|
I think it has more to do with religion than the crusades. The quotes from the Koran touched on it. They aren't going nuts in the streets after reading history books, but after going to Sunday School.
(Before someone talks about how I'm expressing my discriminatory attitude by saying "they're going nuts in the streets", remember the pictures of many Shiite men that were hitting themselves and their children in the head with machetes so that they would bleed alot as they marched through the streets. Yup, that's nuts in my book)
Anyway, it all goes back to Abraham. His first wife, Sarah couldn't give birth, so either found a second wife Hagar-the Islamic version, or got a concubine Hagar-the Jewish version; and got her pregnant with a son, Ishmael. Then Sarah finally got pregnant, and bore him Isaac. Both accounts say that Hagar and her son were thrown out into the desert weeping and without water. The Torah goes so far as to call Ishmael a dark donkey like man that was destined to smite his neighbors, or something like that. God/Allah takes pity on Hagar and Ishmael and a miraculous well appears. Ishmael goes on to be the father of Islam.
I remember Bible stories in Sunday School still to this day. Moses, Jesus and Zacheious, Noah's ark, Jonah and the whale, etc.. I bet it's even more powerful over there, in nations where religion is officially a part of the country. Even if the West didn't have more money and a more powerful military, from the very beginning, young Islamic children think of the Jews (and Christians) as the bad guys that disavowed their people and forced them into the desert. Just a thought.
|