TEL AVIV – From Morocco to Saudi Arabia, the conspiracy that the US, Europe and Israel are behind the creation of the Islamic State and subsequent terror attacks is gaining more and more prevalence, especially in Arab media.
Over the past couple of months, The Middle East Media Research Institute, or MEMRI, has translated articles from all over the Arab world that blame the West for terror attacks – especially the November 13 attacks on Paris – saying that ISIS was a tool created by Western countries to further their own goals. The articles further state that the US is the biggest perpetrator of global terrorism and that the main victims of that terror are Arabs and Muslims.
In the official Saudi daily Al-Watan, writer Muhammad Al-Sa’idi claimed that most of the attacks in the West and the Arab world were planned by international intelligence agencies. These begin with the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and continue right up until the downing of the Russian plane in Sinai and recent attacks on Hezbollah in Beirut. He wrote that Western intelligence agencies “do not shy away from sacrificing some members of their own nation or sect in order to achieve strategic goals.” He also added that in many cases, terror organizations such as ISIS and its predecessor Al Qaeda claim responsibility for the attacks but are not even aware of them until after they have occurred.
“‘Al-Qaeda,’ although it claimed responsibility for this incident [9/11]… was nothing but a tool [to commit] the crime, and perhaps just a cog in the system,” wrote Al-Sa’idi.
Prominent Saudi journalist Jasser Al-Jasser alleged in the daily Al-Jazirah that only a state could carry out an operation on the scale of the Paris attacks. “The role of the terrorist organization ISIS, and certain countries’ intelligence apparatuses’ connection to the Paris events, were aimed at imposing a new agenda vis-à-vis the Arab region- the top priority of which will be the war on terror,” wrote Al-Jasser. “Thus, the international campaign will be aimed at combating terrorism, and at dealing with the so-called ‘Islamic State,’ leaving Assad to murder the Syrians.”
Meanwhile, the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram similarly claimed that ISIS, which is “made in America”, victimizes Muslims, while the world accuses the victim of being a “terrorist Muslim.” An article in another Egyptian daily, Al-Watan, claimed that “the US and the European countries created this ISIS monster in the image of Satan, as he is depicted in Arab and foreign films, and used it to [achieve] their global objectives. It began with the invasion of Iraq in 2003… The West rejoiced over the new Satan that it had created.”
A Palestinian cleric went on television to criticize the media for condemning the Paris attacks “even though an analysis by a certain politician indicates that the attacks were carried out by the intelligence apparatus of an anti-Islamic Western state in order to blame Islam.” Meanwhile Talal ‘Okal, a columnist for the Palestinian Authority daily Al-Ayyam, wrote in a similar vein that the US is the greatest inciter of global terror and that the US and other countries in the West will be “burned daily by the fire they set with their own hands.”
Other Palestinian pundits claimed that Israel had planned the Paris attacks as payback for France’s support of the two state solution and also for the European Union’s new labeling law. Muwaffaq Mattar, a columnist for the official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida and a Fatah Revolutionary Council member opined that “It is no accident that the attacks in Paris took place just as Europe began implementing the sanction of marking [Israeli] settlement products and [just as] France was leading the European proposal to the Security Council promoting a two-state solution between Palestine and Israel – which the Israelis saw as heralding a danger from Europe, the birthplace of the occupying settlement Zionist endeavor.”
“It should be borne in mind that the ISIS [ members] can be heads of state, generals, ministers, and leaders of intelligence apparatuses,” he concluded, and added that ISIS is the creation of the CIA, Mossad and Scotland Yard.
Even in Morocco, ostensibly a more secular Muslim country, there are claims that the terrorism is “artificial and fabricated. Its trademark is ‘made in ZSC’ – Zionist, Safavid [a reference to Iran], Crusader [an allusion to the West]. Why? In order to accomplish some interest against the nation of Muhammad, in order to mobilize the world against it.”