Rural Ruminations

  Barely a week into what is becoming Islam-wide rioting against America, we have learned that the authors of the film that started the troubles are: Egyptian Coptic Christians, fundamentalist American Christians, an Israeli-American, assorted Israelis, fundamentalist Muslim terrorists and God knows what else. The fact remains that we have no idea of the true origins of this provocative film. Any of the purported authors could be guilty. Any real author could be well hidden behind a wall of obfuscation.

Yet we are faced with the issue of increasing attacks on our embassies in the Muslim world. Worst of all, we have seen the deaths of our ambassador and three other staff members in Libya. To understand what has happened, we need to identify the results of the event and determine who gains from it.

We have a dead American ambassador, an initially unrepentant Egyptian leader, ambivalent Libyan and Yemeni leadership and wildly anti-American mobs throughout the region. Who gains from that?

The United States, despite the periodic resistance of both Palestinian and Israeli leaders, has consistently sought a peaceful, two-state solution to the now more than 60-year-old struggle over Palestine. We have almost always been castigated by Arabs for our positions, however, only in the recent past, under Israel’s Likud leadership, have we seen the Israelis ramp up their rhetoric and their pressure on the U.S. government. Most recently, this has peaked over the reluctance of the Obama administration to succumb to Israeli pressure to join in an attack on Iran.

And this has not been a problem for the Likud only in America, where the vast majority of Americans have no interest in a further military involvement in the Middle East. It is also a problem in Israel, where important past and present Israeli leaders have shown no interest in or seen no reason for attacking Iran, a view shared by a healthy portion of the Israeli Jewish population.

The attacks in Egypt and Libya were provoked by a nasty amateur film portraying Muhammad in a most incredibly unfavorable light. Media outlets reported that a man calling himself Sam Bacile claimed he was the film’s director and producer, that he was an Israeli American real estate developer and that 100 Jewish businessmen had backed the venture.

The results of the showing of that film, which was translated into Arabic for local television, were riots and death. Who openly promotes that? Muslim fundamentalists who seek to stay in permanent conflict with America.

Who can benefit from that is a far more complicated matter. Clearly, Muslim fundamentalists benefit, but so do those Israelis who have struggled against Palestinian interests and for American support for an attack on Iran. Anything they can do to turn America against Palestine, against Arabs and Muslims in general, and against a two-state solution, as well as toward stronger support of their causes is, by definition, a good thing. In that context, a Muslim attack on U.S. interests abroad might be just the thing to move U.S. public opinion further toward the more extreme Israeli positions that we have so far managed to avoid, such as a military attack on Iran.

It is painfully clear that there are groups of people in the Arab world that are eager to commit violence against American interests. The provocative and negative actions of anti-Muslim individuals and groups here in America play right into their hands. Such Americans, whether they commit spontaneous acts or are motivated and guided by foreign influence, can precipitate anti-American violence at will through their anti-Muslim provocations. This simply creates more anti-Muslim Americans, which happens to be a good thing in the eyes of not only fundamentalist Muslims, but the Likud as well.

The frightening fact is that anyone who wishes to enrage the “Arab street” can do so with ease and great effect. That fact remains a thorn in the side of any person, group or country that would like to see peace and quiet in the area. This will always be a potential trigger for trouble, a trigger that can be directly and openly pulled or that can hide and obfuscate the identity and motives of the hunter.