The Quran Verses
Surah 59:11–14:
Have you not considered those who practice hypocrisy, saying to their brothers who have disbelieved among the People of the Scripture, 'If you are expelled, we will surely leave with you...' ...They will not fight you all except within fortified cities or from behind walls. Their adversary among themselves is severe. You think they are together, but their hearts are diverse...
The Psychological Warfare: The text spends considerable energy mocking the secret, failed defensive alliances between the local Medinan skeptics (the Munafiqun, led by Abd-Allah ibn Ubayy) and the cornered Jewish tribes.
The Cowardice Narrative: Verse 14 asserts that the Jews are pathologically incapable of open bravery, stating they will only ever fight "within fortified cities or from behind walls."
The Critical Analysis: To a military historian, this description is highly ironic. Defending oneself from within a fortified citadel or behind a structural wall was standard, highly sophisticated defensive engineering utilized across the entire ancient and late antique world (from the Romans to the Persians).
A year later, Muhammad himself famously dug a massive trench and hid behind a defensive wall to survive the Battle of the Trench (627 CE). By framing the Jews' defensive fortresses as an indicator of psychological cowardice and fragmented hearts, the text uses standard polemical dehumanization to demoralize the native opposition and prime the Muslim collective for an aggressive, expansionist foreign policy.