Hussein as the villain, Bush as the hero, and the US rescuing the victim is typical of colonial narratives...The analogy insists, furthermore, on a E… - Ella Shohat

For Middle Easterners, the operating distinction had always been “Muslim,” “Jew” and “Christian,” not Arab versus Jew. The assumption was that “Arabness” referred to a common shared culture and language, albeit with religious differences.

Eurocentric historical discourse tends to paint a flattering picture of Europe during the "Age of Discovery" while denigrating the newly colonized peoples. At the time of the onset of colonialism and conquest, Europe was a rather brutal and superstitious place, dominated by a "demonological discourse" (Delumeau). Church-sponsored brutalities towards Jews and Muslims have to be seen therefore on the same continuum as the forced conversions of indigenous peoples of the Americas who, like the Jews and Muslims in Catholic Spain, were obliged to feign allegiance to Christianity.

To be a European or American Jew has hardly been perceived as a contradiction, but to be an Arab Jew has been seen as a kind of logical paradox, even an ontological subversion. This binarism has led many Oriental Jews (our name in Israel, referring to our common Asian and African countries of origin, is Mizrahi or Mizrachi) to a profound and visceral schizophrenia, since for the first time in our history Arabness and Jewishness have been imposed as antonyms.