I have recently completed In the Shadow of the Pomegranate by Tariq Ali and am currently reading The Forty Days of Musa Dagh by Franz Werfel. Ali’s book is set around 1500 in Spain/Al Andalusia and tells of the final days of Moorish presence in Spain. It paints a picture of an almost edenic Islamic society being put to the sword by a horde of bloody minded Spanish catholics. Werfel’s book is set in 1915 in the former Ottoman Empire and is about the persecution of the Christian armenians by the Moslem Turks.
Both books are exercises in demonizing the “other” while telling the truly sad story of the victimization of one’s own group. The Islam/Christianity conflict is so ancient that it will probably never go away. It is older, even, than the two religions and goes back to the Greek/Persian conflict of antiquity.
My conclusion? The best that can be hoped for is a truce. Not peace, love, and understanding. Just a truce.