Our old pal Raymond Ibrahim works from the stories we listed here and others like them to explore Islamic conspiracy paranoia. “Bewitched Animals and the Muslim Media,” by Raymond Ibrahim in Hudson New York (via RaymondIbrahim.com), January 26:
Because conspiracy theories emanating from the Muslim world are nothing new–a decade ago, Israel was accused of perpetrating the strikes of 9/11, today it is accused of perpetrating the bombings of a Coptic church–they tend to be dismissed in the West.
A close examination of these theories, however, reveals pathological trends that need to be acknowledged–especially by Western leaders who stubbornly interact with the Muslim world under the assumption that all Muslims “think just like us.”
Consider, for starters, those conspiracy theories dealing with subversive animals:
- “Iranians arrest fourteen squirrels for spying“: According to Iranian state-sponsored news agency IRNA, “Intelligence operatives have arrested 14 squirrels within Iran’s borders. The squirrels were carrying spy gear of foreign agencies, and were stopped before they could act, thanks to the alertness of our intelligence services.” (Iran has also arrested “spying pigeons” accused of working for Israel.)
- Israel unleashes rats and pigs against Jerusalem Arabs: According to the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, Wafa, Israel is “using wild pigs to drive Palestinians out of their homes” and “Rats have become an Israeli weapon to displace and expel Arab residents of the occupied Old City of Jerusalem.”
- “Israel responsible for fatal shark attack and lethal jellyfish in Red Sea“: According to South Sinai Governor Mohamed Abdel, “Mossad throwing the deadly shark (in the sea) to hit tourism in Egypt is not out of the question, but it needs time to confirm.”
- Saudi Arabia “arrests” a vulture as part of a “Zionist plot”: According to a BBC report, the vulture appears to have been tagged by Tel Aviv University researchers studying migration patterns; even so, “the bird could meet a horrible punishment in the notoriously severe Saudi justice system.”
As the reader mulls over the plausibility of these charges, here is the latest example, from just last month. According to released Gitmo inmate Walid Muhammad Hajj, the Jews at the base cast “spells” on the Muslim inmates–including through the use of bewitched birds and a phantom feline that tried to sodomize Walid:
The most common method to wear down the brothers [Muslim inmates] was witchcraft…. There were, of course, Jews among the [staff of] the Guantanamo Base, and they would set traps for the guys…. I remembered an incident with a guy who sat next to me in the morning. When they brought the milk, he began to urinate into the milk. I said to him: “Why are you urinating in the milk?” That’s when we knew that he was under a spell. After he had recovered a little, after we read Koranic verses to him, he said to me: “The birds on the barbed wire would talk to me, and tell me to urinate in the milk”…. Once, when I was sleeping–on the floor, not on a bed–I suddenly felt that a cat was trying to penetrate me. It tried to penetrate me again and again. I recited the kursi verse again and again [Koran 2:255] until the cat left….