by David Patterson
Cambridge University Press
266 pages; $27.99
President Barack Obama’s administration announced that United States would no longer use terms such as Islamic jihadism. Did not such avoidance of this term amount to becoming an accomplice to the evil that threatens humanity? This is a question that demands an answer from the entire civilized world, including the UN, which has been hijacked by Arab imperialism.Will the utopia that advocates salvation through destruction and exploits anti-Semitism, just as Hitler did, spread throughout the entire globe? God is the goal. The prophet is the leader. The Koran is the constitution. A deadly struggle is the way. Death in the service of God is the loftiest of goals. A belief that Islam alone can save humanity and that everyone must accept it, or be destroyed, is radical Islamic jihad’s final destination.The author of A Genealogy of Evil reminds us that the international media refuse to refer to the perpetrators of Islamic jihadist attacks either as Islamic or as jihadist. They are rarely called terrorists, but are commonly designated as “militants,” which hides the somewhat inconvenient, bitter truth.There can be no doubt that jihadist movements exert a huge impact on the mainstream Muslim political movements and culture, even if the vast majority of Muslims wants nothing more than a good life and honorable existence. The Islamic jihadists may consist of a tiny fraction of millions of Muslims, but so were Bolsheviks and Nazis when they won power by force. In Tehran there is a four-meter fountain of blood symbolizing the essence of the jihadist message. Did not Hezbollah’s Al Manar TV station announce: “We will wear coffins until every inch of our world is liberated.” The lyrics explain: “Jihadist Islam will liberate the world.”Prof. David Patterson of the University of Texas at Dallas, an author of numerous books, articles and studies on Jewish and world history, education and philosophy, describes the connection linking the infamous mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini and the birth of jihadist Islam. He follows how the mufti instigated hatred of Jews and the pogroms in Jaffa in 1921 and in Hebron in 1929. He spread the canard that Jews want to eliminate the Muslim holy places and had ordered the murder of the Palestinian Arab moderates, the Nashashibi family.The author follows his part in the Arab revolt of 1936, his pursuit of anti- British cooperation with the Germans and his participation in the 1941 revolt in Iraq. Patterson describes in great detail the significant role the mufti played in the tragedy of the Holocaust. All this led to the final emergence of Islamic jihad.There is an inextricable link between Nazi ideology, the exploitation of Jewhatred and Islamic jihad’s ideological foundations. There is a similar pattern of spreading hatred shared by the offshoots of Islamic jihad: Hezbollah and Hamas. There is a similar pattern in creating a well-armed movement that will stop at nothing to further its aim and demands absolute obedience.Patterson charges the entire civilized world with ignorance of the history, religion, culture, languages, traditions, teachings and everything else that went into the emergence of Islamic jihad. It was only recently that at least a few Western thinkers became aware of this danger. He hopes that if this dangerous movement spreads, the free world will not turn its back on Jews, as it did at the time of the Holocaust, not only for the sake of the Jews, but for the safety of the entire world community.Is Patterson right? As a survivor of the Holocaust, a witness of the prolonged Western appeasement which ruled supreme up to the outbreak of World War II, and who watches the daily condemnation by UN of Israel and the successful encroachment of Islamic jihad in Gaza, Turkey and Lebanon, I am entitled to my doubts. Israel, it seems, may depend on itself alone.It is to avert further appeasement that Patterson’s extensive inquiry into the origins and spread of Islamic jihad ought to be widely read and the message should be heeded: Mankind’s enemy must be exposed. A Hebrew translation could convince many doubting Israelis what is at stake. Patterson ought to be congratulated for his thorough research and well-written narrative.