Case Studies: Obsession
Detailed Analysis: The Culture of Jihad
The next section, "The Culture of Jihad," begins with simple shots of hijab-wearing women and people praying in the normal manner, again suggesting, contrary to the opening disclaimer, that terrorism is somehow built into the Muslim faith and/mindset. Darwish declares that "in the Middle East," Islam dominates all aspects of life. She claims, quite unconvincingly, that during the Nasserite 1950s in an Egyptian run Gaza elementary school she was taught that Jihad was a sacred, holy war to conquer the world for the sake of Allah. This, of course, runs wholly counter to the rhetoric of the era, which was nationalistic but largely secular – the language of Jihad being generally the provenance of then fairly marginal Islamist opposition groups (which the left-nationalist majorities and governments tended to view with deep suspicion and which we frequently accused of being proxies of western influence). Itamar Marcus – a right-wing Israeli settler – assures us that Jihadist views are "mainstream" in Arab and Muslim culture today, not radical as is sometimes mistakenly thought.
The film does admit that Jihad originally and fundamentally means self-struggle, struggle to be a better person, but, says Shoebat, "so does 'Mein Kampf," introducing what will soon grow into a fully-developed analogy between not only Muslim extremists, but Muslims in general, and Nazis.
