Dhimmi

"Dhimmi" is an Arabic term for the "protected" peoples "of the books,"
namely the Jews and Christians. The terminology dates from the 8th
Century when the Arabs had finally consolidated their Caliphate from Iraq
to Morocco. They conquered this huge Empire by force, and found
themselves too small in number to run it. In order to do so they used many
Christians and Jews, who had run the Byzantine Empire before them. But,
according to Muslim practice these peoples should have reverted to the
new superior religion of Islam. In order to find a legitimate theological way
to justify allowing these non-Muslims to hold high position in their Empire,
it was necessary to give them a separate status that would protect them.
This was done by the Caliph Omar of Baghdad in the 8th Century, who
promulgated rules that persisted until the 20th Century. Remember that there
was no separation between religious and political leadership in Islam, so any
such rule had both secular and religious validity. Since Islam recognized the
sacred status of "the books," the Old and New Testaments, those who believed
in them could then legitimately become "dhimmi" subjects of the Islamic
Empire,
whose lives were protected, even though they could not have equal status with
Muslims. These rules became part of "sharia" law. This distinguished Jews and
Christians from pagans, who were not monotheistic. Pagans according to
Islamic law could be killed by any Muslim at any time, hence the slaughter of
hundreds of thousands of Hindus in India, that led to the development of the
militant religion of the Sikhs (that it why all Sikhs carry a knife and use
the name Singh, meaning Lion).
So the "dhimmi" Christians and Jews were second-class citizens within the
Muslim Empire, required to pay special taxes ("jizya") according to the whim
of the local Islamic ruler, but unable to appear in an Islamic court, required
to wear special clothing to distinguish them, and often subject to degrading
conditions, such as not being allowed to own property and forced to move
aside when a Muslim passed, not having access to sacred Jewish sites, etc.
Under the Turkish Ottoman Empire this was codified into the so-called "Milet"
system, under which each recognized religious group established its own laws,
customs and practices. This system was adopted by the Israeli Government
and is still the basis for the self-rule of Muslim, Christian and Druse
communities in Israel. Hence Israeli law is a mixture of Turkish, British and
Jewish elements.
Not surprisingly over the centuries the Muslims came to think of the Jews
as an inferior group, that did not have the protection that the Christians had
from the European powers (called "Franks" by them due to the French
presence in Lebanon). So anti-Jewish murders, riots and forced
conversions were not uncommon. Hence the population of Jews in the
whole huge Muslim Empire remained at less than 1 million at the time of the
foundation of the State of Israel in 1948 (of them ca. 750,000 moved to
Israel in a population exchange with the Palestinian refugees).
No wonder the Arab world was shocked by their defeat by what they
considered a remnant of a subservient and inferior people. This goes a long
way to explain the antagonism of Islam to the existence of the Jewish State in
their midst. As I have argued before, it would be as if a group of Indian
tribes suddenly got together and established their own state within the USA,
and when challenged by the US Army, defeated it. Wouldn't Americans be
shocked!
Anyway, defeat of Israel would lead almost inevitably to the return to the
"dhimmi" classification of Jews within an Islamic Palestine, or a renewed
Caliphate as Osama bin Laden wants, and this cannot be allowed to happen.
Note that in a recent political meeting of Israeli Arabs, where they united
some small parties into a United Arab List, to overcome the new higher
cut-off threshold for representation in the Knesset, some of the Islamists
present called for a policy of re-establishment of the Caliphate.
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The Israeli author Bat Yeor has written extensively on this topic. For
further information see www.dhimmitude.org and www.dhimmi.org