THE CROWDED CONSPIRACY

That is a racist slur: Tam Dalyell's belief that a 'cabal' of neoconservative Jews controls Bush is gaining currency in liberal circles (Jonathan Freedland, May 7, 2003, The Guardian)

The 19th century German socialist August Bebel called anti-semitism the socialism of fools, the belief that the world can be understood by looking for the hidden hand that makes everything happen. But the real world is not like that. It's more complex, and no amount of conspiracy theories will make it easier to understand.

Tam Dalyell would have us believe that Bush stands against Yasser Arafat because the Jews made him do it - when the reality is that Bush has his own post-9/11 reasons for seeing all terrorism as an indivisible phenomenon that the US can never again indulge.

There is a wider lesson to draw from this sorry episode. In a way Dalyell is an easy case, because he presented his views so baldly. He did not completely hide behind "Zionist" or "Likudnik" euphemisms, but spoke instead about Jews. In so doing he clearly crossed the line between anti-semitism and anti-Zionism and made himself easy to condemn.

But not all such anti-Jewish feeling expresses itself so directly. A search of the BNP's own musings shows that even they - the fascists and racists of our age - do not call themselves anti-semites. They too claim merely to be anti-Zionists. Now of course anti-semitism and anti-Zionism can be neatly distinguished, and many learned minds do so all the time.

But it's worth wondering if that distinction cuts much ice at street level - where anti-Jewish incidents in Britain have gone up by 75% compared with the equivalent period last year. If Zionists are constantly accused of having dual loyalties, of wielding untold power, of pursuing a secret agenda to reshape the world, all classic charges long hurled at the Jews, then one has to wonder whether one is hearing the same racist slur now voiced by Tam Dalyell - just expressed less openly.

Here's one question we'd like answered: if George W. Bush is secretly controlled by Jews, oil companies, fundamentalist Christians, Karl Rove and his Father, are they all part of the same uber-conspiracy?

SPEAKING OF CONSPIRACIES...:
Iraqi Documents on Israel Surface on a Cultural Hunt (JUDITH MILLER, 5/07/03, NY Times)

What began today as a hunt for an ancient Jewish text at secret police headquarters here wound up unearthing a trove of Iraqi intelligence documents and maps relating to Israel as well as offers of sales of uranium and other nuclear material to Iraq.

In one huge room in the flooded basement of the building, American soldiers from MET Alpha, the "mobile exploitation team" that has been searching for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in Iraq for the past three months, found maps featuring terrorist strikes against Israel dating to 1991. Another map of Israel highlighted what the Iraqis thought were the locations at which their Scud missiles had struck in the Persian Gulf war of 1991. The strikes were designated by yellow-and-red paper flowers placed atop the pinpointed Israeli neighborhoods.

Team members floated out of the room a perfect mock-up of the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, as well as mock-ups of downtown Jerusalem and official Israeli buildings in very fine detail. They also collected a satellite picture of Dimona, Israel's nuclear complex, and a female mannequin dressed in an Israeli Air Force uniform, standing in front of a list of Israeli officers' ranks and insignia.

Of even greater interest to MET Alpha was a "top secret" intelligence memo found in a room on another floor. Written in Arabic and dated May 20, 2001, the memo from the Iraqi intelligence station chief in an African country described an offer by a "holy warrior" to sell uranium and other nuclear material. The bid was rejected, the memo states, because of the United Nations "sanctions situation." But the station chief wrote that the source was eager to provide similar help at a more convenient time.

The discoveries, which American military officers called significant but which did not by themselves offer documentary evidence of direct Iraqi links to terror attacks on Israel, were the serendipitous byproduct of one of the strangest missions ever conducted by MET Alpha.

The search began this morning when 16 soldiers from MET Alpha teamed up with members of the Iraqi National Congress, a leading opposition group headed by Ahmad Chalabi, to search for what an intelligence source had described as one of the most ancient copies of the Talmud in existence, dating from the seventh century. The Talmud is a book of oral law, with rabbinical commentaries and interpretations.

...odd that these documents happen to be tucked in a Talmud, eh? (See how easy conspiracism is?) Posted by Orrin Judd at May 7, 2003 10:34 AM