I have a new piece at Real Clear Politics, following up on Prof. Nader Hashemi’s theory, as expanded in his recent essay, of Mossad responsibility for the Rushdie stabbing. Here is the gist.
Rushdie Attack Births New Anti-Israel Conspiracy Theory
By Steven Lubet
October 01, 2022
Anti-Jewish conspiracy theories never die; they simply assume new forms and content. A surprising iteration of this phenomenon recently surfaced when a prominent university professor suggested that the life-threatening attack on the novelist Salmon Rushdie was part of an Israeli intrigue.
In an interview on the Iran Podcast, Hashemi speculated about several ways Matar might have been prompted to attack Rushdie, before opining it was “much more likely” that Matar had been “lured” into action by a “Mossad operative” posing as someone “affiliated with the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Hashemi then expounded on purportedly “corroborating evidence [of] an Israeli link.” He began with Israel’s “long history of covert activity across the Middle East, including false flag operations” such as the “Lavon Affair in Egypt in 1954.” He pointed out that “Israel has assassinated more people than any other country in the Western world,” and noted the Mossad’s many “covert action[s] against important nuclear and economic sites within Iran.”
None of Hashemi’s professed evidence – conflating covert and false flag operations, the latter having occurred almost 70 years ago – is remotely connected to the Rushdie stabbing in time, location, or modus operandi.
In fact, Hashemi’s invented story follows the format of a classic conspiracy theory, stitching together a few random facts, tying them to a fantasized plot, and insisting that the “corroborating evidence” makes logical sense.
In an earlier article, I wrote that Hashemi was no doubt a person of good will, with no ill intentions. I hope I was not wrong. To his credit, Hashemi appears truly saddened to be associated with antisemitism. On the other hand, he does not even try to understand why so many Jews were offended by his baseless speculation. Instead, he assails “orchestrated campaigns of defamation, slander, and intimidation for offering an opinion.”
Hashemi does not believe he is a conspiracist, but what other word is there for someone who imagines “orchestrated campaigns” with ulterior motives behind every reproach?
You can read the entire piece at Real Clear Politics.
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