The Blame Game

After 9/11, the idea spread amongst many different people, in different parts of the world, that Israel and/or the Jews were ultimately responsible for the terrorist attack.

In one way of thinking, more common in Arab or Muslim majority countries, this was because (so the argument went) Israel actually carried out the attack, and forewarned large numbers of American Jews to stay away from work that day.

In another way of thinking, more common in Western societies, this was because Israel's policies had provoked the attack, and America supports Israel because of the political pressure put on the American government by American Jews.

The substantial difference between the two arguments reflects different types of political discourse that tend to be more common in different parts of the world: conspiracy theory in the former, and material cause-and-effect in the latter. But in both cases, the conclusion is the same: Israel and/or the Jews were to blame, directly or indirectly, for 9/11. And while the conspiracy theories are more obviously antisemitic, the cause-and-effect argument has a similar effect, but through a more subtle and therefore insidious path: the conclusion that Israel and/or Jews are responsible for war, and terrorism, and all the related problems in the world.

While these ideas often begin with extremists - Hezbollah invented the 9/11 conspiracy theory about Jews not going to work at the Twin Towers that day - they rarely stay there, partly because of the ease with which ideas are spread by modern communications, and partly because believing in conspiracy theories about Israel and Jews is no barrier to involvement in anti-Israel campaigning in Britain today.

As today's Jewish Chronicle reports (with analysis by my colleague Mike Whine), a similar pattern is starting to develop after the terrorist attack in Oslo last week. This allegation is based on two ideas: either that Breivik was so pro-Zionist that he actually carried out the attack under orders from Israel; or that his desire to kill so many of his compatriots was a result of absorbing Zionist values. In both cases, the fact that the people at the Labour Party youth camp where he committed mass murder had been discussing Israel/Palestine a couple of days before the attack is presented as prima facie evidence.

The first way of thinking  - that Israel actually carried out the attack - is represented by Ellie Merton, chair of Waltham Forest Palestine Solidarity Campaign:

Just re-watched Hillary Clinton's statement about the Norwegian terror atrocity, and she looks 300 per cent shifty, implying she knows exactly who did it and why, and she's embarrassed about it was 'her' guys - an Israel government-sponsored operation.

[...]

As far as I can see, globally, Christian far-right white supremacists work hand in hand with Zionist fascists, since their aims are mutually inclusive.

Here, Merton is suggesting that Breivik carried out the attack with direct assistance from the Israeli government. PSC told the Jewish Chronicle that her comments "do not represent our views", but there is no indication that Merton has been disciplined in any way by the organisation, or at the very least reprimanded for her comments. PSC, it should be said, enjoy the patronage and support of several Trades Unions and regularly feature Members of Parliament on their platforms.

She is joined in that theory by Gilad Atzmon, the ex-Israeli saxophonist who now describes himself as a "proud self-hating Jew":

And indeed it is after all, pretty clear that a car bomb of such magnitude, and an operation of such sophistication is not exactly something a layman can put together with such apparent ease: it would surely take some specialist knowledge, and the question here is, who could provide such knowledge, and such a vast amount of lethal explosives?

I am not in a position at present to firmly point a finger at Israel, its agents, or its sayanim -- but assembling the information together, and considering all possibilities may suggest that Anders Behring Breivik might indeed, have been a Sabbath Goy.

Within its Judaic mundane-societal context, the Sabbath Goy is simply there to accomplish some minor tasks the Jews cannot undertake during the Sabbath. But within the Zion-ised reality we tragically enough live in, the Sabbath Goy kills for the Jewish state. He may even do it voluntarily.

Being an admirer of Israel, Behring Breivik does appear to have treated his fellow countrymen in the same way that the IDF treats Palestinians.

The second way of thinking does not allege direct Israeli involvement, but rather claims that Breivik was inspired by his acceptance of Zionist values and culture. For example, this statement by Hezbollah:

Hezbollah released on Monday a statement condemning the recent attack in Norway committed by a right-wing extremist who supports the Zionists that left at least 70 people dead as a proof of the racism of Zionist culture.

“This terrible terrorist crime is an additional proof that the culture stemming from the Zionist enemy, or ideas that support it, is deeply tied to the racism of its leadership,” a statement released by the party said.

Or this, from Alan Hart:

There are two things we know for sure.

One is that Breivik is fanatically anti-Islam and pro-Zionism.

The other is that Zionism’s propaganda machine has been set to work at full speed, day and night, eight days and nights a week, to demonize, discredit and destroy all who are calling and campaigning for Israel to be boycotted.

From the obscenity of the Nazi holocaust to the present, Zionism’s success in selling its propaganda lies as truth is the reason why the search for peace based on an acceptable amount of justice for the Palestinians has been, and remains, a mission impossible.

I describe the Israel-Palestine conflict as the cancer at the heart of international affairs which threatens to consume us all. It’s bad enough that Zionist propaganda has prevented a cure for it, but if now that same propaganda is inspiring Europeans in Europe to slaughter their own, the future is very, very frightening.

Alan Hart was a guest speaker for the LSE Islamic Society in March this year.

There are other examples. Two outlets you can always rely on to blame 'Zionism' for anything bad in the world are MPACUK and Press TV.

MPACUK published an article about the terrorist attack in Norway (headlined "Christian-Zionist Terrorism Reaches Norway"), three quarters of which consisted of a list of alleged Israeli crimes against Palestinians.

Press TV published two conspiracy pieces, both of which argued that Breivik could not have carried out the attack on his own and that whoever did it, was motivated by support for Zionism or opposition to the Palestinians. George Galloway remains a presenter on Press TV.

Then there are others who hedge their bets, endorsing one idea one minute and the other possibility the next. For example, BNP leader and MEP Nick Griffin, on his twitter feed. First of all, on the day after the attack, he tweeted:

The Oslo mass murderer is not a nationalist but a free market liberal, anti-Muslim Zionist.

Then the following day, he suggested (over the course of four tweets) that actually the attack may have been a conspiracy by "our Masters":

Oslo killer was influenced by neo-con Clash of Civilisations civic nationalism, not by our ideology. It looks and feels like a mirror image of al qaida, a mentality which rails against its own more than the supposed enemy. As likely to be part of Strategy of Tension by our Masters than genuine reaction to Islamic threat. All his Temple of Solomon nonsense and Zionist ramblings show he's not from our ranks at all.

As an aside, Nick Griffin's supposed newly-found support for Israel (much welcomed by some of Israel's opponents on the anti-Zionist left) does not seem to have lasted very long.

Griffin's reference to a "Strategy of Tension" revives an idea not heard very often nowadays, but common in parts of the conspiracy-minded far right in the 1980s and 1990s: that governments would encourage far right and far left to attack each other, to justify an extension of their authoritarian powers throughout society. It was heard mostly in relation to extremist terrorism in Italy, the site of Europe's worst case of far right terrorism since WW2, when a fascist terrorist group called the Armed Revolutionary Nuclei (NAR) bombed Bologna railway station in 1980, killing 85 people. One member of NAR, Roberto Fiore, fled to Britain after the bombing, and remained here while an Italian court convicted him in absentia for membership of NAR (although not for involvement in Bologna) and sentenced him to ten years in prison. Fiore returned to Italy in 1999, after his conviction was 'timed out' under a statute of limitations, and continued his political career.

It is remarkable, then, that Griffin chose to address Europe's latest case of far right terrorism by publishing on the BNP website an article by Fiore, which develops Griffin's conspiracy theory even further. Fiore writes:

Who profits? Who gains from this?

Who benefits from the anti-Western proclamations of Al Qaeda, which occur regularly every time the American and Zionist regimes are in crisis? Certainly, the Zionist neo-Conservatives that wish for a Civilization clash in which while two dispute, a third enjoys.

Bin Laden was a CIA man, and surely it will be discovered that the man who carried out the attack in Oslo was not acting alone.

Somebody, finally, will ask: why Norway?

In order to answer the question, we keep in mind the words of Michael Ledeen, a man of the CIA and of Mossad with strong links to the events of Bologna, a short time before the attack of March 11th against the railway station in Madrid: “There cannot be an oasis of tranquillity in Europe, the Europeans would not be able to avoid a war, because in their case war will inevitably come.”