By Andrew Klein, PhD

Gabriel Klein, Research Assistant and Scholar

Dedication: For our Mother, who regards truth as more important than myth. In truth, there is no judgment, only justice. To the world, she is many things, but to us, she will always be Mum.

Introduction: The Narrative Trap and its Mechanics

The contemporary political landscape is saturated with a specific and potent duality: the existential threat of “radical Islam” versus the necessary, defensive posture of the “civilized” world. This framework, as noted in our previous communications, is not an organic observation but a classic maneuver of narrative entrapment—a binary construct designed to foreclose critical thought and mandate uncritical alignment. This article deconstructs the manufactured history of “radical Islam,” tracing its evolution from a Cold War geopolitical tool to a justification for permanent war, wealth transfer, and the normalization of high-tech genocide. We argue that modern political Zionism, far from being a unique historical phenomenon, is the most refined and technologically advanced iteration of a 19th-century Western imperial playbook, one that has learned to weaponize identity, finance, and artificial intelligence to achieve the ancient colonial goal: the elimination of the native and the seizure of their land.

Part I: The Genealogy of a Manufactured Category – “Radical Islam”

The term “radical Islam” is not a neutral descriptor but a constructed political category with a traceable genealogy. Its contemporary usage obscures its origins and function.

· Origins in Western Political Thought: The concept of “radicalism” itself is a product of Western political discourse, originating in early 19th-century Europe to describe reformist or revolutionary movements. Its application to Islam is a later, strategic development. Scholar Zaheer Kazmi argues that “radical Islam” is a “malleable and composite category” defined through Western academic frameworks, often serving as a “master framework” against which Muslim societies are measured and found wanting. This practice “authenticates Islam” only by advancing “selective, strategic or apologetic descriptions,” marginalizing heterodox and critical voices within Muslim thought itself.

· Politicization and Weaponization: The term entered the American political lexicon in January 1979, used by Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson to describe Ayatollah Khomeini’s rhetoric in Iran. By 1984, U.S. Vice President George H.W. Bush framed it as an international terrorist threat to be guarded against with “moderate Arab states”. This marked its transformation into a geopolitical label used to justify alliances and interventions. Crucially, by 1990, the term was already being used to legitimize state-sanctioned human rights abuses, as seen in Egypt where “the perceived threat posed by radical Islam” justified government repression. The term creates its own justification for violence.

· The Post-9/11 Binary and Social Harm: Following the September 11 attacks, the term became a polarized political signal. Research indicates that the partisan insistence on using “radical Islam”—championed by figures like Donald Trump and Marco Rubio—directly correlates with negative public attitudes toward Islam broadly. This deliberate conflation of a violent fringe with a global faith community serves a clear purpose: it stigmatizes an entire population, manufactures domestic consent for foreign wars, and creates a perpetual “threat” that demands a permanent security state. As President Barack Obama strategically noted, such language makes Muslim allies feel “under attack” and hampers counterterrorism cooperation.

Part II: From Narrative to Empire – The Playbook of Creation, Conflict, and Profit

The “radical Islam” narrative is not merely rhetorical; it is the ideological engine for a material system of profit and power.

· Creating the Necessary Enemy: The history of groups like ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) reveals the cynical interplay of imperial design and blowback. ISIS’s genesis is deeply rooted in the aftermath of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, a war sold on the false pretext of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Its founder, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was radicalized in a U.S. detention camp, Camp Bucca, and his ideology evolved from the Muslim Brotherhood to al-Qaeda and finally to ISIS. This trajectory underscores how Western military intervention creates the very infrastructures and ideologues of the “extremism” it claims to fight. Similarly, Hamas, designated as a terrorist entity by Israel and the West, is a product of the material conditions of prolonged occupation, blockade, and statelessness. To cast these groups as purely theological phenomena is to erase the political history of their creation.

· The Palestine Laboratory and the Profit Motive: The ongoing conflict provides the perfect “laboratory” for developing and marketing technologies of control. As detailed by Antony Loewenstein in The Palestine Laboratory, Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories serves as a testing ground for weaponry, surveillance, and population-management systems that are then exported globally. This transforms human suffering into a profitable R&D sector. The “war on terror” and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict thus form a symbiotic economic engine, funneling billions in public wealth to private arms manufacturers and tech firms in the U.S., Europe, and Israel. The narrative of a civilizational clash justifies the financial bleeding of the public purse into corporate and state militaries.

· Zionism as 19th-Century Imperialism, 21st-Century Tools: Modern political Zionism, as an ideology, cannot be understood outside this imperial framework. Emerging in late 19th-century Europe, it was from its inception a settler-colonial project that required the removal of the indigenous Palestinian population. Its early leaders were explicit about this “logic of elimination”. Crucially, it was not a broadly popular movement among global Jewry but was enabled by imperial powers: first by Britain (via the 1917 Balfour Declaration) for strategic control of the Near East and the Suez route, and later by the United States. It is, as scholar Abdelkader argues, “the last European colonial project,” adopting the 19th-century model of ethno-nationalist state-building but arming it with 21st-century digital surveillance, precision weaponry, and international lobbying power.

Part III: The Normalization of Genocide and the Automated “Other”

The final stage of this playbook is the systematization and normalization of violence, now augmented by technology that seeks to remove human moral agency.

· The Palestinian Experiment and the Disposable Other: The situation in Gaza and the West Bank represents the logical endpoint of settler-colonial ideology. It is a live experiment in mass population control, siege warfare, and incremental territorial absorption. The high casualty figures—tens of thousands killed, with a majority being women and children—are not a “slip-up” but, as one analysis states, “the logical offshoot of an imperialist and colonial project”. The language of “mowing the lawn” or “collateral damage” operationalizes the dehumanization required for genocide, transforming people into a management problem or statistical noise.

· Algorithmic Warfare and Encoded Bias: The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into military systems marks a terrifying evolution. As the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) notes, algorithmic bias in military AI is a profound risk, as these systems are trained on data that mirrors societal prejudices. Bias is embedded in the data, the design, and the use of these systems, leading to a “negative feedback loop” where flawed outcomes justify further flawed actions. An experimental study using a multimodal AI model to make “kill” decisions based on photos found a disturbing racial bias, with the highest rates of “open fire” commands associated with images of dark-skinned individuals. This demonstrates that the “manufactured stereotype” is no longer just a propaganda tool but can be hard-coded into the very systems that decide who lives and dies. The “simplicity of the decision” is an illusion masking complex, encoded racism.

· The Dark Continuum: From Neanderthal to Neural Network: This descent is not new but represents the resurrection of humanity’s most atavistic impulses with modern tools. The “cannibal Neanderthal”—a metaphor for the tribalistic, eliminatory impulse—never died. It was dressed in the finery of divine right, then in the suit of scientific racism and Lebensraum, and now in the lab coat of the data scientist and the PR suit of the spin doctor. Political Zionism, in its most extreme current manifestations, and the imperial systems that empower it, represent this dark continuum. They are ideologies of separation, hierarchy, and conquest, leveraging the full might of contemporary law, finance, and technology to achieve ancient goals. The “darkness of the soul” finds its expression not in opposition to the light, but in its cynical mimicry, using the language of democracy, security, and even victimhood to enact its opposite.

Conclusion: Breaking the Binary, Reclaiming Humanity

The alignment of political figures with the “Zionist narrative” tied to “radical Islam” is not a spontaneous intellectual movement. It is the activation of a sophisticated, century-old playbook designed to generate fear, justify extraction, and eliminate the “other.” To change one’s reading list—to deny this narrative the engagement and legitimacy it seeks—is the first act of intellectual resistance. The second is to recognize the shared fate of the played: the Palestinian under the bomb, the Iraqi displaced by war, the Muslim citizen under suspicion, and the conscientious Israeli or Jew forced into a nationalist identity they do not own. The fight is not between civilizations, but for the soul of a single, shared humanity against the resurrected specter of empire, now armed with algorithms and talking points. The challenge before the Watch is to name the system, expose its continuities, and assert a politics grounded not in manufactured fear, but in universal justice and a refusal to be complicit in the selection of who is disposable.

References

1. Kazmi, Z. (2021). Radical Islam in the Western Academy. Review of International Studies. Cambridge University Press.

2. Mroue, B. (Associated Press). (2025). Who is Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar? PBS NewsHour.

3. 1. Loewenstein, A. (2023). The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World. Verso Books.

4. Bode, I. (2024, March 14). Falling under the radar: the problem of algorithmic bias and military applications of AI. International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Law and Policy Blog.

5. Anonymous. (2024, January). The marriage between Zionism and imperialism. Workers World.

6. Abdelkader, E. (2016, November 7). The Origins, Evolution, and Impact of the term “Radical Islam”. University of Pennsylvania Law School.

7. Karon, T. (2017). 特朗普和新闻自由的重生 [Trump and the Rebirth of Press Freedom]. Project Syndicate.

8. Counter Extremism Project. (n.d.). The Muslim Brotherhood’s Influence on Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and Iran.

9. McCrosky, J. (2024). AI Weapons Could Risk Racist Decisions. DataEthics.eu.