"Pop quiz—What does more to galvanize radical anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world: (a) Israeli settlements on the West Bank; or (b) a Lady Gaga music video?"
Thus reads the first sentence of Bret Stephens’ myopic Wall Street Journal opinion piece*.
"I’m sure most of you are thinking “a” but ah, wait…”If your answer is (b) it means you probably have a grasp of the historical roots of modern jihadism. If, however, you answered (a), then congratulations: You are perfectly in synch with the new Beltway conventional wisdom, now jointly defined by Pat Buchanan and his strange bedfellows within the Obama administration.”
Ah yes, I see where this is going. A thinly veiled statement on how Arabs hated America long before Israel occupied Palestine, based on writings by Sayyid Qutb on American decadence in 1951. The piece claims, of course, that these writings occurred “after” the occupation of Palestine, making the impossible case that Palestine wasn’t at all occupied until 1967, using the “only crazies believe that” to diminish the fact that Palestinian displacement is a fact. Regardless of whether or not the establishment of Israel was just, it is academically dishonest to claim that the creation of Israel in 1948 didn’t at all affect, hurt, or anger Palestinians."
Kabobfest
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