-Caveat Lector-
'The Last Jihad' is coming to your town
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=14391
Bill Berkowitz - WorkingForChange
01.21.03 - A well-connected conservative activist/writer develops a
storyline "ripped from today's headlines" featuring simultaneous terrorist
strikes on the US, London, Paris and Saudi Arabia, an oil deal between
Israel and the Palestinians that threatens to unleash a war with Iraq, and a
possible pre-emptive nuclear strike. Largely written before 9/11, Joel C.
Rosenberg's new novel, "The Last Jihad" is charging up the best-seller lists
-- with help from right-wing talk radio.
During the past month or so, "The Last Jihad" has crashed the best seller
lists of the New York Times, USA Today, Amazon.com and
Barnes&Noble.com. Its publisher, Forge Books, a division of the New York-
based Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, has already ordered a fifth printing. At
a time when according to the Washington Post, sales of books by take-it-
to-the-bank authors are disappointing their publishers, Rosenberg has hit
the mother lode.
"The Last Jihad" is a fictional account of the war against terrorism that
takes America, Israel and Iraq to the brink of a nuclear conflagration. The
nuclear weapons scenario eerily mirrors the Bush Administration's
announced policy of launching preemptive nuclear strikes on "axis of evil"
countries.
Who is Joel C. Rosenberg and how has "The Last Jihad" become the latest
Christian-based fiction phenomenon?
The novel's mercurial ascension onto best seller lists is not the product of
a revivified Oprah book club. According to Rosenberg, one of the keys to
the book's success has been talk radio. "The fact is talk radio -- and only
talk radio -- has given people an opportunity to hear about "The Last
Jihad," Rosenberg writes in a recent communiqu�, "and in so doing helped
the novel break out. In just fourteen days, I've already done more than 60
radio interviews and we have another 30 to 40 in the pipeline. And the
more people hear about it, the more buzz and sales seem to build."
Recommendations from conservative talk show hosts Rush Limbaugh, Sean
Hannity and G. Gordon Liddy have fueled the book's rapid rise. Limbaugh in
particular has taken the book to his bosom, interviewing Rosenberg and
promoting the book extensively on his program -- which continues to be
the most successful talk radio program on the air.
"I must tell you," Rush told listeners recently, "last week we had Joel
Rosenberg on the program, the author of "The Last Jihad," and his book
went to number one for a couple days at Amazon.com... It's a great, great
read, folks. I cannot put this book down. And if you're looking for -- and it's
so relevant, even though it's fiction, relevant to that which is happening
now regarding Iraq, just a great read.
"A first-time novelist is Joel, who used to work here at the Limbaugh
Letter. I got a manuscript of the book some months ago -- unfinished -- and
I read it, and I was excited about it. But the finishing touches that he
placed on this book are just awesome. It really is. I had trouble putting it
down even though I had to a couple times. But it's a book when you get to
the last page you wish it weren't the last page, so I'm now eagerly awaiting
the sequel. It's called "The Last Jihad," j-i-h-a-d."
"The Last Jihad" is being promoted by World, a weekly evangelical news
magazine with 140,000 paid subscribers that Rosenberg regularly
contributes to. Marvin Olasky's cover story ("Heroes, villains, soldiers,
spies" December 21), goes into raptures over the book, and hopes the
book will usher in a period when "Christ-salted books, movies, and cultural
products of all kinds [will] now [be] able to go mainstream without losing
their salt? Is the amount of Christian talent on loan from God increasing,
and will the ghetto walls be broken down?"
Novel goes nuclear
In a late-November interview with MSNBC's talk-show host Jerry Nachman,
Rosenberg said that nine months before 9/ 11, he was working on the
novel, which opens "in the cockpit of a plane hijacked by Arab terrorists
heading into an American city." A business jet, packed with thousands of
pounds of fuel and explosives, attacks the presidential motorcade outside
of Denver. At the same time terrorists strike targets in London, Paris and
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. U.S. forces go on alert and the CIA traces the attack
to Saddam Hussein. Simultaneously, a secret oil deal is being negotiated
between Israeli and Palestinian officials.
Hussein gets wind of the deal and threatens to use weapons of mass
destruction on Tel Aviv, New York and Washington if the deal is
consummated. According to Olasky, "Israel's prime minister tells U.S.
leaders that if they do not militarily stop Saddam immediately, Israel will
use its own nuclear weapons on Iraq. A shootout in Jerusalem develops
simultaneously with the imminent threat of nuclear conflict on a day that
could live in infamy. The use of one weapon of mass destruction seems
unlikely but possible in such a scenario. The use of a second would seem
even more likely to garner not a century of peace but a century of
revenge."
Rosenberg told Nachman. "I think having worked with Netanyahu and his
team, among others, Steve Forbes here in the U.S. ... that gave a realism
to 'The Last Jihad' that I think is connecting with people because, you
know, people don't want to read dusty history books about Iraq. They
want to know what's going to happen tomorrow. Interestingly enough, 'The
Last Jihad' basically puts you a couple of weeks ahead of the news cycle at
this point."
Rosenberg's father was an orthodox Jew and his mother a Methodist. His
parents, according to Olasky, "came to Christ in 1973 [six years after their
son's birth] and now help evangelical ministries in developing countries
design, build, and retrofit Christian conference centers, schools, and
orphanages." Joel "became a dedicated Christian at age 17 and started an
evangelical group."
Rosenberg is extremely well-connected in conservative circles. He is a
communications specialist who has worked for former Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli politician Nathan Sharansky, Forbes, Limbaugh
and Bill Bennett. He runs November Communications, Inc., "helping leaders
discover, develop, and deliver their message at home and around the
globe." He is an alumnus of the Heritage Foundation and Bennett's
Empower America, and has been writing for World since 2001.
Rosenberg is not always so precise with his prophesizing. In an October 23,
2000 column for National Review Online, he predicted that "It won't be a
late night on November 7th. It won't even be close. ... Bottom line: An
electoral landslide for the Texas governor is shaping up. And with it will
come a dramatic mandate for conservative-minded reform." Perhaps
Rosenberg's most detached-from-reality prognostication was that Bush
would "rack up at least 404 electoral college votes -- far above the 270
needed to win -- and this will include California in the mother of all
political upsets." In the following week's column (October 31, 2000), he
stood by his prediction.
There's also the "pass it on" factor at work here: Barnes and Noble readers
who purchased "The Last Jihad" also have bought a number of other
conservative books, including Ann Coulter's "Slander: Liberal Lies about the
American Right," conservative columnist Michelle Malkin's "Invasion: How
America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces to
Our Shores," and Fox News Channel and talk-radio host Sean Hannity's "Let
Freedom Ring: Winning the War of Liberty over Liberalism."
Rosenberg urges conservative writers to produce more fiction in the way
of novels and screen plays. "Talk radio -- led by Rush Limbaugh and Sean
Hannity -- seem to be proving that a conservative political thriller with
sympathetic Jewish, Muslim and evangelical Christian characters can in
fact find a market and succeed," Rosenberg said.
On its way to selling more than 35 million copies, the Rev. Tim LaHaye's
"Left Behind" series of blockbuster apocalyptic novels has enraptured
believers and fascinated non-believers. Rosenberg's "The Last Jihad" may
end up performing a similar function for friends of the Bush
Administration's foreign policy. As conservative columnist David Limbaugh
says in his gushing review, "If nothing else, [Rosenberg will] make those
skeptical to deal militarily with Iraq seriously reconsider their position."
�Working Assets Online
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