Gaarder repulses, certainly, though he reads like a standard Euro-leftist who triangulates or admixes some type of vaguely conceived Christianism (in his particular case, some watered down Christian, I would even argue Judeo-Christian, motifs) into the mix in support of his anti-Israel, Euro-leftist interest. Imo Gaarder repulses on at least two or three levels, 1) the hugely and perversely overly leveraged anti-Israeli interest which neglects any well proportioned moral sense, 2) the hugely watered down Christian and even Judeo-Christian motifs he makes use of, in order to forward his Euro-leftist bombast, 3) on purely intellectual grounds, echoing #1 again, the lack of any well proportioned or commensurate intellectual sensibility, this too, in and of itself, simply repulses. Saying that, and it very much is a revulsion vis-a-vis Gaarder's initiative which is felt, Landes can be roundly critiqued in several respects - and I don't agree at all that he avoids snark, albeit a decided academic variant thereof - but far more importantly he posits, as one example only, (emphases added):

"This imperialist formula of political monotheism lies at the ideological heart of most of the most violent religious wars — Jihad, Crusades, Holy War — and some of the most powerful empires of the last 2000 years: Roman, medieval German, Umayyad, Abbasid, Turkish, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French, British. Perhaps the single most violent and destructive of all chosenness episodes – the Nazis – although not monotheist, nonetheless expressed the most violent version of a racist, hate-filled notion of national (racial) election on record."

The above manages to entirely omit from the discussion - the Marxists - easily the most violent and genocidal version of a class based, secular/atheist, hate-filled notion of international supersessionism and election on record, far more so - though they had a longer time to implement their ideology - than the Nazis.

Indeed, Islamo-bolsheviks, in some telling and critical respects, and as some recent commentators have suggested, would be a more apt assignation than Islamo-fascists, due for example to the avowed international/universalist interest, the ability to appeal to sympathizers in targeted countries, some other factors as well. Landes is presumably right to indicate that religious Jews have a far better record (compared to Christians or Muslims), but that's also true of Sikhs (whose worldwide numbers are roughly equivalent to that of Jews). But to omit decidedly secular/atheist, ideologically committed Jews from the discussion, from theoreticians and primary ideologues such as Marx himself, on through to powerful bolshevik practitioners such as Kaganovich, Yagoda and many others, is strikingly incongruous given the subject matter of politically motivated supersessionism. If Marxism, certainly so in its Leninist/Stalinist, Maoist, etc. practical formulations, was not a politically interested supersessionism, then what exactly is the meaning to be associated with the term?

Despite Landes's omission, if this type of over-arching political/historical theme is going to be invoked, Jews cannot proudly claim their secular, indeed decidedly non-religious and anti-religious protagonists selectively (e.g., Freud's theoretical brillaince) and then act as if some of those same, or similar (ethnic but not religious Jews) pivotal historical protagonists, as ethnic Jews, are somehow to be omitted from these sweeping, over-arching themes and discussions.

If this gets me labeled an anti-Semite (something similar once did precisely that) I'm not sure I care overly much, it's intended to be trenchant and probative and, indeed, that's all it in fact is. A supreme irony here, and there are several, is that Gaarder's derivative, Euro-leftism is a kind of watered down and highly derivative variant not more genuinely and substantially of Christian or Judaic (e.g., prophetic) motifs but of post-colonial, neo-Marxian conceptions adumbrated with additional pomo and/or multi-culti interests. Highly derivative and watered down, to be sure, at this late date, but rather more in that vein.

I'd like to retract and apologize for indicating Landes was necessarily being snarky. It's a more complex and delicate subject than that judgement allows, so a retraction and apology to R. Landes for that specific suggestion.