I wasn’t terribly interested in Juan Cole’s webcast debut, but the man’s ego as well as his persecution complex seems to know no ends. Pipes consults with Israeli officials? Campus Watch is an Israeli plot? Israeli settlers are out to harass him?
Two brief points on this, not the least of which being that Cole, whatever his delusions of grandeur, is not probably important enough to have merited the attention of Mossad or any other Israeli government agency. I’ve talked to Israeli officials and believe me, if they had anywhere near the resources that the conspiracy theorists seem to think are at their disposal they would have long since have eradicated every terrorist group in the Territories. The kind of effort that Cole is talking about that would have to be directed against him and his colleagues is light years ahead of that directed against say, Mohammed Deif.
Kramer charitably suggests that maybe Cole doesn’t actually believe all this crap and while that may certainly be true, if you go back and look over some of the nuttier stuff he’s said over the last year (just off memory) concerning MEMRI funding, Bernard Lewis, Martin Kramer being some kind of Mossad asset, et al. you certainly get the impression that not only does he believe that the Learned Elders of the Likud are in full force but also that they are out to get him. If he wants to believe that, that’s fine, but it sorta removes him from being taken seriously whenever he starts commenting on the broader socio-political dynamics of the Middle East. I don’t think that even Larouche supporters argue that the Israelis are personally after them ...
But don’t worry, Juan, those black helicopters are on “whisper” mode so you won’t hear them coming until they’re already gone!