After surveying the history of Islam’s tumultuous relationship with the West, Lewis turns to the question at hand: why do Muslims have so much hostility toward the West today? Lewis addresses a long inventory of possible causes of anti-Americanism and anti-Westernism: American support for Israel; American backing of unpopular regimes in the Middle East; the West’s history of sexism, racism, and imperialism. Over and over again, Lewis rejects these candidates as viable explanations for the "roots of Muslim rage." Such hatred, he argues, cannot be explained by anything "we" in the West have done. The explanation must lie within Islam alone.

XREF: Connects to debates about Huntington's clash of civilizations thesis and critiques of essentialist explanations for political violence. QUESTION: Worth interrogating whether Lewis's dismissal of Western causal factors is a persuasive move or a rhetorical gambit.

Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Intro…, loc. 217