NOTES TO PAGES 20–23upon a dialectic of maximal force with minimal impact and the reverse, which perpetuates itself
interminably: ‘‘Prime Minister Ehud Olmert wants to ensure that when a cease-fire is finally ar-
ranged, Israel is seen as having won a decisive victory over Hezbollah.... For Hezbollah, however,
victory means simply avoiding defeat.’’ The article, citing a former Israeli negotiator, calls this the
‘‘90–10 paradox’’: ‘‘Israel can eliminate 90 percent of Hezbollah’s fighting capacity, but Hezbollah
can still declare victory and claim to have fought the mighty Israeli Army to a draw.’’ See also
Martin van Creveld, ‘‘In This War, Too, Victory Is Unlikely,’’ inThe International Herald Tribune,
August 3, 2006, and Robert A. Pape, ‘‘The Imagined Enemy, and the Real One,’’ inThe International
Herald Tribune, August 4, 2006.
‘‘Moderate and secular’’ Muslim countries have expressed concern about the effects of media
images from the conflict in Lebanon on their populations. At an emergency meeting of the fifty-
seven–nation Organization of the Islamic Conference in Kuala Lumpur, the president of Indonesia,
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, echoing Samuel Huntington’s much-decried thesis, was quoted as
saying: ‘‘This war must stop or it will radicalize the Muslim world, even those of us who are
moderate today. From there, it will be just one step away to that ultimate nightmare: a clash of
civilizations’’ (Thomas Fuller, ‘‘Terrorism Could Grow, Leaders Say: Muslim Nations Warn of Leba-
non Fallout,’’The International Herald Tribune, August 4, 2006).
- ‘‘Rompre l’escalade,’’Le Monde, August 5, 2006.
- Pierre-Franc ̧ois Moreau, one of the editors of the critical edition of theTractatus Theolog-
ico-Politicus, reminds us of this view in hisSpinoza: E ́tat et religion(Paris: ENS Editions, 2005), 41
ff. See also Chantal Jacquet,L’Unite ́du corps et de l’esprit: Affects, actions et passions chez Spinoza
(Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2004), chapter 3. - Moreau,Spinoza, 46–47.
- Ibid., 47.
- Ibid., 48.
- Jacques Derrida, ‘‘Above All No Journalists!,’’ inReligion and Media, ed. Hent de Vries
and Samuel Weber (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001), 67. - Gilles Deleuze,Spinoza: Philosophie pratique(Paris: Minuit, 1981), 60, 61, 46;Spinoza:
Practical Philosophy, trans. Robert Hurley (San Francisco: City Lights, 1988), 42, 43, and 31. Deleuze
makes explicit reference to the motif of ‘‘auto-immune diseases’’ (ibid., 34n.5 and 42–49n.5 and
60). - Ibid., 34/49.
- Indeed, the motif of mimetic transferal (not to say transference) works between individual
bodies, between one individual and the body politic, between two or more social or political bodies,
as well as inside of each of these composite individual or collective bodies. One might even assume,
on the basis of Spinoza’s model of imitation, that we might come (or, in fact, always already have
come) to imitate ourselves and only thus become miracles, events, even special effects to ourselves. - For a sobering view, see the reflections of a former correspondent for the Dutch media in
Cairo, Beirut, and East Jerusalem: Joris Luyendijk,Het zijn net mensen: Beelden uit het Midden-
Oosten(Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Podium, 2006). - The medieval Iranian ‘‘Assassin’’ sect, founded by Hasan-i-Sabbah, opposed the regime of
the Seljuq Turks in Iran. It comprised ‘‘a group of devoted and highly trained warriors who targeted
high-profile government leaders and commanders and were ready to die in the attempt’’ (Carole
Hillenbrand, ‘‘Unholy Aspirations,’’ inThe Times Literary Supplement, August 4, 2006). Hillenbrand
cautions against identifying the Assassins too closely with Al Qaeda or with suicide attacks, claiming
that ‘‘Al Qaeda’s jihad is far removed from the theory in the classical Muslim books of Islamic law;
it is all about sensationalism and shock.’’
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