Charles Paul Freund on the ISIS as Zionist Enterprise Conspiracy Theories
Now here's something depressingly predictable, writes Charles Paul Freund, a meme in the Middle Eastern media that ISIS is the creation of Israeli intelligence. More, really: that ISIS isn't merely an Israeli project intended to disgrace the Muslims, but something essentially Jewish, something actually—to quote one of our exhibits—"Talmudic." "ISIS as a Zionist Enterprise" is only one of numerous competing memes in the region's media concerning this ongoing disaster, but the lure of a Great Conspiracy as an all-purpose explanation remains irresistible to many in the region; it strikes a popular chord because it seems to explain everything in terms of one party that is satanically guileful, while exonerating everybody else except the party that is always guilty anyway.