Saladin, The Latin Crusaders, and Palestine: David Eldridge's Holy Warriors and the ‘Clash of Civilisations’ Propaganda

This article explores representations of the Third Crusade in David Eldridge's play Holy Warriors: A Fantasia on the Third Crusade and History of Violent Struggle in the Holy Lands (2014). It argues that Eldridge tries in some instances to present the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a legacy of European imperialism in the Middle East and warns against contemporary Western involvement in the region. However, on other occasions, he suggests that Islamic cultures are incompatible with Western values of secular democracy and therefore the two-state solution is more applicable a solution that the one-state settlement. Ultimately, Eldridge shares some of the ideas behind Huntington's theory of the ‘Clash of Civilisations’ and supports Western military action in Muslim-majority countries.