Bernard Lewis Quotes
Islam and Islamic values now have a level of immunity from comment and criticism in the Western world that Christianity has lost and Judaism has never had.
The general perception, in much of the Middle East, is that the United States is an unreliable friend and a harmless enemy. I think we want to give the exact opposite impression.
I think that the growing government control of the press is very clear. Turkey is still not a dictatorship, there is still some freedom of the press, but I think it's moving in the wrong direction.
A remarkable feature of Islam is that it gives dignity even to the humblest illiterate peasants. It gives them a certain human dignity which one doesn't find in other societies.
Islam does give human dignity, certainly. The point I wanted to make is that it is great foolishness to try to impose our notions of democracy. They have their own traditions.
Islam explicitly rejects dictatorship and there are no traditions of the Prophet or passages in the Qur'an which clearly give dictators this support.
Christians and Muslims share the belief that they are the fortunate recipient of the final God message.
Not being interested in other cultures is the normal state of mankind.
America is harmless as an enemy but treacherous as a friend.
