Jabotinsky rejected East-West moral difference, seeing the East as primitive Europe

Evidence

According to Jabotinsky, this tendency to romanticize the Orient rested on the false assumption that the East and the West were fundamentally different. The only difference between the two, he claimed, was that while Europe was technologically advanced, the East by and large was not. The East, Jabotinsky claimed, was a primitive expression of Western culture—the historical equivalent of Europe of the Middle Ages. The calmness, restraint, and peacefulness of the East were a reflection of the Orient’s primitive nature, not the outcome of a profound approach to life. Jabotinsky maintained that there did not exist a moral difference between the predominantly Christian West and the Muslim world. He wrote, “Islam, like any other religion, possesses the greatest moral attributes and serves as a very positive educational factor.” — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 527 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Jabotinsky rejected Orientalism’s moral East-West binary as merely a technological gap — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 527; Jabotinsky rejected romanticizing the Orient as a primitive stage of Western development — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 537; Jabotinsky framed East and West as stages of one developmental continuum

Broader Connections

• Jabotinsky rejected Orientalism’s moral East-West binary as merely a technological gap #corroborates (0.92) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 527