Gisèle Littman (née Orebi; born 1933), better known by her pen name Bat Ye'or (Hebrew: בת יאור, Daughter of the Nile), is an Egyptian-born, British-Swiss[1][2] author and historian,[1][3] known for her promulgation of the Eurabia conspiracy theory.

[6] In 1958, she attended the UCL Institute of Archaeology and moved to Switzerland in 1960 to continue her studies at the University of Geneva,[8] but never finished her master's degree[9][10] and has never held an academic position.

According to journalist Adi Schwartz from Haaretz, the fact that she is not an academic and has never taught at any university, but has worked as an independent researcher, has, along with her opinions, made her a controversial figure.

"[24] British historian Martin Gilbert in his book A History of the Twentieth Century has called her "the acknowledged expert on the plight of Jews and Christians in Muslim lands" who "brought the issue of [their] continuing discrimination to a wide public.

He states that "[w]e may choose to employ" it keeping in mind that it "connotes protection (its meaning in Arabic) and that it guaranteed communal autonomy, relatively free practice of religion, and equal economic opportunities, as much as it signified inferior legal status.

Whenever the possibility is raised of actually comparing circumstances of non-Christians in Europe to non-Muslims under Islamic governance in a careful, thoughtful manner, Bat Ye'or forecloses such comparison.

This is coupled with selective scholarship designed to pick out the worst examples of anti-Christian behavior by Muslim governments, usually in time of war and threats to their own destruction (as in the case of the deplorable Armenian genocide of 1915).

"[30] Sidney Griffith, the head of the department of Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures at the Catholic University of America wrote in a review of Decline of Eastern Christianity that Ye'or has "raised a topic of vital interest"; adding, however, that the "theoretical inadequacy of the interpretive concepts of jihad and dhimmitude, as they are employed here", and the "want of historical method in the deployments of the documents which serve as evidence for the conclusions reached in the study" serve as dual barriers.

One has the impression that in their bulk they are simply meant to undergird the contentions made in the first part of the book", concluding that thus Ye'or has "written a polemical tract, not responsible historical analysis.

[10][37][38][39][40][41][42][1] For example, writing in Race & Class in 2006, author and freelance journalist Matt Carr states, "In order to accept Ye'or's ridiculous thesis, it is necessary to believe not only in the existence of a concerted Islamic plot to subjugate Europe, involving all Arab governments, whether 'Islamic' or not, but also to credit a secret and unelected parliamentary body with the astounding ability to transform all Europe's major political, economic and cultural institutions into subservient instruments of 'jihad' without any of the continent's press or elected institutions being aware of it.

Furthermore, Carr notes that "[s]tripped of its Islamic content, the broad contours of Ye'or's preposterous thesis [in Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis] recall the anti-Semitic conspiracy theories of the first half of the twentieth century and contemporary notions of the 'Zionist Occupation Government' prevalent in far-right circles in the US".

In a The Jerusalem Post interview, referring to Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis the Jewish British historian Martin Gilbert stated "I've read Bat Yeor's book.

"[44] According to Daniel Pipes, "Bat Ye'or has traced a nearly secret history of Europe over the past thirty years, convincingly showing how the Euro-Arab Dialogue has blossomed from a minor discussion group into the engine for the continent's Islamization.

"[47] Ye'or's Eurabia theory gathered additional media attention when it was quoted and praised by the perpetrator of the 2011 Norway massacre Anders Behring Breivik in his manifesto released on the day of the attacks.