Marc David Baer, a professor of history at the London School of Economics, has published 'Children of Abraham: The 1,400-Year History of Jewish-Muslim Relations,' a 496-page work arguing that two dominant myths — one portraying Jewish-Muslim history as an interfaith utopia, the other as unrelenting enmity — both distort the historical record.
LSE historian's book traces 1,400 years of Jewish-Muslim relations, disputes myths on both sides
Marc David Baer, a professor of history at the London School of Economics, has published 'Children of Abraham: The 1,400-Year History of Jewish-Muslim Relations,' a 496-page work arguing that two dominant myths — one portraying Jewish-Muslim history as an interfaith utopia, the other as unrelenting enmity — both distort the historical record.
Baer developed the book from a seminar he has taught for ten years at LSE titled 'Muslim-Jewish Relations: History and Memory in the Middle East and Europe,' attended in part by young Jewish and Muslim students from London. He told students it was not accurate to depict relations between the two groups negatively, and that the past century of Israeli-Palestinian conflict was not representative of the broader historical relationship.
The book covers the period from around 610, when Muslims say Mohammed began to preach, to the present day, spanning the Middle East and Europe. Baer identifies recurring themes across the centuries: Jewish-Muslim religious and secular symbiosis; the rise of elite Jews to wealth and influence followed by their fall when Muslims perceived a violation of the dhimma protection pact; a triangular relationship with Christians that worsened Jewish-Muslim relations; and the political use of myth and counter-myth that has obscured that history.
On the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks, Baer describes how Hamas members 'beat, gang, raped, and murdered' more than 1,200 Israelis, noting that victims 'included babies, children, women, and the elderly,' and references the more than 250 hostages abducted to the Gaza Strip. In describing Israel's military response, he states that bombing in the first month 'killed an estimated 10,000 Palestinians, perhaps half of whom were children,' and that after two years 'at least 67,000 had been killed, an estimated four-fifths of whom were civilians, although we do not know how many were Hamas fighters.'
Baer also notes that on the first anniversary of the October 7 attacks, UK Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis, then-Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, and then-chair of the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board Qari Asim jointly condemned both 'the brutal Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel' and the 'devastating war in Gaza,' declaring that 'anti-Jewish hate and anti-Muslim hate have no place in the UK today.' The book is published by Basic Books and carries 69 pages of references.
- The source does not state which independent researchers or analysts are cited in the reviewer's claims about Hamas casualty figure inflation or misclassification.
- The source does not identify which Gaza officials made 'cleanup' revisions to casualty statistics or when those revisions occurred.
- The source does not state the specific publication date of 'Children of Abraham' or when it became available.
- The source does not establish whether Baer addresses the tunnel network or casualty-figure criticisms elsewhere in the book outside the passages discussed by the reviewer.
- The source does not indicate whether Baer was given an opportunity to respond to the reviewer's criticisms.
- The source does not provide the basis for the reviewer's characterization of the Hamas tunnel network as 'larger than the London Underground.'
Read the original at The Jerusalem Post