Description
Book SynopsisLandes, a medievalist and historian of apocalyptic movements, takes us through the first years of the third millennium (2000-2003), documenting how a radical inability of Westerners to understand the medieval mentality that drove Global Jihad prompted a series of disastrous misinterpretations and misguided reactions that have shaped our so-far unhappy century. These misinterpretations in 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2005, contributed fundamentally to the ever-worsening moral and empirical disorientations of our information elites (journalists, academics, pundits). So while journalists reported Palestinian war propaganda as news (lethal journalism), they were also reporting Jihadi war propaganda as news (own-goal war journalism). These radical disorientations have created our current dilemma of pervasive information distrust, deep splits within the voting public in most democracies, the politicization of science, and the inability of Western elites to defend their civilization, and instead, to stand down before an invasion.
Trade Review“With its crisp, penetrating prose, its mastery of original and devastatingly insightful terminology (some of which is presented above), with moments of humor sprinkled in despite its very dark and depressing topic, this book is essential reading for anyone concerned for the Jews, Israel, and the future of Western Civilization.”
— Andrew Pessin, The Tel Aviv Review of Books
“(...) Landes’s new work makes a distinctive and valuable contribution to the large body of existing literature on antisemitism and the global jihad. This is especially evident when he… brings his excellent skills of close reading, textual analysis, and attention to detail to bear on the material. At its core, this is a compelling critique of the various journalists and public figures —especially in France, Britain, and the United States—who managed to be consistently wrong about the facts and their causes.”
— Jeffrey Herf, Quillette
“From the moment Yasser Arafat launched his long-planned second intifada against Israel in 2000, the most brazen lies about both Jews and Israel were relentlessly told and widely believed. … Richard Landes’s new work … fearlessly, carefully, relentlessly and brilliantly documents this history. … This book is an important history lesson…”
— Phyllis Chesler, Jewish News Syndicate
“Early in this deeply researched and absorbing work, Prof. Richard Landes… argues, if he has assessed and analyzed the issues correctly, global opinion has been consistently misled by the media about the truth of the Arab-Israel dispute, that this lethal journalism has fostered a continuous rise in antisemitism in the West, and that blinkered and largely unaware, the civilized world is facing an insidious enemy intent on its destruction. … [T]o the question he poses in his title – Can ‘The Whole World’ Be Wrong? – his closely reasoned, gripping and revelatory work returns a clear answer. Yes.”
— Neville Teller, The Jerusalem Post
“Landes dwells upon the al-Durah hoax in his new and magnificent book Can the Whole World be Wrong?: Lethal Journalism, Antisemitism and Global Jihad. It is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand today’s lunacies. ”
— Melanie Phillips, Jewish News Syndicate
“Dr. Landes sees the global jihad’s hatred of Israel as a victor over Muslims and a non-Muslim sovereign state in the middle east as fundamental if generally unacknowledged. His portrayal of the global jihad as hateful, dangerous, and detached from reality is convincing. This is a scholarly and passionate tome.”
— Shmuel Ben-Gad, AJL News & Reviews
“Relatively few members of Western elites have had the courage to speak up openly on behalf of Western civilisation. Richard Landes is one of these intrepid few. … This brief review… has certainly not done justice to the full richness and complexity of Landes’ thoughts. No 700-word review, after all, could possibly capture the full richness and complexity of a 500-page book. Suffice it to say here that… his findings and conclusions are eminently level-headed. Furthermore, whilst his book concentrates heavily on Jewish and Israeli themes, it can certainly be read with profit by anyone concerned about the direction in which Western societies are rapidly moving.”
— David Rodman, Israel Affairs
“Few observers of present-day antisemitism have been as tenacious and tough-minded as Richard Landes in identifying the ideas and people responsible for the upsurge of Jew-hatred in recent years. Placing this hostility within the broader context of illiberal thinking and militant anti-democratic movements, Landes plunges readers into the midst of a high-stakes intellectual and political battle. Written by a knowledgeable, sharply judgmental, and deeply committed combatant in today’s ideological debates about Jews and Israel, this book will rouse strong feelings as well as offer bold and provocative insights into matters of great historical and contemporary consequence.”
– Alvin H. Rosenfeld, Professor of English and Jewish Studies and Irving M. Glazer Chair in Jewish Studies, Indiana University
“If you stay awake pondering the insanity of woke culture, particularly in its virulent form of Israel derangement syndrome, Can ‘The Whole World’ Be Wrong? is likely to give you even more reasons to despair. Opening with a warning “If I’m Right, We’re in Deep Trouble,” Professor Richard Landes provides readers with a guided tour of twenty-first-century obsessions, from ‘liberal cognitive egocentrics’ to demopaths armed with post-colonial kryptonite. At each stop, the meticulously documented book systematically exposes the facades of the intersectional self-righteousness and pseudo-morality of NGO propagandists and narrative journalists.”
– Gerald M. Steinberg, Professor of Political Studies, Bar Ilan University, and founder, NGO Monitor
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements
Warning to the Reader: If I’m Right, We’re in Deep Trouble
Introduction: Reflections of a Heretical Medievalist
Part One—Selective History of the Disastrous Early Aughts (2000-2003)
1. Al Durah: Spreading a Jihadi Blood Libel (2000)
2. 9-11: Taking the World by Storm (2001)
3. Jenin: Cheering on the Jihadi Suicide Terror (2002)
4. Danoongate: The Muslim Street Extends Dar al Islam (2005-6)
Part Two: Key Players
5. The Premodern Mindset―Zero-Sum Honor
6. Caliphators: A Fifteenth-Century Millennial Movement
7. Liberal Cognitive Egocentrics and Their Demopathic Kryptonite
8. The Global Progressive Left (GPL) in the Twenty-First Century
9. Compliant, Lethal, Own-Goal War Journalism: The Bane of the West in the Twenty-First Century
10. Anti-Zionist Jews: The Pathologies of Self-Criticism
Part Three: Are We Really Going to Let This Happen (Again)?
11. 2000: The Launch of Global Jihad
12. Y2KMind: Oxymoronic Progressives
13. Preemptive Dhimmitude: Unwitting Submission
14. Woke Jihad: Contact Apocalyptic Highs
15. To Sound Minds: On Our Watch?
Glossary for Understanding Caliphator Cogwar in the Twenty-First Century
Endnotes
Bibliography
Index
