Conversations with History - Fawaz A. Gerges

Excellent, Mr Fawaz made some excellent points! I would like to add one more thing, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt warned George Bush Jr about invading Iraq & told him "You will create a million Bin-Ladens" but sure enough Bush & his gang contributed majorley to this downward spiral. Also @ 44:00 he makes some excellent point! I Would suggest watching this entire interview!

Religion was the reason of the war. The muslims won because of demographics, they had more babies, so therefore more drones to die for allah.

if he claims that there is their own (Christian) warriors of god,(5:10) why does not he write about christian exremism as well?

A very informative historical lesson is provided by Gerges, however, it was very irritating to hear him describe repeatedly the failure in the '67 war of the Arab secular-political establishments to "defend" their homeland. The Arabs were the aggressors trying to re-conquer Israel's land for Islam. They were not "defending" their homeland. Are we supposed to believe that was the Arab perception? Sounds more like self-deceiving propaganda.

You are not telling the truth, because Arabs always fought to gain thier land back, not to gain it for "islam".

While individual Arabs may think of it that way, I' m convince that the main obstacle to peace with Israel has always been that it is essentially against the ideology of Islam which demands that what was once in dar al-Islam must return to Islam. Also know that all that mid-east land was before largely Christian - it only became Arab dominated by the Islamic sword. Muhammad and the caliphs that followed were conquering & looting warlords as a matter of their own history..

Sir, allow my to strongly disagree. Arabs lived in Iraq, and Greater Syria before Islam as the Nabataeans, Canaanists, Gasanists and many more. If you want to return to the origin of Arabs, you would find it Akkadian, who lived in Iraq before the Babylonians (their grand sons) and thus the conflict is nationalist/ethnic in the first place, not religious. Please read History of the Arabs by Dr. Hitti.

Dr Fawaz Gerges, gives a good historical background of the differences between jihadists, islamists, etc, bur seems to be fundamentally blaming the west for all of THEIR problems. I appreciate that the USA has played its role, but to excuse, or soften, the role of individuals and organisations directly responsible for murdering, by blaming it on the victim is, to say the least, irresponsible. Another name for his book(s) could be entitled, "JUSTIFICATIONS, by a Closet Jihadist" Clint Roberts

It was the most complete interview about the middel east crisis that I have listen ever, a really big congratulation to Dr. Fawaz Gerges, its a treasure for the world history his books.