Steven "Daddy Warblogs" Chapman has responded courteously to a few of my questions about his explanation of European anti-Israel sentiment in terms of collective psychology. He may be right about the "transference." Admiration of history's losers and solidarity with the underdog (no matter how many chickens he has killed) does seem to crop up extraordinarily often in Euro-discourse. The current version of European anti-Semitism and/or anti-Zionism does appear to be a phenomenon of the Left; but my intuition that the seeds of it may lie in Leftist ideology itself may indeed be misplaced. Like the Daddy, I prefer his "psycho-sophistication" to the "it's all about the oil" theory. There's an answer somewhere. When someone figures it all out, I'll be very interested to read all about it.
Anyway, regarding the likelihood of an al-Qaeda attack on Europe, Chapman is right on the money here:
Much has been made of al-Qa'eda's organisational abilities in the light of 9/11; however, though their handle on the operational side of things may have been sound, their strategy was deeply flawed. Hence they misread the character of the US, assuming that no serious response to this attack would be forthcoming. This leads me to believe that they are indeed naive and stupid enough, strategically, to launch some kind of major attack within Europe, an attack which would almost certainly have the effect of revivifying the European appetite for military action - an appetite that has been steadily draining away in recent months.Posted by Dr. Frank at May 16, 2002 09:05 AM | TrackBack