Thanks to Grauthode here is an excellent set of lectures by Bernard Lewis, one of the worlds foremost experts on the middle east. Each one of these is quite refreshing in it’s candour, and is a pleasure to listen to. This is hours and hours of material. But if you can get through it all, you may have an answer handy to most common myths and misconceptions about the Middle east, and any Arab-Israeli conflict fictions flung your way. Well worth watching one a day.
In all due respect to Bernard Lewis, he, like ThomasFriedman, who I see as an amateur arabist, had no idea of the hatred there is in the muslim junkyard to all others.