Abstract
Few days after the tragic events of September 11, Osama bin Laden invited President George W. Bush to convert to Islam. This article explores this fantasmatic “conversion offer” in order to demonstrate the hidden workings of collective hatred and its ambivalent mechanisms. Based on previous work (Yanay, 1989, 1995, 1996), this article claims that collective hatred signifies a failure to mediate between similarity and difference, closeness and separation, isolation and connectedness, at the same time that national and religious groups aspire to be included and be recognized as part of humanity.