To Edward Said, the answer was a thunderous no. Bernard Lewis’s life and career, including his steadfast support of Israel, definitively demonstrate otherwise.
One may wonder why we bother to have Middle East experts at all, since their record is hardly better than that of the Sovietologists. Bernard Lewis is an exception.
Forty years ago, nobody foresaw the rise of radical Islam—except for the preeminent historian who both predicted and explained it, and much else besides.