France has betrayed its proud humanistic values in its very different dealings with Arabs and Jews, argues David Pryce-Jones, and this betrayal portends a crisis in the Western world.
Traditionally, French leaders assumed that Arabs and Muslims existed to serve French national purposes—an assumption that resulted in policies of imperialist violence. More recently, but just as misguidedly, French appeasement and surrender have allowed the likes of Saddam Hussein and Yasser Arafat to dictate the national interest. Meanwhile, France has permitted the immigration of Arabs and Muslims in such numbers as to threaten the country’s fundamental character.
At the same time as Arabs and Muslims have been encouraged to maintain their own cultural identity, Jews have been granted citizenship on condition that they possess no distinct identity. Extending this requirement to foreign policy, the French ruling elite have consistently opposed Zionism and the state of Israel itself.
David Pryce-Jones has followed the evolution of these destructive attitudes and policies through the archives of the Quai d’Orsay, France’s foreign ministry and premier policy-making institution. In Betrayal, he documents the illusions, prejudices and cynicism that have colored the decisions of successive French administrations with respect to Jews and Arabs. The anti-Jewish outrages and the Arab and Muslim rioting that now agitate France are traced here to their source.
A brilliant and hard-hitting book, Betrayal explains how and why France has become a danger to itself and an ill omen for the West.
