Last month, millions of Americans opened their Sunday newspapers and found amid the usual pile of coupons and advertising flyers something unusual: a free DVD of a documentary called Obsession: Radical Islam's War with the West. The film, a well-researched foray into the world of Islamo-fascism, features an array of scholars, such as Sir Martin Gilbert, Robert Wistrich and Daniel Pipes, and investigative journalist Steven Emerson, as well as extensive footage of the anti-Semitic and anti-American fare that is par for the course on Arab and Islamic television. The documentary's thesis is simple: Radical Islam is at war with the West, and its hatred of Jews and Western democracy isn't based on misunderstandings but on a faith-based fanaticism that will brook no opposition. Its prime tactic is to educate Muslim youth into believing that such hatred is a divine imperative, so as to create new generations of jihadist suicide bombers. One might think that seven years after September 11 this insight would be self-evident, rather than controversial. Especially, that is, since the film goes to great lengths to assert that most Muslims do not subscribe to these beliefs and are peace-loving citizens whose faith is being hijacked by a radical minority. BUT THOUGH it does no more than state the obvious about the rise of Islamism, its tactics and its purpose, Obsession appears to have a message that many Americans neither wish to hear nor believe. Indeed, the free distribution of the film, which was produced in 2005 and first released on DVD in 2007, has set off a firestorm of critics from both Islamist groups and liberal media figures. The Council on American Islamic Relations has organized protests against the film's distribution, asserting that the movie seeks to "incite hate and bigotry." But CAIR's leading the opposition to "Obsession" ought to lend the movie more credibility, not less. American supporters of the Hamas terrorist group founded CAIR; FBI witnesses revealed CAIR's role as a Hamas front-group during the federal prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation for illegally supporting terror abroad. Yet, some in the media are marching to CAIR's drumbeat. The Greensboro News & Record in North Carolina refused the DVD insert because, as a statement from its publisher asserted, "it was divisive and plays on people's fears and served no educational purpose." The Detroit Free Press and The St. Louis Post-Dispatch also declined the DVD. The latter explained its decision by saying the film "troubled American Muslims." These papers did not refute a single point in the film. But the raising of the issue of Islamist terror has, in their view, become not merely politically incorrect but inadmissible and, therefore, something that must be suppressed. That these publishers, who should be facilitating such a debate rather than squelching it, have acted in this manner is an ominous sign of the times. WERE THAT not enough, the film also has run afoul of some supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. It is true that most of the DVDs were inserted into newspapers in swing states. That has led some paranoids to argue that the documentary's message is a subliminal argument against their candidate, and that it has been placed into newspapers to mislead voters into thinking that Obama is a Muslim. Others talk about the use of right-wing foundation money to distribute the DVD. Yet, the most-incriminating connection about the film is that Rabbi Raphael Shore, the producer and co-writer, as well as the founder of the nonprofit organization that distributed it, has worked for Aish HaTorah, the Orthodox Jewish religious outreach group. The problem with this whole argument is that the film contains absolutely nothing about American politics or the election. While some on the left may consider raising awareness about the dangers of Islamism to be something only Republicans do, that is not a point Democrats ought to concede if they are as tough on terror as they claim to be. Indeed, one of the prominent voices heard in the film is attorney and author Alan Dershowitz, a well-known Democrat and supporter of Obama. But some Democrats are now so spooked by the topic of the Islamist threat, they think even mentioning the topic in a nonpolitical context is somehow part of a conspiracy against their hero. Indeed, Keith Olbermann, a host on the MSNBC cable news network and a prominent liberal fan of Obama in the media, denounced Obsession as "neocon porn," as if his banal grudges against the neoconservative movement trump the facts about radical Islam. Rabbi Jack Moline of Alexandria, Virginia, a leading figure in the Rabbis for Obama group, called a press conference last week to blast the movie. In a scary echo of language used by CAIR, he said Obsession is a "thinly veiled call for disparagement and distrust of all Muslims," which seeks to "limit the rights of Muslims to enjoy the free exercise of their faith." But does Moline really believe that speaking openly about the way Iran, Hizbullah and Hamas seek to teach children to hate Jews restricts the rights of peace-loving American Muslims to practice their faith? Does he not know that, as the film rightly asserts, the primary targets of the Islamists are moderate Muslims who have been slaughtered and silenced by the radicals. FINALLY, HOW does it possibly help the candidacy of Obama, a man who has missed no opportunity all year to assert his support for Israel and his disdain for Islamist terrorists, to claim that giving a documentary about Islamism a wide audience is hurtful to his cause? Can it be that some of his supporters believe that, contrary to his campaign statements, their candidate doesn't really share the concerns that the film raises? Seven years after 9/11, many Americans seem to have forgotten that indifference to the threat of radical Islamists led directly to that tragedy. Apparently, some prefer to ignore the grim truth and cling to the illusion that right-wingers are making up all the fuss about Islamism to scare everyone unnecessarily. As Sir Martin Gilbert, one of the greatest historians of our generation and the leading biographer of Winston Churchill, points out in Obsession, 70 years ago, many in the West were similarly unwilling to face up to the danger of Nazism. Just as today many laugh at Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, they dismissed the murderous threats of Adolf Hitler as clownish bombast, and considered the brainwashing of a generation of German children by the Nazis unimportant. They denounced those who refused to be silent as prejudiced warmongers. Those truth-tellers were proved right, but too late to avert a world war, as well as genocide. Just like then, those who ignore similar evidence about radical Islam today "don't connect the dots," Gilbert asserts. That is a mistake the next president, who will confront an Islamist threat that may well be augmented by a nuclear Iran sometime in the next four years, cannot afford to make. The message of Obsession could not be timelier. jtobin@jewishexponent.com

View from America: Who's obsessed about 'Obsession'?

Several US papers refuse to distribute this film on radical Islam.