Amid holy war on Iran, will the West examine the roots of Christian and Jewish rage?

In 1990, Bernard Lewis famously wrote about "the roots of Muslim rage". The essay, along with other influential works produced in the 1980s and 90s, helped usher in an era of commentary about extremism and political violence in the Muslim-majority world.

Lewis' work, like that of other orientalist scholars and analysts, downplayed western imperialism and aggression and was plagued by essentialism, exaggeration and distortion.

Nonetheless, some of the scholarship that followed - particularly work examining militant groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS) - addressed a very real phenomenon. These fringe Muslim extremist groups have inflicted massive violence, and scholars and analysts have understandably sought to examine the political, socioeconomic, and religious factors that undergird their extremist ideologies.

Christian and Jewish extremism, in contrast, has garnered comparatively little attention.

While the majority of Christians and Jews reject extremist interpretations of their religious traditions, it is nonetheless important to interrogate extremist interpretations of Christianity and Judaism, particularly as they are used to justify war, territorial expansion and military policies that target civilians.

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