Bøger af Raphael Israeli

In our global world, where interfaith and interracial relationships are highly prized, thereby promoting the waning of nationalism, national culture, and specificity, the tendency is growing for many to feel like strangers in their own country.This is all in view of the unlimited mix of races, cultures, and people that we observe throughout the world that are changing at the expense of their national characteristics of cultures, which have been eclipsed toward disparities.This has impacted the mix of languages and ways of life, and has also resulted in the false conclusion that all people are alike, reason with the same rational arguments, and think alike, and that therefore they should be treated and should treat each other on the same grounds.The mounting cases of clashes and conflicts between radical Islam and Western civilization such as expressed in the Gaza War of October 7, 2023, launched by Hamas against Israel, where the pretext was not territorial or material, but civilizational and existential, suggest that various peoples and races are moved by different mindsets, and though using the same words and expressions, mean totally different, even diametrically opposed ideas and reasoning. Islamic countries, backed by authoritarian countries, support Hamas, while the liberal West stands by Israel.(About the Author)Raphael Israeli has taught Islamic, Chinese, and Middle Eastern history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. A graduate of Hebrew University in history and Arabic literature, he earned a Ph.D. in Chinese and Islamic history from the University of California, Berkeley. Now retired, he has been a Fellow of the Harry Truman Research Institute at Hebrew University and the Jerusalem Center since the1970s. He is the author of more than 100 books and 100 articles.

This volume attempts to explain the inexplicable: How on the morning of Oct 7, 2023, 22 quiet and innocent Israeli villages were attacked at dawn and 1,200 of their people were slaughtered while still in bed. The attack was accompanied by thousands of missiles that were launched from Hamas positions in Gaza, a few hundred yards to the west.The 1,200 innocent Israelis who were slaughtered included entire families, babies in the arms of their mothers, the elderly, and some 300 youth at an adjoining music festival. Some were beheaded and mutilated, the women abused, and 240 of them were ferried or forced into captivity in horrible conditions, deprived of medicine and basic care. Meanwhile, their murderers incarcerated in Israel are being fattened in Israeli prisons with their "rights" being strictly observed by Israeli authorities.This pogrom, guided by Iran and applauded by most of the Arab and Islamic world, was perpetrated by thousands of Hamas operatives who invaded unprovoked from Gaza. The extreme and inhuman savagery has not been equaled by any explosion of hatred and cruelty since the Nazi era, and triggered the Gaza War.(About the Author)Raphael Israeli has taught Islamic, Chinese, and Middle Eastern history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. A graduate of Hebrew University in history and Arabic literature, he earned a Ph.D. in Chinese and Islamic history from the University of California, Berkeley. Now retired, he has been a Fellow of the Harry Truman Research Institute at Hebrew University and the Jerusalem Center since the1970s. He is the author of more than 100 books and 100 articles.

Islamic history is replete with cyclical eruptions of radical Islam. One example: the Muslim Brotherhood, is an Islamic organization that was founded in 1928 in Ismailia, Egypt, as an Islamist religious, political, and social movement. It was begun in reaction to attempts to reform Islam by the great reformers and modernizers of the early 20th century, beginning with Afghani and Abdu. Each time an Islamic eruption took place, it resulted in violence, since the Westernized Muslims usually refused to step back and revert to be shackled by traditional Islam. The frequency of the recurrence of these waves of fundamentalism in our time is shown in the cases of ISIS, Hizbullah, Hamas, Al-Qa'ida, and Boko Haram. The international turmoil these groups have caused by their recourse to violence has occurred on all continents. This violence has posited more bluntly than ever before the question whether Islam will finally reconcile to the idea of modernization and moderation, or if it will persist in its rebellious ways that are encouraged inter alia by prevailing Wokeism moods. (About the Author)Raphael Israeli has taught Islamic, Chinese, and Middle Eastern history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. A graduate of Hebrew University in history and Arabic literature, he earned a Ph.D. in Chinese and Islamic history from the University of California, Berkeley. Now retired, he has been a Fellow of the Harry Truman Research Institute at Hebrew University and the Jerusalem Center since the1970s. He is the author of over 90 books and 100 articles.

Religion Between Commercialization and Political Trade-offs: The Case of Islam marks the author's 100th published book.This volume is the product of a conference on Commercialization of Religion convened jointly by the Universities of Vienna and Nicosia, and held in Nicosia, Cyprus, in September 2023, where author Raphael Israeli spoke about Islam."I challenged the conventional wisdom, which posited a material and pecuniary interpretation of commercialization of religion in terms of buying and selling deals, but I suggested to expand that interpretation into a wider trade-off of values, assets, and political interests, and I gave examples of those deals of commercialization within the Arab-Israeli dispute, including the horrifying rampage and murder on October 7, 2023, by the Palestinian Hamas terrorists of over 1,500 Israeli innocent civilians, including babies, the elderly, and women at dawn in their beds, and abducting another 240 as hostages to Gaza."(About the Author)Raphael Israeli has taught Islamic, Chinese, and Middle Eastern history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. A graduate of Hebrew University in history and Arabic literature, he earned a Ph.D. in Chinese and Islamic history from the University of California, Berkeley. Now retired, he has been a Fellow of the Harry Truman Research Institute at Hebrew University and the Jerusalem Center since the1970s. He is the author of 100 books and 100 articles.

Palestinians in Rebellion shows that while Israelis and Palestinians have uneasily co-habited The Land of Israel/Palestine during the past century, Israel has thrived as an independent startup country, while the Palestinian state entity never came into being, and instead has been controlled by Britain, Egypt, Jordan, and then Israel.Since May 2021, a major revolt of the Palestinians against Israeli rule has taken place. Taking advantage of their concurrent missile attack on Israeli cities from Hamas-controlled Gaza, the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria, as well as within Israel proper, rose in rebellion, using advanced weaponry and demonstrating unprecedented temerity in confronting Israeli troops, thereby causing enormous fatalities on both sides.In addition, deterioration in Israeli security conditions has unfolded, while a serious rift persists between right-wing reformist Israelis who won the majority of the votes in the November 2022 elections and the "liberal" constituency, which lost the elections and cannot accept its loss and admit its rival's new control.(About the Author)Raphael Israeli has taught Islamic, Chinese, and Middle Eastern history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. A graduate of Hebrew University in history and Arabic literature, he earned a Ph.D. in Chinese and Islamic history from the University of California, Berkeley. Now retired, he has been a Fellow of the Harry Truman Research Institute at Hebrew University and the Jerusalem Center since the1970s. He is the author of over 90 books and 100 articles.

The world has been plagued by popular movements of dissidents in practically all countries, which following the precedent set by the Blacks in America, who a century and half after the American Civil War which supposedly freed the Blacks from slavery, are still watching almost daily scenes of discrimination and mistreatment of Black Americans on the infamous model of G. Floyd. Those dissidents and rebels against the existing order embrace various patterns of protest, more or less violent, fearing the obliteration of their identity under the sweep of globalist ideology, and electing to stress their discontent, their rejection of injustice and their claim for the absolute right to rebel due to the absolute oppression that has been pushing them to the margins of their societies. At times, these popular movements can be categorized as wokeism or zombeism, or, on the contrary, in the case of Islam, likening globalism to the established notion of the Ummah, the universal congregation of all Muslims.

It's all Perception "The Shah of Iran had maintained excellent relations with Israel, and the Jews of Iran flourished, but upon the advent of Khomeini in 1978, who dubbed Jews the 'enemies of Allah,' those attitudes were reversed overnight until under President Ahmadinejad, Iran and its Hizbullah operatives in Lebanon became the most virulent and violent enemies of Jews and Israel everywhere. Similarly, one cannot compare the dominant stature of Yasser Arafat at the helm of the Palestinians, as he was himself a revolutionary operative who dipped his hands in terrorism, to the more subdued conduct of Abu Mazen, his successor, who enjoys the comfort and prestige of his position but shuns combat, and is content with iconizing PLO terrorists and murderers as models to be emulated by his people, in order to show that the momentum of the Palestinian Revolution did not recede even though the leader could no longer serve as the model himself." Under authoritarian regimes the depiction of events, politics and events of the future as well as of the past are unpredictable. They are often dependent on the whim of the ruler, who makes his own "constitution" when he comes to power, not as a rigid set of laws to restrict his own power, but as a blueprint for his unrestricted plan of action during his tenure. The manufacturing of lies, myth, invented history, and imagined genealogies, all geared to justify post-facto the ruler's takeover of the regime, or the self-allocation of titles and feats that aggrandize his fame, create a variant pattern of rule. This can even happen with the establishment of a dynasty under a republican regime, when the authoritarian ruler bequeaths his rule to his offspring (as has happened in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, greatly contributing ultimately to the fall of the regimes). Even more impressive and lasting is the self-conviction embraced by the ruler in the religious Islamic environment, when an expedient political fact like the failed succession of the Prophet Muhammad by his cousin and son-in law Ali was turned into a sacred creed that sanctified through the generations the millennial split of the Shi'ia from mainstream Sunni Islam. Thus, events are often perceived by Muslims in the light of their religious convictions, and myths are created to fill in historical gaps, which can generate distortions of policies when they are acted upon. About the author:Raphael Israeli has taught Islamic, Chinese, and Middle Eastern history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. A graduate of Hebrew University in history and Arabic literature, he earned a Ph.D. in Chinese and Islamic history from the University of California, Berkeley. Now retired, he has been a Fellow of the Harry Truman Research Institute at Hebrew University and the Jerusalem Center since the1970s. He is the author of over 90 books and 100 articles.

As a result of globalism, in which certain Western elites have taken over the economic, social and political rule of the world, a new mode and state of mind has developed among the weaker and disadvantaged strata of society, both domestically within regimes which are considered unjust and even undemocratic, and amidst Muslim immigrants to the West. These unsatisfied people, like the Blacks in America, the Arabs in Israel, and other impoverished groups among the ¿oppressed¿ and the disinherited, are in fact rebelling against the existing order by creating a counter -state, something like the Chinese secret societies in the traditional Middle Kingdom, or the ¿causa nosträ of modern states, where they live separate in their enclaves from the mainstream of society, until such a day that they can secede and establish their own alternative social order. This is what is viewed as wokeism, which is standing a revolutionary trial of force since the November 2022 elections in Israel.

The long history of the dhimmi subordination of Christians and Jews to Islamic rule in the Middle East, North Africa, the Iberian Peninsula, and the Balkans produced a lengthy trail of persecution, oppression, population cleansing, and transfer.In the modern world, in the wake of more than a millennium of subjugation, a series of reactions by the suppressed peoples brought about either the removal of Muslim invaders, as in Iberia, the Balkans, and Palestine, or the exodus of the Christian and Jewish communities out of Islamdom.In North Africa and the Middle East, the rise of Zionism was the form that the Jewish rebellion took, causing the convergence of various Jewish dhimmi communities in Islamdom into Palestine, where they reconstituted their independence in their ancient Land of Israel.About the Author:Raphael Israeli has taught Islamic, Chinese, and Middle Eastern history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. A graduate of Hebrew University in history and Arabic literature, he earned a Ph.D. in Chinese and Islamic history from the University of California, Berkeley. Now retired, he has been a Fellow of the Harry Truman Research Institute at Hebrew University and the Jerusalem Center since the 1970s. He is the author of over 80 books and 100 articles.

This volume sums up the extraordinary life of an extraordinary man. Dr. Mordechai Helfman was born and raised in Ukraine at the turn of the 20th century.He started his academic training in medicine in Kiev. Due to the severe anti-Semitic persecutions there, he fled to Prague, where he was caught up by the winds of Zionism, which swept up Diaspora Jews, partly in response to the escalating pogroms.Dr. Helfman returned to Kiev and then went to Berlin to complete his medical studies, specializing in ophthalmology, which prepared him for his Aliya (immigration to Mandatory Palestine), where that expertise was in demand.He never relented on his intense Zionist activity, preparing an entire generation to join the meager Jewish Yishuv under the British Mandate (1924), with a view to ultimately create a solid Jewish entity that would in time lead to Jewish independence in a Jewish state.With Jerusalem as his main base, he remained devoted to the UJA (United Jewish Appeal), spending most of his life until Israel was established raising funds throughout the world to encourage Aliya and collect funds for the Yishuv's development.Only when Israel was founded in 1948 did he turn his full attention to his medical expertise, serving as a popular eye doctor in Jerusalem, yet never neglecting his commitment to fund-raising.(About the Author)Raphael Israeli has taught Islamic, Chinese, and Middle Eastern history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. A graduate of Hebrew University in history and Arabic literature, he earned a Ph.D. in Chinese and Islamic history from the University of California, Berkeley. Now retired, he has been a Fellow of the Harry Truman Research Institute at Hebrew University and the Jerusalem Center since the 1970s. Is the author of over 80 books and 100 articles.

A great drama involving incredible courage took place during World War II in Morocco, but within all the momentous events happening during wartime, this story has been largely overlooked. The bravery shown by one Sephardic woman in wartime Casablanca has never received much attention.In addition to the millions of Jews and others who were decimated in the Nazi camps, and the millions of other displaced peoples and refugees who escaped from the claws of the Nazis, thousands of Jews were sheltered in Morocco by local Jewish communities.Helene Cazes-Benattar, modern Morocco's first woman lawyer, became the guardian angel of refugees stranded in North Africa. She provided sustenance and shelter for thousands of Jewish and non-Jewish asylum seekers, continuing on as a human rights activist until her death in 1979.She and the Moroccan Jews who helped shelter the European war refugees were themselves threatened by Vichy government authorities, who persecuted the Jews upon Nazi orders. Ultimately, the refugees were delivered to safety by the great American landing during Operation Torch in November 1942. Operation Torch was the first major involvement of American troops in the European/North African conflict.(About the Author)Raphael Israeli has taught Islamic, Chinese, and Middle Eastern history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. A graduate of Hebrew University in history and Arabic literature, he earned a Ph.D. in Chinese and Islamic history from the University of California, Berkeley. Now retired, he has been a Fellow of the Harry Truman Research Institute at Hebrew University and the Jerusalem Center since the 1970s, and is the author of over 70 research books, a dozen edited books, and 100 scholarly articles about Islam.

Noted scholar Raphael Israeli describes the surprising "normalization" process that occurred during the pandemic year 2020, in his latest book, Glittering Stars in a Dark Landscape: Early Auguries of the 2020 Arab "Normalization" with Israel.He explains how the 2020 explosion of the "normalization" between Israel and some Arab Gulf States was the fruit of a long process of Arab self-reckoning.Its fruition was crowned, thanks to the efforts of President Donald Trump and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, with counsel from presidential advisor Jared Kushner.The process marks a revolution, insofar as it not only reverses the negative position taken by some Arab States that refused to deal with Israel as long as the Palestinian issue is not resolved, but in view of the Gulf States'' wealth and influence, this reversal will encourage others to follow in their footsteps.Great economic and political benefits will also accrue to Israel as a result.(About the Author)Raphael Israeli has taught Islamic, Chinese, and Middle Eastern history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. A graduate of Hebrew University in history and Arabic literature, he earned a Ph.D. in Chinese and Islamic history from the University of California, Berkeley. Now retired, he has been a Fellow of the Harry Truman Research Institute at Hebrew University and the Jerusalem Center since the 1970s, and is the author of over 60 research books, a dozen edited books, and 100 scholarly articles about Islam.

The twenty percent Arab-Palestinian minority in Israel, which enjoys officially equal rights, refuses to recognize and accept the concept of a Jewish-Zionist state.Even though Israel is where Palestinians live, they strive to misuse Israeli democracy, allowing their representation of fifteen MK, or Members of Parliament, to subvert the legitimacy of the Israeli state and to totter it. This would allow them to create a bi-national Jewish-Arab country, where Arabs can veto anything Jewish or Zionist in its symbols or regime.But since the Jewish majority is adamant in maintaining the Jewish state, established more than seven decades ago, the Arabs who cannot reconcile their present situation will have to choose eventually between living in permanent friction and frustration, or restarting a new life in one of the surrounding 22 Arab or 57 Muslim countries where their likely adaptation would be much smoother and seamless.One major figurehead mentioned in the book is MK Ahmed Tibi, who despite being the darling of the liberal Israeli media, often adopts extremist anti-Israeli views and claims that Israel incites against his nation.(About the Author)Raphael Israeli has taught Islamic, Chinese, and Middle Eastern history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. A graduate of Hebrew University in history and Arabic literature, he earned a Ph.D. in Chinese and Islamic history from the University of California, Berkeley. Now retired, he has been a Fellow of the Harry Truman Research Institute at Hebrew University and the Jerusalem Center since the 1970s, and is the author of over 60 research books, a dozen edited books, and 100 scholarly articles about Islam.

Patchwork and Its Pitfalls: The Cost of Half-Way Solutions describes decision makers’ patchwork actions that occur due to hesitation and lack of firmness and determination.Under the pretext of “humanitarianism,” “saving lives,” or taking an otherwise wimpy action, they end up taking a cowardly action at the cost of human lives and much material damage.The costliest action often turns out to be the cheapest, but is seldom done, while the easiest and apparently cheapest action ends up being the most expensive in the aggregate.This book is important, because indecisive decision makers can emerge in all nations at all times.The author’s inspiration for writing this book: “When I watch politicians who repeatedly take cowardly decisions out of ‘human considerations’ and concern for lives and material preservations, but in fact end up wasting both.”(About the Author)Raphael Israeli has taught Islamic, Chinese, and Middle Eastern history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. A graduate of Hebrew University in history and Arabic literature, he earned a Ph.D. in Chinese and Islamic history from the University of California, Berkeley. Now retired, he has been a Fellow of the Harry Truman Research Institute at Hebrew University and the Jerusalem Center since the 1970s, and is the author of over 60 research books, a dozen edited books, and 100 scholarly articles about Islam.

Dangers are looming for Western civilizations due to the creeping invasion of Muslims, who are gradually diluting the West with their own beliefs as they end up taking over and dominating them. This danger is described very eloquently and frighteningly by French writer Michel Houellebecq in his best-selling novel Submission.This process also triggers a fundamental change in Western societies, so the old cultures of Europe, which are known, sought, and admired by outsiders, will practically disappear, replaced by an amalgam of ancient European tradition with a newly imposed Muslim faith, mores, and Sharia laws.Muslim tourists and immigrants to the West are gradually but firmly imposing their culture on a scared West, which has lost its will to fight and its capacity to defend itself because of political correctness and a reluctance to face the truth. This volume is the fourth in the Quartet on the Waning of Western Civilizations which also comprises: Retreating from the Mirage of Multi-Culturalism, Misnomers and Cultural Choices, and Suicidal Democracy published in 2018-19.(About the Author)Raphael Israeli has taught Islamic, Chinese, and Middle Eastern history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. A graduate of Hebrew University in history and Arabic literature, he earned a Ph.D. in Chinese and Islamic history from the University of California, Berkeley. Now retired, he has been a Fellow of the Harry Truman Research Institute at Hebrew University and the Jerusalem Center since the 1970s, and is the author of over 50 research books, a dozen edited books, and 100 scholarly articles about Islam.

Misnomers are often used in international politics to describe issues and situations that use common words, but carry different meanings. For example, tolerance, suicide bombers, women’s equality, and many other words are commonly used by Muslims to make us believe that these words mean the equivalent of the jargon we know, when in fact they cover up dark schemes that depart miles from conventional meanings.Tolerance means for us to accept others as they are without value/judgment. For Muslims, it means accepting others (often temporarily), despite their inherent inferiority, until converting or dominating them becomes feasible.Suicide bombers for us means terrorists who do not care for human life, and are prepared to kill themselves together with other targeted enemies. For Muslims, these bombers are holy martyrs who sacrifice themselves for the sake of Allah by killing enemies of Islam, and are assured the bliss of Paradise in the proximity of Allah.Women are diminished and relegated to a second-rate status in Islam. Women can be beaten and disciplined, while at the same time, equality and special concern is claimed for them. A wide array of examples and situations of Muslim misnomers are cited and elaborated in the book.Raphael Israeli has taught Islamic, Chinese, and Middle Eastern history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. A graduate of Hebrew University in history and Arabic literature, he earned a Ph.D. in Chinese and Islamic history from the University of California, Berkeley. Now retired, he has been a Fellow of the Harry Truman Research Institute at Hebrew University and the Jerusalem Center since the 1970s, and is the author of over 50 research books, a dozen edited books, and 100 scholarly articles about Islam.

The Odd Couple details the ups and downs in the tortuous relations between modern Turkey and Israel.The central actor in the book is Tayyip Erdogan, who came to power in Turkey in 2002-2003, determined to turn the clock back and return his country to its pre-Ataturk glory, when the Ottoman Dynasty reigned supreme and Islam was the dominant ideology holding the Empire together. To understand the aberrant relationship between the Jewish state of Israel and the Islamic state of Turkey, and the preponderant role of Tayyip Erdogan in its deterioration, one must dig into the Ottoman past, the historical attitudes of Turks to Jews, and the shift in Turkish policies that was effected by the transition from the modern Turkish civil governments up to 2002 to the vast changes that the Islamic parties of Erbakan and Erdogan have triggered thereafter. This is the story of how one man can alter relations between two countries. Raphael Israeli has taught Islamic, Chinese, and Middle Eastern history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. A graduate of Hebrew University in history and Arabic literature, he earned a Ph.D. in Chinese and Islamic history from the University of California, Berkeley. Now retired, he has been a Fellow of the Harry Truman Research Institute at Hebrew University and the Jerusalem Center since the 1970s, and is the author of over 50 research books, a dozen edited books, and 100 scholarly articles about Islam. Born in Fes, Morocco, at fourteen, "I left my family when I could no longer bear the oppression of Jews in an Islamic country and moved to fledgling Israel. To this day, I consider that the wisest and most game-changing decision I took in my life."

The Middle East conflict, which has been raging for a century and seems to have no end in sight, is not over territory or other assets, but is historically anchored in the Islamic tradition, which has become the preponderant faith of the Arabs.Being a qualitative factor of an either-or import from the Muslim point of view, which is today best expressed by Iran, the Muslim Brothers, Hamas, Hezbollah, and other radical Muslim movements, it is not given to negotiation and compromise, as any other political conflict, but is governed by absolutes and one-sided perspectives.Arab nationalism, Islam, and Zionism are the main political and religious movements taking center stage in this conflict.The intractable nature of the conflict has so far defied all negotiations, agreements, and peace treaties. All the proposed "peaceful" settlements have thus far remained brittle, while the fundamental issues of stereotyping, suspicion, hatred, and condescendence have remained in place, unshaken.This book confronts two contradictory ideologies and attempts to bridge them over. Born in Fes, Morocco, Raphael Israeli has taught Islamic, Chinese, and Middle Eastern history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. A graduate of Hebrew University in history and Arabic literature, he earned a Ph.D. in Chinese and Islamic history from the University of California, Berkeley in 1974. Now retired, he has been a Fellow of the Harry Truman Research Institute at Hebrew University and the Jerusalem Center since the 1970s. Professor Israeli is the author of over 50 research books, a dozen edited books, and 100 scholarly articles about Islam.