Western betrayal is a term asserting the post-war fate of Central and Eastern Europe rests in the foreign policy decisions of the United States, United Kingdom and France between approximately 1938 and 1968. Historically, such views were intertwined with some of the most significant geopolitical events of the 20th century, including the rise and empowerment of the Third Reich (Nazi Germany), the rise of the Soviet Union (USSR) as a dominant superpower with control of large parts of Europe, and various treaties, alliances, and positions taken during and after World War II, and so on into the Cold War.

"Notions of western betrayal" reference "a sense of historical and moral responsibility" for the West's "abandonment of Eastern Europe at the end of the Second World War," according to professors Charlotte Bretherton and John Vogler. In eastern Europe the interpretation of the outcome of the Munich Crisis of 1938, and the Yalta Conference of 1944, as a betrayal of eastern Europe by Western powers has been used by eastern European leaders to put pressure on Western countries to acquiesce to more recent political requests such as membership of NATO.

Hamza Yusuf Hanson is an American Islamic scholar, and (with Zaid Shakir and Hatem Bazian) is co-founder of Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California, United States. He is a convert to Islam, and is one of the signatories of A Common Word Between Us and You, an open letter by Islamic scholars to Christian leaders, calling for peace and understanding. He has described the 9/11 attacks as "an act of 'mass murder, pure and simple'". Condemning the attacks, he has also stated "Islam was hijacked ... on that plane as an innocent victim".The Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom reported that he "is arguably the west's most influential Islamic scholar" and added that "many Muslims find his views hard to stomach."

Hamza Yusuf was born to two academics in Washington State and raised in Northern California. In 1977, he became Muslim and subsequently traveled to the Muslim world and studied for ten years in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, as well as North and West Africa. Hamza Yusuf spent four years studying in the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere in the Middle East. Later he traveled to West Africa and studied in Mauritania, Medina, Algeria, and Morocco under such scholars as Murabit al Haaj; Baya bin Salik, head of the Islamic court in Al-'Ain, United Arab Emirates; Muhammad Shaybani, Mufti of Abu Dhabi; Hamad al-Wali; and Muhammad al-Fatrati of Al Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt.^{[citation needed]} After more than a decade abroad, he returned to the United States and earned degrees in nursing from Imperial Valley College and religious studies at San José State University.^{[citation needed]}