ABSTRACT
Just as Americans have created a stereotype of Islamic fundamentalism, so too have Islamists created a parallel stereotype of a “crusader-Zionist conspiracy” bent on subjugating Muslims and eradicating Islam. Islamists and secular Muslims alike generally agree that US foreign policy has been skewed in favor of Israel at least since the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, when Israel gained control over the West Bank and Gaza Strip. As Yvonne Haddad cogently conveys in the following essay, Islamism is a reaction to Zionism, which is perceived as Israeli aggression aimed at enthralling Palestinians and defying United Nations resolutions, with the aid of US intervention at the United Nations. Islamists see that the West maintains a clear double standard that supports Jews’ having a Jewish state but demonizes Muslims who want an Islamic state and that immediately and forcefully punishes Iraq for its trespasses while silently ignoring Israel’s transgressions over the more than forty years since the 1967 war. More than fifteen Arab nations for a time established some sort of relationship with Israel after the 1993 Oslo agreement, Haddad points out, but this only led to increased arrogance on the part of the Israeli government, which continues to flout the many UN resolutions on the Palestinian-Israeli issue, including especially the one that stipulates the existence of a Palestinian state. Islamists conclude that Israel doesn’t truly want peace but only wants the pacification of Palestinians and the legalization of its territorial acquisitions. So convinced are Islamists that US policy is shaped by those with Jewish interests at heart that even President George W. Bush’s war on terror in response to the 9/11 attacks on US soil is perceived, despite assurances to the contrary, as a war on Islam—in effect continuing a “thousand-year” crusade of Christian fanaticism and Western imperialism against Muslims.
