Case Studies: Obsession
Detailed Analysis: Opening
Obsession opens with a disclaimer to the effect that most Muslims do not support terror. As we shall see, not only does the thrust of the whole film contradict this unconvincing gesture, once the link between Muslims and Nazis is firmly cemented, the pretense is dropped almost altogether and the idea that this is about radicals or extremists only is dropped. But the distinction is sharply and immediately undermined by maps moving from east to west towards the new world suggesting a civilizational clash and a conflict generally between east and west. Shots of taxis in New York suggest the danger of an immigrant presence in western cities.
Film proper opens with the titles, "Tuesday morning." Its 9/11, of course, though it does not yet say so. Again a shot of a yellow taxi – this seems to be an unsubtle but irresistible motif for the filmmakers – like the house member who said that terrorists "drive our taxis during the day." Then we begin with commentary from converts from Islam to evangelical Christianity and intense supporters of the Israeli right-wing such as Walid Shoebat, Nonie Darwish, etc. The film gives no indication that these are converts to extreme fundamentalist evangelical Christianity, leaving the viewers to assume that rather than very strange individuals these are simply Arabs who know what they are talking about and are willing to speak.
Footage follows of the Madrid bombing s,7/7 in London and other atrocities. Beslan is thrown in too, even though this was part of the Chechen war – we now have a clear sign that everything is going into the mix in this instance. Confirming that, Caroline Glick of Frank Gaffney's Center for Security Policy says that all the wars involving Muslims are seen by Jihadists as "fronts in a global jihad." What is striking is that she does not take issue with this – in this sense the film adopts the same analysis as the terrorists, at least in this regard. This is typical of the Islamophobic viewpoint – it looks at the same data, list of conflicts around the world involving Muslims, etc., and reads it in exactly the same way as, say, Osama bin Laden does, except in reverse – one account has it as a war by Islam, the other as a war against Islam – but the essential analysis, that these are all fronts in the same battle, is a shared idiocy. It is, of course, highly significant that Glick leads her list of symptomatic conflicts with Palestine, even thought international jihadists have played virtually no role in the Palestinian struggle and committed no major acts of violence in Israel or the occupied territories. A map later shows Israel to have been the target of numerous attacks of this kind, though none are specified, of course. Already Obsession has folded the Palestinian, Chechen and other nationalist struggles in with the specter of international Muslim extremism. The focus, throughout, will return always to the Palestinians.
In order to accomplish its mission, Obsession needs to completely decontextualize the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and in particular posit an explanation for the ongoing violence that does not admit to the central role of the occupation. It must change the subject. Nonie Darwish obliges by declaring that "we need to understand the culture that produces terrorism" – which immediately obviates the role of history, political and social conditions and all other context and places the issue strictly in a setting in which the Arab and Islamic world can and indeed must be pathologized. Another commentator absurdly claims that anyone saying that Hamas is a terrorist organization in an Arab society would be lynched right away, which is, of course, complete hogwash.
Daniel Pipes posits, completely without evidence, that "10-15 percent of Muslims worldwide support militant Islam." It should be noted that Pipes has accused virtually every prominent Arab and Muslim American of being an extremist and a jihadist. Shoebat points out that this is a huge number, bigger than the population of the US, and that "they are all spread out." So, we have now established firmly the need to fear and mistrust all Muslims, since their potential for being dangerous is so great.
