ROBERT WISTRICH 33
underprivileged, and impoverished masses. They have condemned the
"anonymous powers" of globalization and the plutocratic West (sym–
bolized by America) as fiercely as they ever did Soviet Communism.
"Jewish" New York as much as the Zionist State of Israel is to them an
incarnation of capitalist evil just as Wall Street embodied the General
Headquarters of the mythical State of Judah to the Nazis and other fas–
cist true believers.
The cataclysm of the Manhattan massacre is in fact far more than just
another example of international terrorism. The symbolism of the burn–
ing towers announced a new kind of worldwide jihad. It was a dramatic
fanfare for the Islamic fascism of the twenty-first century, whose perpe–
trators are bent on total confrontation, on the either/or politics of vic–
tory or death, on the Manichean polarization between East and West,
and on the destruction of what they call "Jewish-Crusader" civilization.
This Middle Eastern radicalism is a distinctly modern movement
though it also has indigenous Islamic roots. The conspiracy theory at its
heart which links plutocratic capitalism, international freemasonry,
Zionism, and Marxist Communism is almost identical with the mythical
structure of Nazi anti -Semitism. For contemporary jihadists, a
"Judaized" America and Israel, together with heretical, secular Muslim
regimes are the godless spearhead of these dark occult forces that seek to
destroy Islam and undermine the cultural identity of Muslim believers.
Israel in this cultural context is in a particularly exposed position–
perceived both as occupying sacred and inalienable Muslim territory
and as a Western implant in the Dar ai-Sa laam (House of Peace). Its vul–
nerability has been further underlined by the willingness of many in the
West to believe that the new Muslim terrorism
it
La
bin Laden is a result
of Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.
In
the twisted Orwellian polit–
ical morality of our own times, Yasser Arafat-the godfather of Middle
Eastern terrorism-is internationally feted while the Jewish State is
warned to keep quiet where it is not actually blamed for the crimes of
its enemies. Similarly the double game of Saudi Arabia is deliberately
obfuscated, along with its undeniable heavy responsibility in spawning
the bin Ladens and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Bin Laden and those who support him do at least have the virtue of
straightforwardness . They are not open to bargaining or compromise.
For Muslim radicals, Israel's willingness to make territorial and politi–
cal concessions is irrelevant. A Palestinian state will never satisfy them.
The West unfortunately prefers not to relate to such unpalatable facts.
Something not so dissimilar happened sixty years ago when Western
democracies preferred to minimize the Nazi war against the Jews, for
