Daesh and Netanyahu share the ‘clash of civilisations’ narrative

President Barack Obama was uncharacteristically agitated as he unleashed an attack on Donald Trump in his speech following the murderous atrocity in Orlando. He denounced the presumptive Republican presidential nominee for his “dangerous mind-set”, “rhetoric”, “loose talk” and “sloppiness”. A visibly angry Obama went on to recall that Muslim-baiting is reminiscent of the darkest and most shameful periods in American history, which “betrays the very values America stands for.”

For a president famed for his oratory prowess, it was Obama’s uncontainable anger and frustration that was more moving than the poetry of all his previous speeches. There was a palpable sense of desperation and paralysis in his voice that wasn’t present in the early periods of his terms in office. Maybe he feels that under his watch as president of arguably the greatest superpower in history, the America he is leaving to his successor is weaker than it was a decade ago; the world is more unsafe; the US is reduced to the point of paralysis over the question of Palestine; and Washington is now incapable of projecting its power in the Middle East like it used to.

Perhaps his greatest regret is that America itself has changed in ways that he never imagined it would, endangering constitutional principles, such as religious freedom. “That’s not the America we want,” he said. “It doesn’t reflect our democratic ideals. It will make us less safe.” His remarks were the most candid admission from a sitting president that the US has compromised the very values and principles it is supposedly fighting to defend in its war on terror.

The war has not eradicated or reduced terrorism, but has instead fuelled the exponential growth of terrorist acts all over the world and, most worryingly, reinforced the narrative of a “clash of civilisations”. If there is one thing about which Obama has been consistent, it’s his acute awareness of the significance of winning the ideological battle and narrative to defeat terrorism. His opponents, including Donald Trump, have consistently taken him to task for refusing to use potentially inflammatory (and inaccurate) terminology: “The main contribution of some of my friends on the other side of the aisle have made in the fight against Daesh,” he shot back disparagingly at his critics, “is to criticise the administration and me for not using the phrase ‘radical Islam’. That’s the key, they tell us. We cannot beat Daesh unless we call them radical Islamists.”

Obama added that his choice of phrase has nothing to do with political correctness and “everything to do with actually defeating extremism.” He is acutely aware that winning this conflict is as much, if not more, about winning the narrative as it is about “degrading” and “destroying” Daesh militarily in Iraq and Syria. “Groups like Daesh and Al-Qaida want to make this war a war between Islam and America, or between Islam and the West. They want to claim that they are the true leaders of over a billion of Muslims around the world who reject their crazy notions.”

Nothing would boost its ambitions more than the validation of Daesh’s claim to speak for the world’s Muslims, insisted the US president. “That’s their propaganda, that’s how they recruit. And if we fall into the trap of painting all Muslims as a broad brush, and imply that we are at war with the entire religion, then we are doing the terrorists’ work for them.”

These are powerful words but what’s left unsaid is any mention of the people who are fuelling the “clash of civilisations” narrative and “doing the terrorists’ work for them”. Obama’s indignation was directed at Donald Trump and members of the Republican Party who have persistently fuelled the Daesh narrative. Trump, though, is merely dancing to the tune decreed by others whose interest is to drive a wedge between Islam and the West.

They are people who see every massacre and every terrorist attack — by militant Muslims or anyone else — as an opportunity to be exploited. Even after the massacre in Orlando, where 49 people were killed in a homophobic attack, the first though of the spin doctors working for Israel was to exploit the tragedy. Just as the FBI released the name of the attacker, Israel’s former ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, said: “If I were Trump I’d come out the minute the FBI decided to start leaking that we are talking about a man who acted out of Islamic motives… emphasise the Muslim name Omar Saddique Mateen.”

As far as Oren is concerned, a civilisational war is good for Israel, something that would have been taught to him by Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli prime minister’s crusade since the 80s has been to turn the word “terrorism” into an ideological tool operating to Israel’s advantage. Who can forget his infamous comment in the wake of the 9/11 attacks? When he was asked what the attack meant for relations between the United States and Israel, reported the New York Times, he replied, ”It’s very good.” Then he corrected himself rather too hurriedly: ”Well, not very good but it will generate immediate sympathy.” He predicted that the attack would ”strengthen the bond” between the American and Israeli people, “because we’ve experienced terror over so many decades, but the United States has now experienced a massive haemorrhaging of terror.”

On the basis of Netanyahu’s comment it would be a mistake to conclude anything other than that terrorism has been a boon for Israel. Every terrorist attack is followed by Israeli politicians rushing to assert the narrative of a civilisational war that Obama is desperate to avoid. After the terror attacks in Brussels in March, Israel’s Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz swiftly reminded European politicians that they did not know how to fight “Muslim terror” and Europe needed to take lessons from Israel on this issue.

Netanyahu — never one to miss an opportunity to cast Palestinian resistance to Israel’s occupation as “terrorism” and Muslim critics of his country as Daesh sympathisers — reiterated that Europe and Israel are fighting the same war. “Terror doesn’t rise out of occupation or despair but out of hope,” he claimed. “The hope of ISIS [Daesh] terrorists to establish a Muslim caliphate all over Europe and the hope of Palestinian terrorists to establish a Palestinian state all over Israel.”

Even as a very complicated picture of Orlando’s mass murderer was emerging, pointing to a mentally unstable person with very little religiosity, and Obama acknowledged that there was no clear evidence that Mateen was directed by Daesh or any other group, Israel’s prime minister rushed to contradict the US authorities. “Islamic terror threatens the entire world,” Netanyahu asserted, “and all enlightened nations need to unite in order to fight against it.”

President Obama is right; the fight over the narrative is a key battleground. However, no one is doing more to undermine success in this struggle than those who subscribe to the world-view of Daesh and Israeli politicians like Benjamin Netanyahu. Although poles apart ideologically, they share the desire to exploit every possible human tragedy for propaganda purposes to consume us all in their very own clash of civilisations.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.