Medieval Crusading and the War on Terror
As the never-ending war on terror enters its second decade, commentators and opinion continue to seek insight from the medieval crusades, when European Christian armies marched to the Middle East to make war against Muslim adversaries. To the casual observer, the crusades would seem to be the origin of all today’s problems. Simply put, they look too much alike to be a coincidence. To the cautious historian, these medieval wars have nothing to do with modern jihad or with the Western response to it and their opinions have tended to shape the broader discussion.
But maybe my colleagues are too cautious. Let us consider, for example, the question of whether the crusades were a clash of civilizations, if not the beginning of “The Clash of Civilizations” — a massive war for survival between East and West — or were they merely a series of minor military imbroglios of no real consequence in the grand narrative of world history? When we put these medieval wars into context, the “Clash of Civilizations” model appears disconcertingly accurate.
Categories: Israel, Middle East