Bat Ye’or, you wrote that there would be only one winner in the Ukraine war: the Islamic Ummah. Why? 

When the Wall fell, we had hope for peaceful, respectful coexistence with Russia. But warning signs came from the Islamic world. It almost seemed as if Europe needed an enemy image, and after the rapprochement with Russia, that was Islam. It seemed that immigration from Eastern Europe would replace that from the „southerners,“ a euphemism for Muslim immigration. 

For the Ummah, the Cold War against communism had significant advantages: in addition to weapons, oil and immigration to the West, the West helped create an international network of Koranic schools and radical Muslim movements. The oil and energy business had a decisive influence on the domestic and foreign policy of the West. 

A friendship with Russia and peace in Europe did not meet with approval in those countries that had always benefited from wars within Christendom. Unfortunately, we now see that the wall of hatred between Russia and Western Europe is being rebuilt, who knows for how long. A Russophobic hysteria is being imposed on the peoples of Europe, which could even lead to nuclear war in Europe.   

Our leaders and thought leaders tell us that this war must go on forever until the whole world hates Putin and wants to get him out of the way. I believe the opposite will happen. The EU is not so popular among Europe’s citizens. If the EU wants to force us into a nuclear Third World War that will destroy our continent and its people, this unpopularity will only increase. 

Many tears are shed for the suffering of the Ukrainian people, but they are crocodile tears when we do nothing to create peace, but only aggressive words and deeds. Supplying more and more weapons only prolongs the war that has caused so much suffering. 

For domestic political reasons, Joe Biden needs a victory over Vladimir Putin, and the destruction of Russia. Do we really want that when the price is nuclear war? And then what? They tell us that Putin must be punished because he is a terrible dictator. But at the same time, we court Islamic dictatorships to provide us with energy: the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Azerbaijan, Qatar…  

In order to bring Russia to its knees, Europe must also be brought to its knees, while our billions are now going to countries that do not exactly have a clean slate or a democratic government. Once again, we are making ourselves dependent on the backers of jihad. 

We have to ask ourselves: What are our governments doing? In whose name are they acting? In the name of justice? Freedom? Human rights? Where else do we follow these principles? In Africa, where we are in bed with dictators? In Asia, where the EU is ridiculed? In Iran or South America? In Europe, where today people are beheaded for blasphemy on the street or at school? Or are these just excuses to interfere in countries you want to destroy? What do human rights still mean if they are no longer respected in Europe? 

The most important fundamental right is that of security. We seem to have forgotten that. People are murdered because they go to church or synagogue? How can we speak of human rights? 

We have also lost the fundamental right to freedom of expression. Certain words and opinions can be deadly today. We must respect the rules of blasphemy imposed on us by a foreign culture. We have lost the legal right to express certain religious or political opinions. I distinguish here between political criticism and defamation, which must be punished. 

On the subject of human rights, there are two completely different interpretations: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, and the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam of 1990. Since the 1930s, Europe has chosen a side: while the enemy is demonized in the East, it seeks its future in the South, as we are now learning. The Council of Europe wants to teach „Islamic history“, strengthen the political participation of Muslim communities and fulfil their religious wishes. 

In this cauldron, fuelled by incompetent politicians, the peoples of Europe count for nothing. They are being sacrificed to the nuclear conflict. Who decided that the EU and NATO have been interfering in the Ukraine war since 2014? It’s going to be a long war. Is that really what Europeans want? Have their elected representatives really discussed this policy with their citizens, who are recovering from a two-year pandemic? Have our newspapers and television stations informed people about the consequences of such an adventure? In a democracy, shouldn’t such decisions be made by the people? We are a democracy, aren’t we? 

You have complained that the West is suffering from woke-ism imported from America. 

I’m not very familiar with this „woke“ agenda. It seems to me, however, that it was Edward Said who first united this movement with anti-Western jihad. Said was a PLO member and friend of Arafat. He wanted to turn woke-ism into something like European anti-Semitism. Said propagated the destruction of Western culture because it had no foundation but anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, anti-black prejudices and the political will to subjugate and oppress the Arab-Muslim world. 

His theory rejects all foundations, criteria and genres of science. According to this way of thinking, everything is justified because there is no truth. However, this kind of criticism is always directed only against Judeo-Christian culture, never against Chinese or Islamic culture. Edward Said’s demonization of Western culture is used by jihad for an ideological war against „evil,“ i.e., any form of Western Judeo-Christian culture, science, and politics. 

The ideology of jihad has wanted to Islamize Europe for thirteen centuries. The Arab armies wanted to conquer Rome as early as the 9th century, the symbol of the Christian power of the West. Now Erdogan is pursuing similar goals again. Erdogan, who regularly celebrates the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, encourages NATO to attack Russia. Said’s theories were enthusiastically embraced by all anti-Semites in America, in Obama’s Democratic Party and the universities. Today they are destabilizing the West. 

Will Europe one day have to come to terms with Russia again? After this war, it won’t be easy… 

It would be in Europe’s interest. This war is madness. War always means death, destruction and terrible suffering for the civilian population, whether today in Ukraine, or yesterday in Donbass or Armenia. Here we see a situation that is out of control. 

Why did the US and Europe fuel a civil war in Ukraine? Like any empire, the European Union wants to expand its sphere of influence and incorporate more and more countries. Since the EU has no military power, it uses „color revolutions“ such as the Arab Spring and against Viktor Orbán, a democratically elected prime minister. This war shows us that Joe Biden wants to determine who governs Russia. 

It is a form of megalomania. Why should we Europeans and Americans be allowed to determine who governs Turkey, for example? Or China? Why should we decide who governs in another country just because we don’t like their government? The idea that Putin has to leave because Biden and the EU want it that way is criminal. This is now a whole new phase of the EU’s imperial hegemony, which is wreaking so much havoc on the world. 

What happened in the Arab countries where we brought about regime change? What about Iran? Why are the mullahs allowed to stay? Are they so much more democratic in dealing with their people, with women and infidels? What about their terrorism in Europe and Israel? With the threats of the mullahs who want to wipe out Israel and commit genocide? Is jihadist terror against civilians not a crime against humanity? Why aren’t Biden and the EU saying anything here? 

What is the explanation for this double standard? 

There are several reasons. It is about economic and geopolitical power, because 56 Islamic countries dominate the world and form a well-organized bloc with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. Because you can’t attack them, you attack Russia. 

Not to mention the historical connection between anti-Semitism and Islam-Nazism since the 1930s. 

Then there is the dhimmi status we have chosen: the US against communism, the EU against Israel. The word jihad was taboo until the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria forced the EU to talk about it. Even today, people do not talk about dhimmi status, neither in universities, in politics or in public. If you ignore something that has existed for 13 centuries in theology, politics, law and society, then it simply does not exist. What has no name does not exist. If you don’t have a name for oxygen, oxygen doesn’t exist. 

Putin blames Nazis 

National Socialism is not dying out. From France to Russia and Norway to North Africa, millions of Europeans joined National Socialism in the twenties and collaborated with the Nazis when their countries were occupied. These people did not disappear overnight in 1945. After some purges, many remained in government offices. There are many examples, Mitterrand, Couve de Murville and René Bousquet in France, Kurt Georg Kiesinger in Germany, but also in the rest of Europe. 

There are detailed works on this subject, such as that of Christophe Bourseiller on France. From 1972 to 1981, international organizations such as the UN also had Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, a former Wehrmacht officer. There was a kind of international of ex-Nazis in European politics. This explains the Nazi elements of EU policy seizing power in Europe. Finally, the cornerstone of the EU was laid by Walter Hallstein, the first chairman of the European Commission from 1958 to 1967, a staunch Nazi and Nazi commanding officer. 

Also a taboo subject remains the participation of European Muslims from the Balkans, Crimea, Ukraine and the Caucasus, from North Africa and the Middle East in the Nazi war of conquest and genocide, their recruitment and indoctrination into the Wehrmacht and SS. There are also outstanding works, among others by Lukasz Hirszowicz, Jeffrey Herf, Matthias Kunzel and David Motadel. 

Euro-Nazism secretly revived its alliance with the Islam-Nazism of the united Arab leaders, who united in 1947 in a war of annihilation against Israel. With the exception of Czechoslovakia, all European countries refused to sell weapons to Israel for defense.  

This collaboration continued when al-Husseini’s relative Yasser Arafat welcomed the EEC’s official support for the PLO in 1973. The Nazi policy of the final solution of the Jewish question continues seamlessly in the EU’s efforts to create a Jew-free „Palestinian“ pseudo-state in Judea and Samaria with Jerusalem as its capital. The EU calls this policy of genocide the „peace process“. 

I have already discussed these facts in several books and texts, I do not want to chew through them again here. EU policy is a Shoah of remembrance (as you have already written, Giulio) and the rights of the Israeli people. What we are witnessing is the destruction of Judeo-Christian civilization based on biblical values. When the Bible is rewritten and the name Israel is replaced by Palestine, when exhibits in museums are anachronistically declared „Palestinian“ by thousands of years, then this is nothing but Islamization. 

Today it is actually said: How can a Christian speak about the Temple Mount if he is not a Muslim? As if Jesus went to the mosque. I call this campaign to erase and suppress the history of the people of Israel, to question their legitimacy and their right to self-defense, the „National Socialism of European Policy“. This Nazi strategy of annihilating Israel is at the same time the suicide of Christianity. The destruction of Israel also means the destruction of the living context of Christianity, which derives its essence from the Jewish tradition of the Messiah (ancient Greek Christos), the Saviour – an idea that is alien to Islam. 

That is why the EU, which has chosen this policy of annihilation, is already Islamized. This Islamization is the reason why it can no longer defend itself against the allies of the Nazis in the 30s. National Socialism was the starting point of the European alliance with the Muslim peoples. Christianity is inseparable from Judaism through the Bible and the principles of the Savior (the Messiah). Because of their hatred of Christianity’s Jewish roots, the Nazis regretted that Europe was Christian, not Islamic. This Nazi ideology can be found today in the threat to Christianity posed by Islam. 

Will Europe continue to follow the path of Hitler, Himmler and Hallstein chosen by the EU countries? Will they live out their hatred of the people who represent their roots and whom they have so often tried to exterminate? Driven by their hatred of Israel, Christianity may prefer extinction by Islam. It is not the people who decide, but their politicians. 

What do you think of Emmanuel Macron’s victory? 

Disappointing. Macron will continue Hallstein’s policy of making Europe’s energy supply dependent on Arab despots and Islam. A nation that refuses to acknowledge this danger and threat is doomed. The danger is called dhimmi status. 

Giulio Meotti is an Italian journalist who writes for Il Foglio and Arutz Sheva, among others. His book „A New Shoah“ describes the personal stories of victims of terror in Israel. This interview appears in German courtesy of the author.

Translated from the English by Collin McMahon
(Source: Jüdische Rundschau, September 2022)