by Mitchell Bard
The film, Obsession,
directed by Wayne
Kopping, who co-wrote the movie with Raphael
Shore, has penetrated the
seemingly impenetrable wall put up by the
media to prevent the public from seeing and
hearing what Muslims are really saying in
their media as well as in their mosques and
on the street. Fox News aired the film with
its own commentary and other outlets are
beginning to expose the face of radical Islam.
What makes Obsession such
a powerful film is that it allows the Muslims
to speak for themselves. A limited amount
of commentary and explanation is provided
in between film clips by Muslim and non-Muslim
experts such as Prof. Robert Wistrich, Prof
Khaleel Mohammed and Prof. Salim Mansur;
journalists such as Caroline Glick and Khaled
Abu Toameh; and individuals who have lived
in the Islamist environment, such as Nonie
Darwish, Walid Shoebat and Brigitte Gabriel.
They are primarily bridges, however, between
the frightening images that include a blood
curdling speech by an Imam who pulls out
a sword and calls on his followers to kill
Jews and receives rapturous applause from
a crowd shouting, “Allah
Akbar!” (God is Great). Another clip
is from an Arabic television program that
reenacts the blood libel, showing Jews killing
a child to use his blood for Passover matzoh.
A film like this would have
been difficult to make a few years ago when
it was rare to hear Muslims speaking in their
own language. Usually we heard only the carefully
scripted propaganda designed for Western
consumption. Those of us who followed the
situation closely knew, for example, that
people like Yasser
Arafat were saying one
thing in English and the opposite in Arabic
(one clip shows him condemning terror in
English and calling for jihad in Arabic),
but non-Arabs only heard what they wanted
us to hear. Thanks to organizations such
as The
Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) and Palestinian
Media Watch, which monitor and translate
what is coming out of the Middle East, we
now have greater access to what is being
said and written in Arabic so we can no longer
be fooled.
Perhaps the most important
contribution of the film is to show that
the Islamists are not focused on “Palestine” or Iraq;
their goal is to spread Islam globally. In
stark contrast to the nonsensical notions
put forward in Jimmy
Carter’s book and the Iraq
Study Group report that Iraq, terrorism and
the Palestinian issue are connected, Obsession lets
the terrorists themselves explain their motives
and goals. In addition, by showing how the
terrorists have pursued their goals in places
such as London, Madrid and New York City,
the film makers have ably illustrated the
worldwide threat posed by the jihadists.
One of the many disturbing
aspects of the Islamist agenda is its emphasis
on indoctrinating the young. Terrorism expert
John Loftus calls this is a form of child
abuse. It is especially sickening to see
clips from Palestinian television in which
very young children talk about becoming martyrs
and express anti-Semitic stereotypes.
The Palestinians are teaching their children
in school and through the media to hate.
Jimmy Carter and the Iraq
Study Group members should be required to
watch the film so they will be disabused
of their delusion that Israeli policy is
the obstacle to peace. Obsession makes
clear the real obstacles are the Islamists’ refusal
to recognize Israel, the outright hatred
of the Jews by many Muslims and the unwillingness
to accept a Jewish state on “Islamic
land” or Jewish rule over Muslims.
The movie does not focus
on any one group or on terrorism. It examines
how Islam is being perverted by radicals
who have an agenda of hate. During one section
of the film, the similarities between
Islamism and Nazism are discussed. We see
the Palestinian religious leader Haj
Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, seeking
Hitler’s
help to fight the Jews. As the film notes,
Hitler’s hatred for the Jews is so
great he was even prepared to ally himself
with the Arabs, non-Aryans, to fulfill his
genocidal designs. A fitting image is a modern
rally in Lebanon where Muslims are giving
a Nazi salute. It is a reminder of the need
to learn the lesson of history and to take
seriously the words of the Islamists who
call for the destruction of Israel and the
murder of Jews.
The film’s emphasis
is on Muslim attitudes toward Jews, but it
also shows the antagonism expressed toward
Christians with examples of churches that
are desecrated and destroyed. It is also
careful to explain how an integral concept
of Islam, jihad,
has been abused by the Islamists. As the
Islamic scholars in the film note, the word
refers to a personal
struggle for self-improvement, but is used
by the militants as a rallying call for a
holy war to defeat the infidels.
To its credit, the film has eschewed the
graphic violence of other films related to
terrorism and focused more on words. It is
also refreshing for a movie on this topic
to use a subtle musical score rather than
the typically overheated, hysterical noise
of films trying to scare their audience.
The film’s principal
flaw is overkill. Viewers may become numb
after watching 60 minutes of sometimes repetitious
hate speech. It is also not clear how convincing
the film will be to those not already predisposed
to the producers’ point of view. Many
Americans already understand the threat of
militant Islam. Those who don’t ought
to be influenced by the powerful images in Obsession, but
many people are still reluctant to criticize
another faith. One hopes that students will
watch the film and see, probably for the
first time, exactly what the Islamists are
saying. Perhaps they will then recognize
that the moderate views they may be used
to hearing in English, and desperately want
to believe, do not necessarily reflect the
opinions of many people in the Middle
East. Unfortunately, given students’ desire
to see everything presented in a Tevye-like,
on the one hand, on the other hand manner,
they may find the movie too one-sided.
The film fittingly ends
with a range of speakers, including Muslims,
speaking out against terror. Words will not
be sufficient, however, and Muslims will
have to take the lead in reforming their
faith. Meanwhile, the rest of the world has
to confront the Islamists and refuse to condone,
ignore or accept their intolerance and
violence.
Sources: Mitchell Bard is the Executive Director of the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise |