Professor Richard Landes is an American historian and author, specializing in Millennialism. He is a fellow at The Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP), a board member of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME), and vice-president of the Institute for the critical study of anti-Zionism (ICSA). Posted with permission from his substack.
I’m working with people trying to awaken Westerners - and beyond them, the 3 billion non-Muslims with smartphones, to the dangers posed by triumphalist Islam, not only in their jihadi, insanely violent, manifestations, but also the campaigns that those working for a Global Caliphate conduct in the largely non-violent theatre discourse, the cognitive war.
And not just any cognitive war where the weaker side convinces the enemy not to use its superior strength, but an invasive one, where the vastly weaker side convinces the vastly stronger enemy to stand down while they invade.
The first recorded case of an invasive cognitive war victory, in which the weaker, on the verge of defeat, convinced the stronger side to bring the enemy’s forces inside their defenses, was the Trojan Horse.
Among the names for our initiative, I suggested The Laocoon Project, in honor of the Trojan leader who told his fellow citizens not to bring in the horse and even threw a spear at its belly, revealing the clang of armor within. At this, two serpents came from the sea and strangled both Laocoon and his two sons.
The citizens of Troy took this as a sign not to listen to Laocoon or consider the empirical evidence they had just heard.
Most people think that Homer tells the tale of the Greek Horse at the end of the Iliad. But it was Aeneas, a Trojan survivor, who tells the tale, with full knowledge of the suicidal folly that gripped his people.
Below is Aeneas’ description to Dido of what happened after the snakes strangled Laocoon and his progeny.
Aeneid, Book II: 228-253 The Horse Enters Troy
Then in truth a strange terror steals through each shuddering heart,
and they say that Laocoön has justly suffered for his crime
in wounding the sacred oak-tree with his spear,
by hurling its wicked shaft into the trunk.
“Pull the statue to her house", they shout,
“and offer prayers to the goddess’s divinity."
We breached the wall, and opened up the defences of the city.
All prepare themselves for the work and they set up wheels
allowing movement under its feet, and stretch hemp ropes
round its neck. That engine of fate mounts our walls
pregnant with armed men. Around it boys, and virgin girls,
sing sacred songs, and delight in touching their hands to the ropes:
Up it glides and rolls threateningly into the midst of the city.
O my country, O Ilium house of the gods, and you,
Trojan walls famous in war! Four times it sticks at the threshold
of the gates, and four times the weapons clash in its belly:
yet we press on regardless, blind with frenzy,
and site the accursed creature on top of our sacred citadel.
Even then Cassandra, who, by the god’s decree, is never
to be believed by Trojans, reveals our future fate with her lips.
We unfortunate ones, for whom that day is our last,
clothe the gods’ temples, throughout the city, with festive branches.
Meanwhile the heavens turn, and night rushes from the Ocean,
wrapping the earth, and sky, and the Myrmidons’ tricks,
in its vast shadow: through the city the Trojans
fall silent: sleep enfolds their weary limbs.
In other words, the people, struck with terror, mistake the very agent of their destruction for a holy object which Laocoon, in denouncing, had desecrated.
In their enthusiasm to bring the sacralized object into the city, they breach the walls which, for ten years, had protected them from the savage revenge of their enemy. They celebrate and worship that which will shortly destroy them.
Let’s rewrite that in prose, describing the West as Troy and the Global Caliphators as the Greeks:
At the height of jihadi savagery, a strange terror steals through each shuddering heart,
and they say that the Jews justly suffer for their crimes
in wounding the Quran of peace with their sharp criticisms,
by hurling their wicked accusations at that holy book which we honor as part of our belief in a universal humanity.
“Pull the statue to her house in our universities", they shout,
“and offer articles to Said’s post-colonialism."
We dropped our standards, and opened up our public sphere to malevolent narratives.
All prepare themselves for the work and they set up their computers and their anti-racism and their DEI
flooding cyberspace and academia with their false idols of hatred, drawing the enemy in with their “humanitarian" passion.
That hypocritical demopathic discourse mounts the walls of our discernment, pregnant with supremacists awaiting the right time.
Around it, screen-addled youth, coarse of tongue, pack shamers,
chant jihadi slogans, and delight in glimpsing the promised land:
Up the hidden army glides and “progressive" Muslim mayors roll into the midst of the democratic capitals.
O my country, O America, land of freedom and equality!
And you, fourth estate, famous in peace, embracing the other, refusing to run your own side’s war propaganda… you now pour forth our enemies’ malevolent lies as news!
Four times and more jihad shows its savage, sadistic face - 9/11, 7/7, Bataclan, Oct7 - and four times we look away from their victims:
instead we press on regardless, blind with frenzy,
and welcome the accursed creature on top of our finest universities.
Even then Pnina and her fellow Jews, who, by the supersessionst decree, are never
to be believed by the true faithful, reveals our future fate with her lips.
We unfortunate ones, for whom that day is our last,
clothe our imaginings throughout the city, with festive certainty that a new and far better day dawns.
Meanwhile the heavens turn, and night rushes from the Ocean,
wrapping the earth, and sky, and the poisoned tales,
in its vast shadow: through the city the infidels
fall silent: sleep enfolds their weary limbs.
Apparently, although separated by almost three two millennia, those who fall dupe to invasive cognitive warfare deceptions, share much in common...