European powers claimed to protect minority interests as a pretext for Oriental policy

Evidence

For standing near the center of all European politics in the East was the question of minorities, whose “interests” the Powers, each in its own way, claimed to protect and represent. Jews, Greek and Russian Orthodox, Druzes, Circassians, Armenians, Kurds, the various small Christian sects: all these were studied, planned for, designed upon by European Powers improvising as well as constructing their Oriental policy. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 490

Categorization

• XREF: Minorities-as-proxy mechanism connects to later Islamophobia readings on how ‘protection’ narratives license intervention.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 490