Captive continent.(Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis)(Book Review)

Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, by Bat Ye'or (Fairleigh Dickinson, 384 pp., $23.95)

TERRORIST attacks on the United States, and then the campaign in Iraq, brought out into the open the anti-Americanism in much of European public opinion. This came as a shock, but it should not have done so. For decades now, European leaders have been seeking ways to centralize and unite, with the aim of making their continent a power in the world to rival the U.S. Generally speaking, they have not tried to explain why this is a good idea, nor whether it is practical, but have simply proceeded on their chosen course with a strange mishmash of deception and self-deception.

The prejudices and assumptions feeding this anti-Americanism originate mostly in France, a country grievously suffering from a sense of political and cultural failure. For two centuries now French policymakers have spoken of France as "a Muslim power," that is to say one with a grand imperial design for incorporating the Arab world and its resources. Not even widespread violence and wars of liberation could stifle the persistence of this fantasy. Originally inspired by General de Gaulle and backed by every subsequent French president, a policy program known as the Euro-Arab Dialogue acquired formal shape as from 1973, with the purpose of fitting the Arabs into the new imperial design of Europe.

Virtually nobody has ever heard of this Euro-Arab Dialogue. With no recognizable public profile, behind the scenes it nevertheless is changing the relationship between Europe and the Arab world, and the relationship of both to the U.S. It is a classic example of the invisibility and lack of accountability that are the hallmarks of the European Union's method of proceeding. Bat Ye'or's contribution is to bring this Euro-Arab Dialogue and its consequences into the light of day.

Born in Cairo, she has made a special study of the social and legal inequality that Christians and Jews were obliged to accept in the old days under Muslim rule. Known as dhimmi, minorities had to acknowledge their inferiority in all respects, and this bred in them a subservience for which she has coined the word "dhimmitude." For her, the Euro-Arab Dialogue is the foundation of dhimmitude in a new setting.

Much of what she records looks like the routine of international meetings that keep diplomats immersed in tedious routines of their own design. There they go from Barcelona, to Lahore, to Naples and Hamburg and Venice. But out pour the resolutions, in pours the European taxpayer's money, and lo and behold, shoals of new organizations are spawned, a Parliamentary Association for Euro-Arab Cooperation, a Euro-Mediterranean Partnership program, a Facility for Euro-Mediterranean Investment and Partnership, and so on, as in the reproductive process of the amoeba.

By definition, representatives of European democracies have a different standing from representatives of Arab tyrannies, and ought to have different values. Instead, they are determined to give the Arabs whatever they demand. In the face of such surrender, the Arabs--skillful negotiators--naturally raise their demands, and so are incorporating Europe into imperial designs of their own. Arabs must be allowed to immigrate into Europe with full and guaranteed rights, and they must be shown a tolerance that they would never consider ...