Kenneth R. Timmerman has written an important book, titled Preachers of Hate: Islam and the War on America. Timmerman says, at the beginning of his book, that Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center asked him to interview Islamic clerics during a trip to the Middle East. Rabbi Cooper wanted to know if Islam's spiritual leaders credited The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a notorious anti-Jewish forgery. "I thought he was joking," explained Timmerman, who made inquiries in Syria, Jordon and Gaza. "Not only did every one of the people I asked believe in the anti-Semitic lies put forward in the Protocols; some offered to pull out their own copy just to show me that it was real. None questioned the authenticity of the Protocols, which claimed to be the actual minutes of conspiratorial meetings of Jewish leaders."
The significance of this revelation cannot be underestimated. Those who argue that the Arab world is capable of making peace with Israel, that the Arabs can follow a rational political course toward free markets and democracy, have to explain how this is possible given the irrationality of basic Arab attitudes. To believe in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is to predicate your politics on the same kind of hatred that animated Adolf Hitler. It is no small thing for Islam's clergy to credit a notorious fabrication that depicts Jews as devilish masterminds of evil, committed to murder, larceny and global dominance. Those who believe such lies, who credit a bogus conspiracy theory, are animated by political insanity. What Timmerman has discovered, indirectly, is that President Bush's "roadmap to peace" is as fictional as the Yellow Brick Road. The Arabs are in the grip of a poisonous delusion that must lead to death and destruction because hatred of this kind always leads to death and destruction - without exception. Anti-Jewish hatred is the curriculum of Arab clerics, Arab schools and Arab media. Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center told Timmerman, "that despite the passage of time, the old lies used by Hitler, Goebbels, and Streicher still have currency in our world and are not only mouthed by the uninformed and uneducated but have the solid support of important segments of the intelligentsia in the Islamic world."
Timmerman claims that the corollary of Jew hatred today is America hatred. "When this hateful [anti-Jewish] fantasy is turned against America, 'world Jewry' is replaced by 'imperialism' and 'globalization' as the malign forces threatening a society that is profoundly insecure and feels under siege because it is incapable of adapting to the modern world." Conspiracy theories effectively exploit the resentments of those who feel inferior. The Arab inferiority complex is tied to past defeats in wars with Israel and by the realities of American power. The need to blame Israel and America for basic problems is strong, and beyond the reach of reason. Here we find the raw material of ambitious Islamic demagogues who seek to build a foundation for the establishment of new totalitarian structures dedicated to total war. The terrorist campaign to bring down Israel and America is based on a wish-fantasy deeply rooted in a satisfying but dishonest retelling of recent history. This retelling is now embedded in the Arab psyche and cannot be corrected by rational discussion. A cult of Islamic violence, cradling a thousand grievances, cries out for revenge. Israel is the little Satan in this catechism of hate. America is the Great Satan.
Timmerman is right to say that hatred of Israel, hatred of the Jews, goes hand in hand with hatred of the United States. Jew-haters often refer to America as a Jewish-dominated entity. Therefore, hatred of Israel and hatred of America is part of the same system of insane hatred. The fact that Arab countries consistently vote against the United States in the United Nations General Assembly 80 to 90 percent of the time, while Israel votes with the United States 89 percent of the time, helps to illustrate the point. By this measurement, Israel is America's most faithful ally - more faithful than any European country. In fact, between October 2003 and mid-April 2004, the United Kingdom voted against the United States (in the General Assembly) nearly four times as often as Israel. Those who believe in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion will cite this as proof that America and Israel are parties to the same evil conspiracy. In reality, however, a common enemy makes for a common cause. America and Israel are allies because they share the same set of enemies - Iran, Syria, Islamic extremism and the Marxist-Leninist Palestinian leader (Arafat). This statement may seem incorrect to many Americans, including government leaders; but confusion over the proper designation of friends and enemies is built in to present-day American politics. Such is intrinsic to latter-day liberalism.
Osama bin Laden did not come out of nowhere. He emerged out of Islam. He emerged from the Arab cultural milieu. Let us recall Osama bin Laden's declaration of war on America: "The ruling to kill Americans and their allies - civilians and military - is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it.... We - with God's help - call on every Muslim ... to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it."
How many Muslims privately agree with this statement? Timmerman argues that more Muslims sympathize with this statement than is understood in the United States. After 9/11 there was a spontaneous Arab outburst of approval for al Qaeda's attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. This outburst was quickly papered-over by official backtracking. Timmerman documents this approval as he documents an insane hatred against Jews that draws support from the spiritual center of Arab culture, and from the governments of the Arab world. Until the Hitlerian lies pronounced and repeated by Arab clergy and schools is combated within the Arab World itself, there can be no peace in the Middle East. The hatred will only intensify as thousands flock to al Qaeda's banner.
