After last week's horrific attack in Norway it was only a matter of time before the blogosphere began to fill with the accusations of the conspiracy theorists and the anti-Israel lobby. The former think they have discovered Anders Behring Breivik's true allegiances; the latter seek to gain capital from the Norwegian tragedy.
After the World Trade Centre attack, it took weeks for the conspiracists to construct their culpability theories. Now it's only a matter of hours before they go online.
A leader of the Waltham Forest Palestine Solidarity Campaign wrote over the weekend: "As far as I can see, globally, Christian far-right supremacists work hand-in-hand with Zionist fascists, since their aims are mutually inclusive. This geezer was actively hooked up with EDL, who as we all know is inextricably linked with Zionist Federation in the UK". Another writer "read somewhere that the Labour Party youth had voted on a proposition to boycott all Zionist Entity goods and services. Could this be why Mossad programmed ABB to go on the rampage?"
One media outlet can of course always be relied on to find the real culprits. Hizbollah's Al Manar, which gave us the "Jews didn't go to work on 9/11" hoax, released a statement on Monday that squarely fixed responsibility where its propagandists want it to lie. "This terrible terrorist crime is an additional proof that the culture stemming from the Zionist enemy, or ideas that support it, is deeply tied to the racism of its leadership."
Increasingly, those with conspiratorial mindsets have such a perverse worldview that they think they can support one minority by attacking large numbers of another minority, and that this will somehow make the world a better place. Perhaps this underlies the views of those who now accuse Breivik of being in the pay of Israeli intelligence.
He argues that most Jews are multiculturalist traitors
However, reading his 1,516 page manifesto - a particularly unpleasant task, because it is precisely what he wanted us to do - reveals a horribly confused and grievance-based worldview. He argues that "Cultural Marxists" are encouraging mass Muslim immigration and the Islamisation of Europe.
Like many antisemites, he gives Jews and Israel a place in his conflict-ridden world that could only make sense to a paranoid conspiracy theorist. He describes himself as "pro-Israel", but in the same breath argues that half of all Israelis, and three-quarters of all Jews, are multiculturalist traitors; enemies who deserve no mercy in the fantasy war he has tried to make real. Any country with too many Jews, he writes - including Britain - has a "Jewish problem".
Michael Whine is Government and International Affairs Director of the CST
