A couple of posts down, I excoriate the new online book "Samson Blinded," purportedly written by an anonymous Israeli hardliner. The text advocates that Israel follow an explicitly fascistic and imperialist course. Naturally, I condemned the author -- who has now taken on a new pen name: Obadiah Shoher.
Over the past few hours, I've come across a few indicators that the whole thing may be one of the most massive hoaxes ever foisted on the public. For one thing, advertisements for the book have started popping up all over usenet. Although the writing style of the ads resembles that of "Shoher," these posts are attributed to a previously unknown gentleman named Daniel Simkin -- who has a Russian mailing address.
Does that sound right to you? Why would a hard-line "Israel-ueber-alles" type be spreading the word from Russia?
I know something of the history of political hoaxes, and I've never seen something as elaborate as this. If this thing is a fake designed to make Israel look bad (as if Ariel Sharon weren't doing a sufficient job on his own!), then we may not be dealing with the work of a lone crank. Garden variety anti-Semites aren't this clever; when they create a bogus document, the "tells" are usually pretty obvious. Anyone else sense the presence of spooks...?
5 comments:
hm.
cannot help, given your proximal juxtaposition here, but wonder of any possible connection between the hoax and scheer's departure.....
Spooks or not, it definitely looks like a hoax, though it's a fairly accurate description of Likud foreign policy and strategic thinking (omitting, of course, some of the more outrageous proposals). And much of it could have been taken from Cheney's 1992 defense report which called for quashing all challenges to American hegemony (leaked to the NYT, then instantly disavowed, later to emerge again in marginally more polite language as the "Bush doctrine").
In that sense, the "book" (or advertisements for same) is probably a parody -- intended to reveal the sort of thing which people in government don't dare admit to, but which drives their strategic thinking.
But I doubt it's spooks -- at least not the official kind.
I'll have more to say soon, but for now let me note that I've never seen a hoax quite like this. And I consider myself pretty well-versed when it comes to the topic of bogus political texts. (I once half-completed a book on ths subject -- one of these days, I should post those chapters somewhere on the net.)
In my experience, the anti-Semite trying to speak in the voice of a Jew ALWAYS gives away the game. At some point, the forger will always go too far. The Protocols are a perfect example: No-one in his right mind would really believe that a bunch of Jews would get to gether and cackle with sadistic glee about the Importance of Being Evil.
But there is no obvious "tell" in this text. It is written from the standpoint of the the most reactionary person in all Israel, and the writer never breaks character.
Besides -- other hoaxes of this sort are simply much SHORTER. Perhaps you know of a hoax of comparable length; I don't. Longish hoaxes, such as the Protocols, are filled out with copious "borrowings" from previous texts. A sustained orginal compostion of this sort is very unusual in the history of forgery. A skilled writer might concoct such an elaborate fake IF he were well paid. But I see no money changing hands here.
So right now, I'm thinking spooks. Either spooks, or it's real.
God only knows why any intelligence operative would write a text designed to prod the world toward war.
It's not clear that the book actually exists, but having read the "author's" own comments now, it's hard to see this one as a "Protocols" like-venture. "He" (or is it "it" or "they") clearly anticipates the criticisms of his Kissingerian approach, and unashamedly argues for a divorce between conventional morality and public policy. In this, of course, he's in step with the Bush administration, differing only in his [apparent] honesty.
Frankly, it looks real to me, whatever "real" means in this context. I suspect it's someone who believes these things, rather than a rogue attempt to discredit Israel or Jews, if only because much of this thinking already *is* Israeli policy. Besides, nothing this guy could come up with could increase the hatred already felt towards Israel in the Arab world, and it's not clear that he'd have enough influence to do so, in any case. For that matter, who's his target audience, if the idea is to create hatred of Jews? Liberals here and in Europe will dismiss him as an isolated nutcase, and the evangelical crowd is already in love with the worst of Israeli policies, so as to accelerate the incineration of the Jews and other heathens.
The simplest explanation is that someone believes these things. And no surprise there. Most governments do.
hi guys,
I've come by your thread through Google search.
I live in Moscow and volunteer for Shoher, as are many other people.
The book is not a hoax in the sense of the Protocols of the elders of Zion. It is an honest view, and I like it. In my opinion, this is the best right-wing stuff since Kahane.
I don't think Shoher is anywhere close to Likud. Perhaps to pre-1977 Begin who promised to never return the land.
I don't see Shoher as "most reactionary person in Israel." For one, he rejects any historical right of the Jews to the land and many similar myths. We receive a flood of condemnations from Orthodox Jews and silly hard-liners.
Shoher indeed suggests war - but short and efficient, not a protracted war Israel is dragging for decades by now.
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