The Intellectual Hell Hole of Israel Conspiracism
Conspiracism is far from a new trend in worldwide political discourse. While there is nothing wrong with questioning official narratives in the pursuit of the truth, there is a difference between healthy skepticism and agenda-driven denial of established facts. Whether it’s to protect an ideological framing like with the anti-Zionists who deny the Gazan atrocities perpetrated three years ago, or floundering political figures who scapegoat AIPAC and seek out international incidents for clout, this issue has been plaguing public discourse related to the Middle Eastern Jews with little push back.
I witnessed this firsthand while speaking to my peers at the University of Missouri. While tabling on behalf of CAMERA at the University’s speakers circle- a unique feature of my campus where there are no restrictions on speech or activism, I was approached by a male student hounding me with a narrative that Israel was the mastermind of the September 11 terror attacks in New York City. From insurance policies to ‘secret Mossad training groups in Florida’, the student outlined to me the entire ‘plot’, conveying that Israel orchestrated the whole thing so the US would eliminate their adversaries in the region. This belief is becoming more common than one might think.
Forget Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda’s proud admission of their role. To hell with the hijackers. Definitely don’t consider Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s detailed admission. Nope, just like every other injustice in the world it seems these days, it’s Israel’s fault.
Despite being unable to answer various questions and counterpoints I raised in response to the students’ conspiracism, he refused to backtrack off of his verdict.
This kind of conspiratorial thinking is not confined to college campuses. These theories ascribe immense power to the state of Israel, a level of power so great that it often defies any sensible interpretation of reality.
Within hours of the news that roughly 60,000 Moroccans illegally entered the Spanish city, Ceuta, political personalities across the political spectrum had their minds made up that Israel enabled this invasion.
Their completely unsubstantiated theory? Well, since the current Prime Minister of Spain has become one of the most vocally anti-Israel European leaders around and Morocco established official relations with the Jewish state through the Abraham Accords, Israeli leaders somehow mass coordinated tens of thousands of military-aged men invaded by raft, foot, or by swimming to retaliate.
Even if we accept the childish premise, how exactly Israel could’ve orchestrated this? Pundits like Candace Owens and Anna Kasparian didn’t seem bothered with providing any logistical evidence, funding. Apparently there’s no need when the Jewish collective can be blamed.
What actually happened? Between longstanding Spanish/Moroccan tension over territory and a recent Spanish Supreme Court ruling dictated that migrants who illegally swam across the border to Ceuta could not be immediately deported, the low risk factor was a great enabler of this mass migration. In addition to Spain’s border policy, after word spread in Northern Morocco, border patrol was nowhere to be found. Within days, almost all of those who crossed the border returned to Morocco.
The same conspiratorial tendencies emerged again after the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was publicized. The bill, which has passed the House but not yet the Senate, amongst its over 2,000 pages, contains a few pages outlining Section 219. Simply put, Section 219, titled, “United States–Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative”, formalizes intelligence technology sharing between the two countries. Seeing that the two countries already did most of these things, Section 219 merely outlines and expands on that preexisting relationship, but it certainly does not merge the militaries, integrate troops, or create a joint command.
Though, perhaps the most watched political pundit in the country, Tucker Carlson, purposefully decided to ignore the content of Section 219, instead decrying that, “This month, unless Donald Trump stops it, our treasonous Congress is likely to merge the US military with Israel’s genocidal armed forces.” Carlson continued later on his podcast, “… the idea that the Republican Party would support a merger of US and Israeli intelligence, IDF and Pentagon is so deranged that you have to root for treason trials, for Nuremberg trials at some point.”
This episode, distributed across numerous platforms, received 2.3 million views on X alone. No accountability, no facts, just fearmongering conjecture from the deranged Carlson.
I fear I must state the obvious, since too many people are actively repeating the mistakes of the past: the belief that a secret cabal of ultra powerful and world controlling Jews transcend human capability to cause devastating events in the world to preserve Jewish power is a fiction. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion has been debunked as a genocidal lie for over a century. These conspiracy theories that replace “Jews” for the “Jewish country” are as shallow as they sound.
Criticize Israel as much as your heart desires. No sensible person is labeling that antisemitic no matter how much Carlson embarrassingly laments they are. Though, extending blame to Israel for every world problem in which Israel is just used as a front for ‘the Jews’, certainly is.
Questioning official narratives is inextricable from the foundation of our country and should be encouraged, but at some point there needs to be accountability and a loss of credibility for political pundits who refuse to ever correct the record, and influence millions of young students to adopt a blindness for truth or willingness to reassess their positions when presented with new information in the process.
