NYT Does Not Challenge Bedrock Convictions Against Jews

"9/11 Rumors That Harden Into Conventional Wisdom"
By Michael Slackman, A16
Tuesday, September 9, 2008

New York Times reporter Michael Slackman takes readers out into the Arab street, into the cafe in Riyadh and the mall in Dubai, to document the rumors-turned-conventional wisdom that 9/11 was a plot by the U.S. and Israel to defame Arabs and Muslims. Slackman leads readers to believe that although Arab views of 9/11 are irrational, they may very well come from a rational place -- the view that our government's policies unfairly favor Israel.

THE IRRATIONAL VIEW

Slackman of course has no problem exposing how thoughtless is some of this conventional wisdom. Slackman reports that "first among these (9/11 rumors) is that Jews did not go to work at the World Trade Center on that day. Asked how Jews might have been notified to stay home, or how they kept it a secret from co-workers, people here wave off the questions because they clash with their bedrock conviction that Jews are behind many of their troubles and that Western Jews will go to any length to protect Israel."

So there are many Arabs refusing to let logic get in the way of their convictions. But what of these convictions? Do they stem from the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 or something else? Slackman reports that Arabs see the Iraq War as confirming the plot against them -- whereby 9/11 was used as a pretext. Later Slackman gets to what they feel truly defines this plot.


THE RATIONAL PLACE

Arabs, Slackman tells us, do not see the conspiracy against them beginning with the Iraq War. It was something much older that fused their view of Jews "behind many of their troubles". The "broad view here is that even before Sept. 11, the United States was not a fair broker in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and that it then capitalized on the attacks to buttress Israel and undermine the Muslim Arab world." Americans might better understand the region, Slackman writes, if they "simply listen to what people are saying about this -- and try to understand why -- rather than taking offense." (emphasis mine)

Slackman makes a central point. We need to try to understand why. Yet Slackman seems too disinterested or unknowing to get into it. Instead of only challenging the Arab street on the logistics of the Jews staying home theory, Slackman could have also explored the roots of what he calls the Arabs' "bedrock conviction" about Jews. If this bedrock conviction is from Palestinian plight, what specific US policy shift would the Arab street like to see? After all, aren't we concerned with exploring this dangerous conviction and changing it?

The uncomfortable truth is doubly bad: the official Western solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict -- a two-state solution -- is at odds with most Arabs. This at odds with the NYT's unofficial policy of avoidance on the issue.

It is uncontroversial that the Arab street sees a two-state solution as Western-imposed and unfair. Regardless of Palestinian independence, on whatever amount of land, a two-state solution leaves in tact a Jewish state -- long considered a Western colonial project -- in the Muslim Middle East. Thus it is Israel's existence -- and continued prosperity -- that is seen as the root problem. Nothing less than an Arab-Muslim controlled territory between the river and the sea will be acceptable. Whether or not one labels this position reasonable, it is overwhelmingly mainstraim. It matters little that some Arab leaders publicly announce their support for two-state plans. Hearing their other comments and demands, it is known they say it with a wink. The Arab street knows they are bought. As Slackman quoted a Cairo store owner, "Mubarak says whatever the Americans want him to say, and he's lying for them."

In these interviews, Slackman either didn't mine for, or report, anything meaningful about what Arabs consider fair and acceptable as a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, which is the obvious backbone of his article.

A healthy skepticism, according to Slackman, is what can further explain Arabs' disturbing conspiracy theories. They are a "reflection of how (Arabs) view government leaders," explains Slackman. "Not just in Washington, but...throughout the Middle East. They do not believe them. The state-owned media are also distrusted. Therefore, they think that if the government is insisting that bin Laden was behind it, he must not have been." For informed readers, this is an obvious contradiction.

Are Arab governments insisting that bin Laden was behind 9/11?

As much as they need to. At the same time, Arab state-owned media are today's leading proprietors of unmasking for their public Zionist conspiracies, the most popular being 9/11 as a Mossad operation. Any observor of Arab media knows Israel is whole-heartedly blamed for the Arab-Israeli conflict and Jews are often depicted as demonic schemers who defame Muslims. These depictions are not only sanctioned by the state, they're produced by it.

Would Slackman's interviewees distrust the above ideas because they came from state-owned media? It is in fact likely the rumors Slackman's interviewees repeated to him were ones they picked up because of state-run media, not despite it. As one Cairo man said in reference to Jews not going to work on 9/11, "I saw it on TV." He could've been watching a privately-owned station, but likely not.

LOOKING TO THE PAST

In the recent PBS documentary, "Anti-Semitism in the 21st Century," Middle East scholar Bernard Lewis theorizes on the impact Jews and Israel have had on the collective and historical consciousness of millions of Arabs:

You can imagine the impact when these people defeat five armies and do it again and again and again. Now comes the anti-Semite who offers them an explanation for this: it wasn't just half a million Jews. You're dealing with a cosmic evil power, which controls a large part of the world and is seeking to extend its control to the rest. This is soothing.

The facts, and common sense, seem to bear this out. In the years following Israel's independence, the Protocols of Zion grew in popularity throughout the Middle East and Muslim world. Conspiracy theories like the Protocols served as an explanation for the otherwise unfathomable: how Jews -- historically inferior -- could now rule part of the Middle East. It helped solidify in the minds of millions that Jews weren't simply adversaries, but evil and out to get them. Today's conspiracy theory that 9/11 was the work of Israel and the U.S. is borrowed from this view.

Instead of digging deeper into the history of the Arab Middle East, especially Israel's impact on people's psyches, Michael Slackman lazily repeats the trite and ostensibly nuanced line that it is primarily the last seven years of US foreign policy which leads to Arab 9/11 conspiracy theories.

No matter how unjust and illegal reasonable people and respected media view the war in Iraq, that alone is insufficient in explaining Arab views of Israel, Zionism and Jews. With such a sensitive and important topic, the New York Times, as the paper of record, must go deeper.