KABOBfest: Pirates vs. Ninjas...Arab Style

Nimr published a short discussion of Arab pirates (really corsairs or privateers) and Arab Ninjas (hashhashin) on Kabobfest. He sarcastically mentions with a good deal of truth that the hashhashin "were the only Arabs Bernard Lewis liked."

Nimr may not be aware that as part of an effort to become the next Bernard Lewis, Michael Oren uses the Barbary pirates as proof that the USA has been fighting jihad since Jefferson's presidency at the beginning of the 18th century.

Oren is so blatant in his selective use of sources that even the most corrupt Jewish academic incompetents will probably be reluctant to bless his books and papers as constituting genuine, serious scholarship. For example, an important source on the history of Libya in that time frame is Higid Mordekhai (Mordekhai has spoken). It is not really hard to obtain. I picked up my copy at a Chicago Hebrew bookstore, and I am fairly sure that Oren could have easily found it in Israel.

Because Hakham (Rabbi) Mordekhai discusses Libyan Jewish funding and investment in the Barbary Corsairs in some detail and shows fairly conclusively that the Libyan government was simply trying to raise money to cover losses from an internecine power struggle, David Forsmark's review of Michael Oren's Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to the Present (Norton) indicates how much Oren is willing to distort the facts to fit Jewish Zionist propaganda:

Most history texts, if they even deal with the subject, treat the Barbary corsairs as mainly a piracy issue. But the Founders, Oren writes, were shocked to confront the ideology of jihad. It led them to believe that diplomacy with—and ransom payments to-- the “Musselmen” would not be a long-term solution. Even George Washington, no fan of needless “foreign entanglements,” proposed that “such banditti for half the sum that is paid them be exterminated from the earth.”

Here is an example of Oren's attempt to conflate racist Jewish Zionist Neocon ideology with distant historical events.

Prior to the Revolution, the only major threat to America's vital Mediterranean trade came from the Middle East. Styling themselves as mujahideen -- warriors in an Islamic holy war -- Arabic-speaking pirates preyed on Western vessels, impounding their cargoes and enslaving their crews. These corsairs, as early Americans called them, sailed from the independent empire of Morocco and the semi-autonomous Ottoman regencies of Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers, an area of the Middle East known collectively in Arabic as al-Maghrib, "the West." Westerners, though, had a different name for the region, one that evoked its Berber location but also its ferocious reputation. They called it Barbary.

The above type of racist Jewish Zionist propagandist nonsense and insinuation litters the book.

Here is another example from page 32.

Jefferson was typical of the Americans who later viewed the region as the repository of despotism and backwardness, a kind of inverse mirror of their own democracy and enlightenment. Certainly, to his mind, a band of Muslim holy warriors bent on enslaving innocent American sailors was far more deserving of whiffs of grapeshot than bags of hard-earned gold. But with much of the American opinion still opposed to unsing force, Jefferson had no alternative other than to continue negotiating with North Africa for the hostages' eventual release.

Characterizing Blackbeard or perhaps Captain William Kidd as crusaders for the true Christian faith could hardly be more insane.

Among all the fake scholarship, Oren manages to belie Zionist disinformatsia claiming that Muslims oppressed Jews and kept them impoverished via taxes like the jizya (pp. 36-7).

In spite of his delicate appearance, Humphreys was a spirited bargainer. He managed to reduce Hassan's demands and, on September 5, 1795, to obtain his signature on a Treaty of Amity and Friendship. This agreement was far from an American victory, however. Under its terms, the United States was still required to provide Algiers with a frigate, plus an assortment of douceurs ... worth more than $650,000.

Still, Hassan refused to release the captives until he had received his payment up front. To procure the cash, the U.S. government turned to Joel Barlow, a friend of Humphreys's and a fellow poet who had been living in Paris. Utilizing his European contacts, Barlow scoured the Continent for specie, but failed to find the quantity needed to satisfy the dey. "You are a liar and your government is a liar," Hassan berated the broad-nosed, wide-browed Barlow when he returned empty-handed to Algiers. "I will put you in chains ... and declare war." Only at the last minute did Barlow manage to find a Jewish business in Algiers willing to lend America the cash and a ship to evacuate the hostages.

Even though international Jewish trade networks were in decline, some N. African Jews were extraordinarily wealthy, and as in historic Poland of the same time period, N. African Jews in general seem to have had higher incomes, better education, and longer lifespans than co-territorial N. African Muslims. (See Traditional Jewish Attitudes Toward Poles.)

[Note that while wealthy N. African Jews tended to invest in piracy or privateers, in other places Jews were pirates. The Jewish Pirates of The Caribbean discusses the milhemet mitzvah (Jewish jihad) waged by Jews in the Caribbean. :-)] Sphere: Related Content