Juan Cole is decrying all the neocons he's forced to compete with in the 2008 Weblog Awards for Best Middle East or Africa Blog. He thinks Helena Cobban -- a deranged Hezbollah supporter -- should have been nominated instead of someone like me. He's worked his leftist readers into a tizzy, and they're putting him over the top. I don't really care if I win this award; I won it last year. But Juan Cole certainly doesn't deserve it.
You know what kind of abject nonsense he's peddling now? He's arguing that Israel's war in Lebanon inspired Mohammad Atta, who led the Al Qaeda cell on September 11, to write his "martyrdom will." Specifically, he says the attack in Qana was the trigger. But Atta's will, as Martin Kramer points out, was written before the attack in Qana. And it wasn't a martyrdom will. It was a standard will. But Cole won't facts get in the way of blaming Israelis for just about anything, including violence committed by Al Qaeda.
Don't let Cole win. Go over there and vote for me. Alternately, My Marrakesh is a beautiful blog written by a woman who isn't a neoconservative. Go vote for her. Or if you want to vote for a professor, vote for Martin Kramer. He actually knows what he's talking about. Or there's always Aussie Dave at Israellycool. I've met him, he's a good guy, and he doesn't sit around in his office and hatch asinine conspiracy theories like Cole does.