Through the Looking Looking Glass Twice

Today it seems easy to dismiss the British Foreign Office's view that the Young Turk movement was a plot by the International Jewish Conspiracy to unleash the Ottoman Empire on Britain and start the First World War. Until we remember that large sections of the Arab World and intellectuals in France seriously believe that the recent attacks on the World Trade Center in New York were masterminded by the Jews in order to provoke an attack on Islam.  Amiri Baraka, formerly LeRoi Jones, the Poet Laureate State of New Jersey wrote:

Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed
Who told 4,000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers
To stay home that day.
-- Amiri Baraka (formerly LeRoi Jones, Poet Laureate, State of New Jersey)

The French author Thierry Meyssan's book L'Effroyable Imposture, or The Horrifying Fraud, claims that the aircraft which crashed into the World Trade Center were not piloted by followers of Osama Bin Laden, but rather, were remotely controlled by sinister conspirators, definitely not Muslim. Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef ibn Abdul categorically claimed (Washington Times) that the WTC attacks were masterminded by the Jews. But the Jews, of course, did not stop there.

According to the prominent Left-wing media posting board Indymedia, the American war in Iraq was masterminded by Israel, who as everyone knows, controls America. Well may we scoff at the 100-year old British assessment that "the Oriental Jew is adept at manipulating occult forces ...".  Today the phrase has been replaced by "mind control", probably generated by strange rays emanating from dark alleys in the New York garment district.

Some people think that history is the study of past events. Barbara Tuchman, in her The March of Folly, knew better. It is the story of collective madness.