusader
state.
Ephemeral meaning passing - this is very telling
language.
Present-day Israel is no different from the
kingdom of Jerusalem established by the Christian
Crusaders at the turn of the first millennium.
Again, it’s temporary, ephemeral – passing.
The pains, the vocabulary of the Crusades,
remain very much in the consciousness of Arab
Muslims, while the West remains kind of pathetically
ignorant of these things.
Again, I think this is a very dangerous set
of circumstances for the West as we continue
to sort of blunder blindly through these interminable
conflicts in the Middle East without understanding
the differences between the Shia and the Sunni,
without recognizing how Arab consciousness,
vocabulary, is directly tied to these events
of a thousand years ago.
I think this weakens our effort in this part
of the world, and I think it calls for greater
study, greater knowledge of Arabic Muslim
culture and specifically of the Crusades,
if we are to prevail here in the 21st century.
So I’m going to stop there.
That’s the conclusion of our discussion
of the crusades, and we’ll meet again.
Thank you.
