A close reading of Walt-Mearsheimer reveals that the MSM play a critical role in their “realist” perceptions. One might even argue that Walt-Measheimer’s thesis represents the best single illustration of the impact of Pallywood on our ability to perceive the world around us and make decisions based on those perceptions. Here they argue that Bin Laden is deeply moved in his hatred of the USA by our support for Israel, despite how cruel the Israelis treat the Palestinians. As those who have seen Icon of Hatred know, the footage of Muhammad al Durah played a key role in Bin Laden’s recruiting video.
As an introduction to Walt-Mearsheimer’s comments on Bin Laden, Israel and the USA, let me offer the reader some material on Osama and Al Durah from my upcoming book on millennialism:
Die in vain, my little one, Muhammad,
In vain your little age melted away
Let every leader be the ransom for your eyes
His share in the war is condemnation and accusation
Let every coward be the ransom for your eyes
From a distance of thousand miles he warns
O, boy, died by the hands of the Jews,
Don’t call upon us since we are the same as the Jews.
(A poem written by Dr. Ghazi al-Qusaybi, the Saudi ambassador to Britain and later the Saudi Minister of Education. (!) Note: The Arabic text is quoted many times on the internet, with variations (exact text of the recording ).
Perhaps inspired by Bin Laden’s call to vengeance of the “Jews,” Pakistani militants gave Al Durah’s image a central role in the first cyberspace Jihadi execution. The Daniel Pearl “execution video” announced the international Jihad of radical Islam against both Jews and journalists, and gave birth to a new genre that marks the 21st century.
Within the montage, shots of Mohammed and Jamal are given a sort of starring role: After Pearl makes his final statement in the confession portion – ‘my father is a Jew; my mother is a Jew; I am a Jew” – there is a cut to Mohammed and father huddling together. Seconds before Pearl is laid on the ground and hands begin to saw at his throat with long knives, a still shot of Jamal al-Dura clasping his dying son flashes on the screen. After Pearl’s detached head is exhibited, hanging from something that allows it to twist slowly in the air, there is a long crawl over a black screen informing the viewer that “scenes like this will be repeated” unless the United States stops supporting Israel and its “massacres of children. (Gutmann, The Other War, p. 42.)
These videos also recruit. By targeting Pearl as a Jew, the perpetrators at once fulfilled the apocalyptic hadith of killing Jews, and gave the signal for others to follow suit. Under the aegis of al Durah, the message went out that at last, the time had come.
Osama bin Laden, invoking al Durah, claimed: “It is as if Israel – and those backing it in America – have killed all the children in the world.” (Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden ed. Bruce Lawrence (London, Verso, 2005), p. 147-8.)
And after 9-11, Osama made the point in a specifically American context: “In the epitome of his arrogance and the peak of his media campaign in which he boasts of ‘enduring freedom,’ Bush must not forget the image of Mohammed al-Dura and his fellow Muslims in Palestine and Iraq. If he has forgotten, then we will not forget, God willing.”
Now let’s turn to how Walt-Mearsheimer handle the issue.
Oct 10, 2007 21:55 | Updated Oct 11, 2007 9:35
‘US support for Israel spurred 9/11′
By MATT RAND, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT
BOSTONUS support for Israel was a “major cause” of the 9-11 attacks, according to University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer and Harvard Professor Stephen Walt, who appeared at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology last week to promote their book The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy.
“A critically important issue when talking about America’s terrorism problem is the matter of how US support for Israel’s brutal treatment of the Palestinians relates to what happened on September 11,” said Mearsheimer, who played the role of attack dog, while Walt set the stage.
Notice the “brutal.” That’s Pallywood’s message.
Mearsheimer suggested that the notion of payback for injustices suffered by the Palestinians is perhaps the “most powerfully recurrent in [Osama] Bin Laden’s speeches,” who, he said, had been deeply concerned about the plight of the Palestinians since he was a young man. He said that Bin Laden’s concern had been reflected in his public statements throughout the 1990’s – “well before 9-11.” Citing the 9-11 Commission report, Mearsheimer and Walt argued that Bin Laden wanted to make sure the attackers struck Congress because it is “the most important source of support for Israel in the United States,” adding that Bin Laden twice tried to move up the dates of the attacks because of events involving Israel. Mearsheimer and Walt went on to argue that 9-11 architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experiences in the United States as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with US foreign policy favoring Israel. “Its hard to imagine more compelling evidence of the role US support for Israel played in the 9-11 attacks,” said Mearsheimer.
“In short, the present relationship between Washington and Jerusalem is helping to fuel America’s terrorism problem,” he went on to say.
This is a nice summary of the kind of thinking that gives us Eurabia in Europe: if Muslims get violent over disagreement with our foreign policy, let’s change our foreign policy so that we have a rapprochement with closer to European foreign Policy. If our allies offend people who hate us, maybe they’ll love us if we dump our allies. In fact, any serious analysis of the dynamics of honor-shame culture (which seems to escape W-M entirely) predicts that following their advice would precisely backfire.
They said that US support for Israel motivates some individuals to attack the United States and “…serves as an important recruitment tool for terrorist organizations,” according to Mearsheimer. He said that US support for Israel generates huge support for terrorists in the Arab and Islamic world.
Here’s an allusion to the recruiting tape mentioned above in which the Al Durah footage – and other Pallywood scenes – play a prominent role. Let’s try restating that with an awareness – which W-M apparently lack – of how our own foolish and incompetent MSM contribute to the hatreds of the Muslim world:
Imagine the MSM giving that thesis as much coverage as they give to the W-M thesis.
Suggesting that Israel had outlived its usefulness to the United States, Walt added that “Israel may well have been a strategic asset during the Cold War,” but that “…the Cold War is now over.” He said that America’s unconditional support for Israel in the Middle East is “one” of the reasons “we have a terrorism problem, and it makes it harder to address a variety of problems in the Middle East.”
Now we come to the heart of darkness. If anything, Israel represents the key ally in the global conflict that has replaced the Cold War. We have a terrorism problem because terrorism is the key weapon that Jihadis use in their asymmetrical warfare against the West. (And manipulating the MSM to blame the victims of terrorism – the Israelis and the West – is the other major weapon.) Israel is only the appetizer, and tossing her into the maw of hatred that Jihadis generate will do nothing but stoke the fire. The idea that we can better address the problems in the Middle East by distancing ourselves from Israel emerges from so superficial an understanding of the Middle East that one has to wonder what drives W-M’s argument.
At the same time, Walt admitted the US’s problems in the Middle East would not disappear if it had a different relationship with Israel, and that the US “does benefit from various forms of strategic cooperation.” Walt also noted that Israel’s human rights record was not “significantly better than that of the Palestinians,” adding that any reasonably fair-minded look at the history of the conflict shows that “neither side owns the moral high ground.”
Now here’s something interesting. I especially like the “reasonably fair-minded look.” So even though Israel never – even in its most desparate moments – engaged in so morally depraved a campaign as suicide terror, even though Israelis never – even in their most deparate moments – ever brainwashed their people into wanting to commit genocide against the Palestinians, even though Israel’s response to suicide bombing has been surgical strikes and a barrier that everyone in Israel didn’t want, rather than all-out retaliatory massacres, which are the norm in the Arab world whenever the power-differential allows, “neither side owns the moral high ground.” This line attests better than anything to W-M’s moral equivalence, their complete incapacity to judge and assess. Is this because they are incapable, or because the crazy discourse of what was once the far left radicals who have been delegitimizing Israel for decades, has now gone mainstream, and they can make these outlandish claims anticipating that their readers will agree.
Again, this is the function of Pallywood, especially once weaponized by al Durah.
More significantly, though, the only way W-M could possibly come to this astounding conclusion is by their exposure to NGO cum MSM Pallywood. Indeed, when we look inside W-M, we find they are impervious to the well documented bias of groups like HRW. Discussing Gerald Steinberg’s sharp criticism of HRW ’s publications during the Lebanon War, they cite approvingly Rosa Brooks’ column (a former HRW employee):
The data mean nothing to W-M. They continue to cite the wild figures coming out of Lebanon as if no criticism had emerged, as if no subsequent proof of Hizbullah’s using Lebanenes civilians as human shields, had come out, no reconsideration – by HRW! – had occurred,. They count on the ignorance of their readers.
Mearsheimer and Walt argued that Israel and the pro-Israel lobby in the United States were two of the main driving forces behind the decision to invade Iraq. “It is hard to imagine that war happening in their absence,” said Mearsheimer, who added that Israel was the only country besides Kuwait where both “the government and the majority of the population favored the war.” He said that the Israeli government pushed the Bush administration hard to make sure that it did not lose its nerve in the months before the invasion. Mearsheimer said there was “no question” that the “neo-conservatives were the main driving force behind the war, but they where supported by the main constituents in the [Israel] lobby, such as AIPAC.”
Citing a 2004 editorial, Mearsheimer said that as President Bush attempted to sell the war in Iraq “America’s most important Jewish organizations rallied as one to his defense. In statement after statement, [Jewish] community leaders stressed the need to rid the world of Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction. Concern for Israel’s safety rightfully factored into the deliberations of the main Jewish groups.”
For a dissection of this argument, see the devastating review by Leonard Fein, a prominent member of Peace Now. Among other things he points out how shoddy and flabby the book’s reasoning, in particular their recourse to editorials and their lack of any serious primary research.
What can we learn from the arguments of Walt-Mearsheimer? That Pallywood is a major psy-ops success whose impact on Western “intellectuals” produces suicidal policies. If he could, Osama would be voting Walt-Mearsheimer in 2008.
