Geopolitics and the weaponization of culture: From British-sponsored Jewish Zionism (1809-1947) to American-sponsored Islamic Jihadism (1979-Present)

Keywords: Geopolitics, Culture, Palestine, Israel, Zionism, Jihadism
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Saturday
Session Start / End Time: 2/26/2022 05:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/26/2022 06:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 68

Abstract

This paper examines the strategic deployment of culture in the service of geopolitics. It draws upon geopolitics and geopolitical economy to critically review the genesis and development of British-sponsored Jewish Zionism (1809-1947) and American-sponsored Islamic Jihadism (1979-present). It tones down the loud cultural explanations of these ethno-religious movements and highlights their geopolitical nature as cost-effective government strategies. Encouraged by Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt and Palestine in 1798-1799 and Napoleon’s Jewish Sanhedrin in Paris in 1807, the British established the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews in 1809 as a keystone in the process of deploying East European and Russian Jews to create a “geopolitical” Jewish entity in Palestine as the shortest route to British India. Following in the footsteps of the British and under the influence of the State of Israel, the Americans deployed North African and West Asian Muslims to Afghanistan to ultimately force the Soviets to lift their ban on Soviet Jewish emigration. The paper argues that Zionism and Jihadism pervert Jewish and Islamic teachings and attempt to delegitimize the current and much more authentic Islamic Jihad by the Palestinians, the Lebanese, the Syrians, the Iranians, the Yemenis, the Iraqis, and their allies. It concludes that geopolitics—not culture—is more appropriate for explaining Zionism and Jihadism and their most remembered Frankenstein’s monster-style blowback terrorist attacks by the Irgun Jewish Zionists against their former British sponsors on 22 July 1946 and by the al-Qaeda Muslim Jihadists against their former American sponsors on 11 September 2001. https://www.indstate.edu/cas/sites/arts.indstate.edu/files/Faculty/melyassini/Geopolitics%20and%20the%20weaponization%20of%20cultur1_0.pdf