Israel’s enemies among the Western left have been unmoved by news of the disengagement plan. They continue on with their nonsensical calls for divestment from the "apartheid state" and their protests against Israel for daring to exist. A threatened academic boycott of two Israel universities by Britain's Association of University Teachers (AUT) was only called off at the last minute because of public outcry. Even the president of Al-Quds University, Sari Nusseibeh, publicly opposed the boycott, labeling the timing counter-productive. But the left remains unswayed, pressing on with its memorized script of anti-Israel rhetoric, reality notwithstanding. These are the critics to whom Sharon gives credence with his disengagement follies. The last time Jews were forcibly removed from their homes it precipitated the Holocaust. But this time instead of Nazis ousting Jews, other Jews will do the dirty work. Like some sort of sadistic punishment only anti-Semites could dream up, IDF soldiers are to expel Jewish men, women, and children to make way for Palestinian terrorists. Even the dead are not immune. Conjuring up images of Jewish grave desecration throughout history, Jewish graves will be uprooted as well. Jews determined to stay in "illegal outposts" have actually had their synagogues destroyed by IDF soldiers and their attempts to rebuild met with violence. Hitler would have been proud. It was indeed the Third Reich that came up with the term "judenrein" or "free of Jews," and no one seems to be questioning the similar logic of the disengagement plan. After all, everyone knows that "settler" is just another euphemism for Jew. Since Arabs live in Israel, why could Jews not conceivably remain in the imagined future Palestinian state? It’s doubtful they’d want to live under such rule, but this is simply wrong on principle. Writer Ariel Natan Pasko was one of the first to pose this question and Israel Zwick later followed up with a parody on disengaging "Jewish settlements" from Florida. Jerusalem Post deputy managing editor Caroline Glick has also written extensively on the subject.

There is absolutely no reason that the misnamed "settlements" (the largest of which, Ariel, is a city with a population of 20,000) cannot remain intact, while Palestinians set up shop nearby. Just the way people living in pluralistic societies anywhere else in the world would do it. But as always, Muslim bigotry towards Jews is accepted where with any other group the same behavior would be deemed inexcusable. At least the homes of the Jews will be destroyed, rather than simply handing them over to the triumphant terrorists. They have to demolish the homes for fear that Palestinians will do it themselves, under the watchful eyes of the international community. Yet another good sign for the new "peaceful" neighborhood.

So how to explain Sharon’s apparent insanity? It’s the Oslo syndrome all over again. Then too Israel made sacrifices while the Palestinians made none. The corrupt, terrorist leader Arafat was treated as legitimate, just as Mahmoud Abbas is today. The world was enamored of the idea of peace in the Middle East and denied all evidence to the contrary. Just as they do today. Israel’s strongest ally the United States pushed for and brokered the deal. Where once it was Bill Clinton, today it’s George W. Bush. The end result of the Oslo capitulation was increased bloodshed and the growth of Islamic terrorism in the region and beyond. And there’s absolutely no reason to believe that the disengagement plan will not result in the same thing. As the oft-cited George Santayana quote goes: Those who refuse to learn from history are condemned to repeat it. But not all Israelis are taking the disengagement lying down. Protests, rallies, and civil disobedience have taken place in Israel since the plan was announced. Orange is the color this movement has adopted and it can be seen on flags, hats, and T-shirts around the country. Jews in America have also shown their support for this resistance, with college students going on strike and prominent Jewish figures speaking out. An anti-disengagement rally was held in New York City’s Central Park on June 5 and simultaneous rallies in Tel Aviv and Washington D.C. are planned for July 19. A group of American Baptist ministers are planning a July trip to Israel to show their solidarity with the soon-to-be-ousted Jews. But the clock is ticking and the countdown to disengagement, currently slated for July 25, has already begun.  Will all the outcry be enough to save Israel from itself? Only time will tell.

The London Conspiracy-Theories: Here We Go Again

 The dust hadn’t even settled after the terrorist atrocities in London and already the conspiracy-theories and self-recrimination had begun.  Unwilling to blame the actual perpetrators, members of the perennially paranoid among the Western Left, the Muslim world, and even the mainstream media had to find someone, anyone else to blame.  Websites such as WhatReallyHappened.com, Indymedia.com, and Al-Jazeera were filled with rumors that all was not as it seemed.  Meanwhile, leftist groups accused “imperialist governments” of using the attacks to justify the war in Iraq and insisted on referring to the “so-called war on terror” even as the victims of suicide bombings lay entombed in a London subway.  Whether it be the Israeli conference attendees who were falsely accused of having foreknowledge of the attacks, or the idea that Western powers, by engaging the Islamic terrorists with which they are at war, had brought it on themselves, denial was running high. 

 Ever adept at promoting conspiracy-theories throughout the Muslim world, Al-Jazeera was quick to come up with plausible denial.  Turning to the statement put out by the "The Secret Organization of Al Qaeda in Europe" claiming responsibility for the attacks, they set their sites on the alleged errors in the Koranic verses it cited.  Based on observations made by MSNBC translator Jacob Keryakes, Al-Jazeera wasted no time in labeling the document “phony.”   Since translations are hardly foolproof, this claim was premature to say the least.  As we now know, the perpetrators were indeed British Muslims of Pakistani descent.  The Al-Qaeda connection is still under investigation, but the link with worldwide Islamic terrorism is undeniable.  The attacks in what has become known in recent years as “Londonistan” may have been the unfortunate wake-up call that Britain needed to address the growing radicalism in their own backyard.   At the heart of Al-Jazeera’s denials is a larger issue: the inability of the Muslim World to take responsibility for its own actions.  Whenever terrorism rears its ugly head, blame is laid elsewhere.  Having read the various statements put out by Islamic clerics in the days following the attacks defending them as “blessed acts” and just desserts for their enemies, it would seem that the shoe fits.  Not to mention the usual celebrating among the Palestinians whenever Westerners are slaughtered indiscriminately.  But of course, the London suicide bombers couldn’t have been Muslims.  As the Director of London's Al-Maqreze Centre for Historical Studies Dr. Hani Al-Siba’i put it, “We do not rule out the possibility that it was done by the intelligence agency of another Western country hostile to Britain…or some Zionist Americans who wanted to overshadow the G-8 summit.” 

 While other Muslim organizations, leaders and individuals did condemn the bombings, trust has become a major issue for Western audiences in such instances.  Also, these proclamations tend to focus more on concern for a real or imagined “backlash” against their own communities and less on concern for the victims of terrorism.  Whether or not the London bombings will lead to the much-anticipated rejection of radicalism from within remains to be seen.  In any case, only when the Muslim masses are able to withstand self-criticism will their dependency on conspiracy-theories disappear.  The other conspiracy-theory circulating the very day of the London attacks took the ubiquitous "Blame the Jews” angle.  Sure enough, along came the accusation that the Israeli embassy and in particular Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was in town for a conference aimed at supporting investment in Israel, had been warned beforehand of the attack.  Actually, the attendees were told by British Intelligence to stay in their hotel after the first blast.  They were staying at the Great Eastern hotel near the Liverpool Street subway station, one of the stations hit in the attacks.  If anything, the Israelis may have been among the intended targets of the attack, but instead they were treated as if they were perpetrators.  Lest it be thought that such conspiracy theories emanated solely from the Muslim world or the fringe left, the Drudge Report featured a blood red headline on the morning of the attacks: "Netanyahu Was Warned!"  The headline referred to an Associated Press article, which erroneously claimed that the warning was given before and not after the first bombing.  AP later issued not a correction, but rather another article headlined, "Israel 'not warned' about London attacks."  Instead of removing the link to the incorrect story or replacing it with a correction, Drudge featured it prominently at the top of his homepage for the entire day.     To add insult to injury, AP soon generated another faulty story by misquoting Tony Blair as saying that the “easing the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians” is one of the “very deep roots” of terrorism.  This article was later retracted.  For anyone who still thinks wire services such as AP and Reuters (known as “Al-Reuters” in the blogosphere) and the mainstream media in general are immune to pushing conspiracy-theories, all of this was further proof otherwise. 

Media outlets such as the BBC and Reuters that refuse to use the word “terrorism” when referring to acts perpetrated against Israelis and sometimes Americans, but have no qualms when the victims are British, European or anyone else, bespeaks an agenda that goes far beyond conspiracy-theories.  This too was exposed in the aftermath of the London attacks, when all of a sudden the BBC discovered the T-word.  Perhaps recognizing their own hypocrisy, they have since stopped using the term in their London reporting.  Now it’s just called “bombing” or “bombers” as if such acts occur without any evil intentions.    When not engaging in rumors and conspiracies, the Western Left did what it does best: self-recrimination.  Taking the terrorists at their word, antiwar types immediately began blaming Bush, Blair, and the war in Iraq for the attacks.  Nevermind that Islamic terrorist attacks on the West began long before the U.S. military stepped foot in Iraq, or that countries such as Spain, which did pull its troops out following the Madrid bombings, continue to be a target for terrorism.  According to the apologists for terrorism, if Coalition troops withdrew from Iraq all would be well with the world.   Of course, this is the same logic that puts forward Israel’s destruction (couched in “peace in the Middle East” terminology) as the other solution to terrorists’ demands.  In other words, just do what they say and they’ll leave us alone.  In truth, nothing we do will shake their quest for world domination because it has less to do with our actions and more to do with who we are.  Infidels, unbelievers, kuffar or in other words, non- Muslims.  Of those who jumped on the self-recrimination bandwagon before the bodies had even been counted was British MP George Galloway.  Galloway put out a statement on behalf of his pseudo-Socialist political party, Respect: The Unity Coalition, blaming his own government and calling the attacks, "the result of a world that has become a less safe and peaceful place in recent years."   Apparently, Islamic terrorism has nothing to do with making the world a less peaceful place, at least in Galloway’s warped view. 

Galloway would naturally share the perspective of terrorists since he seems to subscribe to their ideology.  Several months ago, he played a prominent part in a rally organized by the British Palestinian Solidarity Campaign in which speeches were given calling not for only a general boycott of Israel, but also its outright destruction.  In a recent appearance on Abu-Dhabi TV, he referred to British and American troops as "Crusader soldiers" and warned of the “hell-fires” that would consume the West in retaliation.  Either Galloway’s been drinking the Kool-Aid down at the local Islamist mosque or he’s immersed himself in the self-loathing of Dhimmitude.  Either way, he’s become a liability that the UK and the rest of us can ill afford.  

 The proliferation of conspiracy-theories surrounding the London bombings were reminiscent of the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.  It was only a week or two after those attacks that rumors began circulating alleging that 4,000 Jews had been warned beforehand and left the WTC before the attacks.  Like the current “Blame the Jews” canard, this one had as its genesis an actual news story.  A Jerusalem Post article trying to account for the number of Israelis in the areas of the WTC and the Pentagon at the time of the attacks was transformed into a conspiracy-theory for the ages.  It later ballooned into wild speculations that Israel had some hand in the 9/11 attacks themselves.  Although this story spread like wildfire throughout the Muslim world, where such conspiracy theories are de rigueur, it was initially dismissed in the West as an obvious falsehood intoned only by the lunatic fringe.  But the rumor had staying power and today it’s been accepted as fact by an embarrassingly large number of people, almost all of them either on the left side of the political spectrum or the far right (as in Neo-Nazis).  Added to the cannon of 9/11 conspiracy-theories were the whispers of a Bush/Rove plot.  Believers alleged that the Bush administration, with the collusion of the Pentagon, were either behind the attacks themselves or simply allowed them to happen in order to institute a quasi-police state.  Gaps in what we know about the attacks as well as outright falsehoods all melded together in the feverish minds of those searching for hidden answers.  Whatever one’s criticisms of the administration and its approach to the War on Islamic Terrorism, one would have to be beyond cynical to believe that they’d allow 3,000 Americans (or more) to die simply to accumulate more power. 

 I’m reminded of this cynicism whenever I receive e-mails from readers espousing such theories and encouraging me to “learn the truth” for myself.  It never ceases to amaze me how many well-educated, otherwise rational people insist on pushing these fantasies.  Unable to cope with the nihilistic and horrifying threat of Islamic terrorism, they instead turn to familiar demons.  Having been inculcated all their lives with the belief that the United States and Israel are responsible for all that’s wrong with the world, they’re simply incapable of grasping the truth.  How long these people can continue their delusions is unknown, but something tells me that a great number of them will simply have to be written off as functionally insane while the rest of us attend to the business of fighting Islamic terrorism.   In some ways I understand this need to find more comforting answers.  There’s been many a day since 9/11 that I’ve wished this threat wasn’t real.  But it is.  At some point, all of us will have to shake off the conspiracy-theories and face that truth.