Jean-Pierre Filiu – författare

The Middle East, often referred to as the cradle of the three monotheisms, is saturated with symbolism. Situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, it is a land marked by the rich confluence of religions and peoples.  It has also been the focal point of endemic tensions and conflicts, many of which stretch back into the mists of time. In this new history of the Middle East, Jean-Pierre Filiu looks beyond religion and focuses his attention on the processes by which powers and their areas of domination were established over time.  His starting point is 395, the year when the Roman Empire was divided into eastern and western halves: at that point, the Middle East emerged as a specific entity, freed from external domination, and a Christianity of the East asserted itself, turned towards Byzantium rather than towards Rome.  From this point on, Filiu follows a strictly Middle Eastern dynamic, tracing the rise and fall of powers linked to the three principal centres of Egypt, Syria, and Iraq and recounting the procession of empires, invasions, and assertions of imperialist ambition that have characterized the region since then.  The book closes in 2022, when the men and women of the Middle East were still struggling for the right to define their destiny by telling their stories in their own voices.This magisterial and up-to-date history of the Middle East will be essential reading for students and scholars and for anyone interested in the history and politics of one of the most important and contested regions of the modern world.

This is an eye-opening exploration of a troubling phenomenon: the fast-growing belief in Muslim countries that the end of the world is at hand--and with it the "Great Battle," prophesied by both Sunni and Shii tradition, which many believers expect will begin in the Afghan-Pakistani borderlands. Jean-Pierre Filiu uncovers the role of apocalypse in Islam over the centuries, and highlights its extraordinary resurgence in recent decades. Identifying 1979 as a decisive year in the rise of contemporary millenarian speculation, he stresses the ease with which subsequent events in the Middle East have been incorporated into the intellectual universe of apocalyptic propagandists. Filiu also shows how Christian and Jewish visions of the Final Judgment have stimulated alarmist reaction in Islamic lands, both in the past and today, and examines the widespread fear of Christian Zionist domination as an impetus to jihad. Though the overwhelming majority of Muslims remains unpersuaded, the mounting conviction in the imminence of apocalypse is a serious matter, especially for those who are preparing for it.

Selected as a 'Book of the Year' by the Guardian and Spectator ‘The Gaza I knew, and whose length and breadth I’ve travelled, has ceased to exist.’ Jean-Pierre Filiu, acclaimed historian of Gaza, is intimately familiar with the land’s people and places; he speaks the local dialect. But nothing prepared him for what he encountered there in December 2024. This is his unforgettable, unbearably intimate account of one month in a place shattered by Israel’s all-out war.When the historian returned to Gaza, he arrived under circumstances unimaginably different from his many past visits since 1980: only a limited number of convoys were allowed into the Strip, and he was one of the few humanitarians able to enter, this time by night. He remained inside for thirty-three days, and emerged determined to bear witness to the devastation—to the Gazans fighting simply to live, every single day.Filiu’s haunting portrait of a land betrayed is a grim work of war reportage, documented with the acuity of a historian; and a lyrical narrative of human suffering, and human dignity.

In his disturbing and timely book Jean-Pierre Filiu lays bare the strategies and tactics employed by the Middle Eastern autocracies, above all those of Syria, Egypt, Yemen and Algeria, that set out to crush the democratic uprisings of the 'Arab Revolution'. In pursuit of these goals they turned to the intelligence agencies and internal security arms of the 'deep state', the armed forces and to street gangs such as the Shabiha to enforce their will. Alongside physical intimidation, imprisonment and murder, Arab counter- revolutionaries discredited and split their opponents by boosting Salafi - Jihadi groups such as Islamic State. They also released from prison hardline Islamists and secretly armed and funded them. The full potential of the Arab counter-revolution surprised most observers, who thought they had seen it all from the Arab despots: their perversity, their brutality, their voracity. But the wider world underestimated their ferocious readiness to literally burn down their countries in order to cling to absolute power.Bashar al-Assad clambered to the top of this murderous class of tyrants, driving nearly half of the Syrian population in to exile and executing tens of thousands of his opponents. He has set a grisly precedent, one that other Arab autocrats are sure to follow in their pursuit of absolute power.

Filiu and David B. draw striking parallels between ancient and contemporary political history in this look at the US-Middle East conflict. The reader is transported to the pirate-choked Mediterranean sea, where Christians and Muslims continue the crusades, only this time on water. As the centuries pass, the traditional victims of the Muslim pirates--the British, French, and Spanish--all become empire-building powers whose sights lie beyond the Mediterranean.

The second volume of Jean-Pierre Filiu and David B.’s acclaimed history of US-Middle East relations documents a period of dramatic conflict and change, beginning in the 1950s and ending with the Lebanese War of 1982. The Blitzkrieg of the Six-Day War saw the Jewish state triple in size. In less than a week, the Middle East was transformed: Israel had taken the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank from Jordan and the Golan Heights from Syria. It was a conflict that began an era of U.S.-led intervention in the Middle East, which continued in the lead-up to the Iranian Revolution of 1979. The demise of the Shah, and the ascent of Ayatollah Khomeini, stoked anti-American sentiment in the country, and the U.S. became known as “The Great Satan”. When Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan, the CIA began a proxy war by supporting anti-soviet Muslim forces, among them a young Saudi, Osama Bin Laden. Best of Enemies, Vol. 2 is a perceptive and authoritative account of a turbulent historical period. Intelligent, accessible and beautifully drawn, it brings to life a period of history that is of great relevance to international relations today.

In the third volume of their graphic history of US and Middle East relations, Jean-Pierre Filiu and David B. cover the tumultuous period that began with Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and ended with Obama’s decision, in 2013, not to intervene in Syria.Taking in the First Gulf War, the rise of al-Qaeda, the military response to the September 11 attacks and the present conflict in Syria, Best of Enemies: Part Three is propelled by a clash between four US presidents and their Middle Eastern antagonists: on the one hand, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama; on the other, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and Bashar al-Assad.Covering thirty years of conflict and diplomacy, Best of Enemies: Part Three is a breezy and engaging guide to the events that shaped our current politics, from the rise of populism and the so-called Islamic State to the global refugee crisis.

Through its millennium-long existence, Gaza has often been bitterly disputed, yet enduringly neglected. Squeezed between the Negev and Sinai deserts on the one hand and the Mediterranean Sea on the other, Gaza was contested by the Pharaohs, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Fatimids, Mamluks, Crusaders and Ottomans. In 1917, the British Empire fought for months to conquer Gaza, before establishing its mandate for Palestine. In 1948, 200,000 Palestinians sought refuge in Gaza, a marginal area wanted by neither Israel nor Egypt. Palestinian nationalism grew there, and Gaza has since found itself at the heart of Palestinian history. Gaza is where the fedayeen movement arose from the ruins of Arab nationalism; where the 1967 Israeli occupation was repeatedly challenged, culminating in the 1987 intifada; where the dream of Palestinian statehood appeared shattered by the 2007 split between Fatah and Hamas; and from where, in 2023, history’s worst attack on Israel was launched, leading to the worst war ever waged against the Palestinians.Jean-Pierre Filiu’s book was the first comprehensive history of Gaza to be published in any language. This new, updated edition covers events since 2011, including Gaza’s renewed tragic centrality to world politics and security since October 2023.