Mock The Conspiracy Theorists

That massacre of the Christians in Iraq? The Jews did it. Oh, and all the rest of it, too. All of the IEDs, mosque bombings, incessant attacks making life hell in Iraq - they're the work of Mossad agents. They couldn't be caused by Al Queda or its allies, especially since Al Queda doesn't exist (and therefore, every other freelance jihadist group out there must be made up, too). This sick conspiracy theory is what is published in a slick website called Intifada. Voice of Palestine.

Here is what this loony-tunes writer has to say:

The bloody travesty of humanity that occurred on October 31st, 2010 which left 58 Iraqis dead in the Sayedat al-Najat Cathedral in Baghdad (4) was not the work of Al-Qaeda. The gunmen didn’t belong to Islamic State of Iraq. The homicidal shooters weren’t even Iraqi. The best way to honor the victims of senseless violence is to expose the truth of the attack. And the truth is, this massacre has Zionist fingerprints all over its blood-drenched structure.

It gets better (or worse):

As is the case with every bombing, kidnaping, robbery, rape, assault and murder in occupied Iraq, not a single suspect was taken into custody by the malicious Western forces of the US and UK, nor the puppet forces of the disgraceful Iraqi regime. All of the blasts in Karada (as well as everywhere else in Iraq) were the products of IEDs and car bombs. The Zionist media propagates a ridiculous theory that the car bombs are the work of ‘Islamic militant’ suicide bombers, and that the IEDs are explosives made from scratch by the same militants. This is an insult to anyone with a functioning brain. The sophisticated and destructive force of an IED, as well as the meticulousness and strategic placing of car bombs throughout Iraq, especially in Karada, can only be the work of one group in the world: the Mossad (23).

The Propagandist doesn't bother to point out every single bizarro pro-jihadist, anti-Semitic website on the Internet. We're just not that masochistic. But this is a useful example of a larger phenomenon that makes brokering peace between Islamic states and Western ones, or dealing with Islamist terror, state-sanctioned or otherwise, so much more difficult. A broad swathe of humanity throughout the Islamic world, particularly their political leaders and intellectual class, believes in blood-curdling fairy tales. And they project the worst aspects of Islamism's brutalities upon its victims.

Let's explore the likely motive of the writer and publisher of the article, The Baghdad Cathedral Massacre: Zionist Fingerprints All Over. The point of it was to paint Zionists (read: Jews) and NATO forces (read: Americans and other Infidels) as vampiric agents of chaos who love nothing more than destruction for destruction's sake (so long as it takes place in Islamic lands, of course).

This is actually a projection of the jihadist mindset in reverse. Jihadists would love to see such destruction take place, even on a nuclear level, in the West. The thing is, right now they're focused on the jihad at home - until the Middle East is free of Christians, Jews and any other ethnic minority group, the bloodletting will not stop. They will continue to try to attack the Far Enemy when they've got some bombs to spare, of course.

Anyway, what was the point of the article? Well, if the Zionists and their Western stooges are so awful, you obviously can't have peace with them. Who wants to be best friends with a vampire? Obviously, "resistance" is the only way. So you've got the rationalization for unending war, whether on the Gaza-Israel border, Afghanistan or the boroughs of New York City.

These conspiracies are taken for granted among the elites in Iran, Syria, Jordan and elsewhere. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is famous for lines about the 9/11 attacks like that "some segments within the U.S. government orchestrated the attack to reverse the declining American economy, and its grips on the Middle East, in order to save the Zionist regime."

Hezbollah blames Zionist agents for the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri - though in this case, it may not be so much a delusional conspiracy theory as a purposeful effort to frame others for their own (and Syrian and Iranian backers') role in the murder. Even worse, Western media is helping hide the facts of the matter. (The BBC is deep-sixing a report on Haririr's assasination which was expected to implicate Hezbollah. So our journalistic standards are now dictated by genocidal terrorist organizations working toward a global Islamic Caliphate. Perfect.)

When it comes ot ordinary citizens of the Islamic world, great numbers of them seem to be ignoring basic junior high biology instruction in believing Jews to be the progeny of apes and pigs. Anti-Semitism is mixed in with international conspiracy theories inspired by the libelous Protocols of the Elders of Zion (a consistent bestseller in the Arab world, along with Mein Kampf).

These conspiracy theories and bloody fantasies serve aggression and intransigence by thuggish regimes and facilitate violence by non-state actors from Waziristan to Gaza and Berlin to Manhattan. The mistake of critics of these conspiracy theories has been two-fold: deconstructing them or ignoring them.

Trying to deconstruct a conspiracy theory such as that Mossad planned the 9/11 attacks only lends legitimacy to those irrational actors who have no proof for their own claims yet demand 100 percent-verifiable evidence from those who criticize them. One cannot deconstruct a fantasy about a leprauchan, unicorn or in this case, Jews who supposedly duped a bunch of peace-loving Muslims into flying planes into buildings.

The other mistake has been to ignore the conspiracy theories. But that's what we've been doing all along, at least until organizations like MEMRI started systematically publicizing these blood-curdling fantasies. We've only recently stopped ignoring this deluge of toxic sludge. In the meantime, it's gotten so bad that we can't even keep track of it all.

So we need to call the perpetrators of these lies and fantasies out.

When we hear these sorts of conspiracy theories among work colleagues, neighbors or party-goers, we must go on the attack: Mock them. Discredit them. Call them idiots. Ask them whether they also believe in the Tooth Fairy, or if they think that Harry Potter is a documentary.

Likewise, our politicians ought to be more aggressive in public forums where these statements are made. When Ahmadinejad or another thug make ridiculous and offensive claims at the United Nations, it is within our diplomats' rights to call them out on it in undiplomatic language: "You are one dumb son of a bitch," the American representative begins in this scenario. "Not just because you're saying stuff that's totally made up and nonsensical. But because you think we're going to believe it. And that's pretty much all I have to say to you. You can tell that to your Supreme Leader. Jackass."

Jonathon Narvey is the Editor of The Propagandist