How angry America gets when it attacks people and those people resist!
-----------Osama bin Laden, December 1998
How
can they hope to be blessed with security while they are dishing out
destruction, devastation, and murder on our people in Palestine and
Iraq?
-----------Osama bin Laden, December 16, 2004
His political awakening dates from the early 1970s, and especially 1973, when a U.S. airlift helped
Israel turn the tide in the so-called Yom Kippur War. Egypt and Syria
had overrun Israeli defenses and its vaunted Bar-Lev line at the
beginning of the war, leading a stunned Tel Aviv to hint that it might
resort to nuclear weapons if the U.S. didn't save the day for the Jewish
state. By the time Washington's intervention helped deal the Arabs another
bitter defeat, sixteen-year-old Osama had already stopped watching cowboy shows and wearing Western clothes (except at school, where it was
required). He "would sit in front of the television and weep over the
news from Palestine."*
The immediate cause of the war was
Israeli "development" of the Northeastern Sinai, which involved the
forcible removal of Arab farmers from their lands. U.S. support for
Israeli annexation of large parts of the Occupied Territories and its
refusal to respond to Anwar Sadat's peace overtures, made war
inevitable. For bin Laden, it made sympathetic consideration of Western
culture impossible.
It was the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in
1982, which killed 20,000 people, overwhelmingly civilians, that planted
in bin Laden the seed of revenge. In a November 2004 video he recalled
the carnage, the "blood and severed limbs, women and children sprawled
everywhere. Houses destroyed along with their occupants and high rises
demolished over their residents . . ." He longed to strike back. "As I
looked at those destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me to punish
the oppressor in kind by destroying the towers in America, so that it
would have a taste of its own medicine and would be prevented from
killing our women and children. On that day I became sure that the
oppression and intentional murder of innocent women and children is a
deliberate American policy."
A decade before the release of this
video, bin Laden had been stripped of his Saudi citizenship (1994) for
his continued harsh criticism of the Saudi royal family. He wrote a
letter to the Chief Mufti, the foremost juridical authority in the
Kingdom, calling his endorsement of the 1993 Oslo Accords an
"astonishing juridical decree," a betrayal of the word of God and the
community of the faithful. Like millions of other Arabs, bin Laden was
anguished at the contemptuous treatment Palestinian Arabs continually
received at the hands of the West, and saw no reason why it should
continue.
Bin Laden's letter argued flat out that the Jews that
came to Palestine were not indigenous to the region: "The current Jewish
enemy is not an enemy settled in his own original country fighting in
its defense until he gains a peace agreement, but an attacking enemy."
The only proper course of action, therefore, was to wage jihad, both for
the sake of God and "so that Palestine may be completely liberated and
returned to Islamic sovereignty." The Oslo Agreement, which nullified
Palestinian national rights, converting the PLO to a municipal
authority, was a patent fraud: ". . . the alleged peace that the rulers
and tyrants are falling over themselves to make with the Jews is nothing
but a massive betrayal, epitomized by their signing of the documents of
capitulation and surrender of the Holy City of Jerusalem and all of
Palestine to the Jews, and their acknowledgement of Jewish sovereignty
over Palestine for ever."
In a March, 1997 interview with Robert
Fisk of the London Independent, bin Laden again made clear that Israel
was a primary grievance. Referring to the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi
Arabia the year before, he said: "The explosion in al-Khobar did not
come as a direct reaction to the American occupation, but as a result of
American behavior against Muslims, its support of Jews in Palestine and
of the massacres of Muslims in Palestine and Lebanon - of Sabra and
Chatila and Qana - and of the Sharm el-Sheikh conference." Sabra and
Chatila was a 1982 massacre of over a thousand Palestinian refugees by
Israel's Phalangist Christian allies in Lebanon; Qana was a U.N. base
attacked by Israel in 1996, in which roughly a hundred Lebanese were
killed; Sharm el-Sheikh was an "anti-terrorism" conference in which Bill
Clinton accused Hamas and Hizbollah of terrorism but said nothing of
Israel's far greater violence. Events like these merged Israel and the
U.S. in bin Laden's mind. ""For us there is no difference between the
American and Israeli governments or between the American and Israeli
soldiers."
Four months after the 1998 attacks on the U.S.
Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which Bin Laden disclaimed
responsibility for, he returned to the theme of the betrayal of
Palestine: "Every time a king meets a president they say they have
'discussed the Palestinian issue,' but over half a century a clear
picture has emerged: they have abandoned the mujahidin in Palestine. . .
they have given a guilty verdict on those lions whose fathers and
brothers have been killed, imprisoned, tortured, and persecuted . . . . I
don't know what people are waiting for after this clearest of
betrayals, and after the shameful way in which the Arab rulers have
acted in the interests of the Jews or America."
An interesting
side note on the Nairobi Embassy bombing concerns a young Arab
questioned by F.B.I. investigator Stephen Gaudin. Identifying himself as
Khaled Saleem bin Rasheed from Yemen, he shouted at Gaudin: "You want
to blame this (bombing) on me? It's your fault, your country's fault for
supporting Israel!" Livid at the death toll, he asked Gaudin: "Why did
these people have to die? They had nothing to do with the United States
and Israel and Palestine!"
In a statement faxed to Al Jazeera on
September 24, 2001, bin Laden excoriated USrael hypocrisy in waxing
moralistic on the issue of human rights while it was engaged in
wholesale killing in Iraq and Palestine: "Until this point, a million
innocent children have been killed in Iraq . . . As I speak, Israeli
tanks and bulldozers are going in and wreaking havoc and sin in
Palestine - in Jenin, in Ramallah, in Rafah, in Beit Jala . . . . and we
do not hear anyone protesting or even lifting a finger to stop it." He
insisted on reciprocal security or none at all: "I swear by God Almighty
Who raised the heavens without effort that neither America nor anyone
who lives there will enjoy safety until safety becomes a reality for us
living in Palestine and before all the infidel armies leave the land of
Muhammad." The U.S. response came two weeks later, when the White House
announced that it had asked the five major U.S. T.V. networks to censor
footage of al-Qaeda. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice "urged
all the American network chiefs not to screen videos of Bin Laden."
In
a October 20, 2001 interview with Al Jazeera reporter Taysir Alluni in
Afghanistan, bin Laden expressed outrage that President Bush and Colin
Powell had promised in their first few months in office that "they would
move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and that Jerusalem
would be the eternal capital of Israel." Asked about the justification
for killing innocent civilians, Bin Laden condemned Washington's
selective and self-serving morality: "Whenever we kill their civilians,
the whole world yells . . . . and America starts putting pressure on its
allies and puppets. . . . What about the people that have been killed
in our lands for decades? . . . Who said that our blood isn't blood and
that their blood is blood? . . . More than 1,000,000 children died in
Iraq, and they are still dying . . . . Everyday in Palestine, children
are killed . . . . How is it that these people are moved when civilians
die in America, and not when we are being killed everyday?" Near the end
of the interview he returned to the constant killing in Palestine: "By
what right are our families in Palestine denied safety? The helicopters
hunt them while they are in their homes, while they are amongst their
women and children; everyday the bodies and wounded are removed."
In
an interview published in London's Al Quds on November 12, 2001, bin
Laden explained that, "The United States and their allies are killing us
in Palestine, Chechnya, Kashmir, and Iraq," so "that's why Muslims have
the right to carry out revenge attacks on the U.S.." He added that the
democratic nature of the U.S. government implicated all Americans in
such crimes. "The American people should remember that they pay taxes to
their government and that they voted for their president. Their
government makes weapons and provides them to Israel, which they use to
kill Palestinian Muslims. Given that the American Congress is a
committee that represents the people, the fact that it agrees with the
actions of the American government proves that America in its entirety
is responsible for the atrocities that it is committing against Muslims.
. . . The onus is on Americans to prevent Muslims from being killed at
the hands of their government."
In a statement recorded for
release to Al Jazeera in December 2001, bin Laden reiterated his claim
that the 911 attacks were retaliation for the West's injustices against
Muslims worldwide. Once again, he drew attention to Palestine: "Our
terrorism against America is a praiseworthy terrorism in defense against
the oppressor, in order that America will stop supporting Israel, who
kills our sons."
In a letter to the American people on October 6,
2002, bin Laden posed the question, "Why are we fighting and opposing
you?" He answered succinctly: "Because you attacked us and continue to
attack us." He again drew special attention to Palestine. "The creation
and continuation of Israel is one of the greatest crimes, and you are
the leaders of its criminals. . . . The creation of Israel is a crime
which must be erased . . . The British handed over Palestine, with your
help and your support, to the Jews, who have occupied it for more than
50 years, years overflowing with oppression, tyranny, crimes, killing,
expulsion, destruction, and devastation." He rejected out of hand
tortured Zionist justifications for taking control of the land: "It
brings us both laughter and tears to see that you have not yet tired of
repeating your fabricated lies that the Jews have a historical right to
Palestine, as it was promised to them in the Torah." Debate, he noted,
is not tolerated, as "anyone who disputes with them on this alleged fact
is accused of anti-semitism." But the Zionist legend claiming
justification for Israel "is one of the most fallacious,
widely-circulated fabrications in history," since "the people of
Palestine are pure Arabs and original Semites." Therefore, "it is the
Muslims who are the inheritors of Moses (peace be upon him) and the
inheritors of the real Torah that has not been changed," so "if the
followers of Moses have been promised a right to Palestine in the Torah,
then the Muslims are the most worthy nation of this."
Living
under elected government, he went on, "the American people have chosen,
consented to, and affirmed their support for Israel's oppression of the
Palestinians, the occupation and usurpation of their land, and its
continuous killing, torture, punishment, and expulsion of the
Palestinians." Better choices exist. "The American people have the
ability and choice to refuse the policies of their government, and even
to change it if they want."
On the matter of violence, he
observed that "If (Ariel) Sharon is a man of peace in the eyes of Bush," (which
Bush declared he was), "then we are also men of peace. America does not
understand the language of manners and principles, so we are addressing
it using the language it understands."
In a video dated February
14, 2003, bin Laden warned that "The current Zionist-Crusader campaign .
. . is the most dangerous and rabid ever . . . He claimed again that
al-Qaeda's violence was merely retaliation, since "we strike them (the
U.S.) because of their injustice towards us in the Islamic world,
especially in Palestine and Iraq, and their occupation of Saudi Arabia.
He observed that the 60 states identified by President Bush as prime
targets in his "crusade" against terror pretty much defined the Islamic
world. "Is the Islamic world not around 60 states? . . . Did they not
say that they want to change the region's ideology, which vents hatred
against the Americans?"
In a statement broadcast by Al-Jazeera a
month after the Madrid train bombings in 2004 bin Laden accused
Washington of "persistently ignor[ing] the real problem, which is the
occupation of Palestine," and decried the double standard that allowed
U.S. leaders to "indulge in lies and deceit about our right to
self-defense," which proved "they have no self-respect." "They show
contempt for peoples' blood and minds through such deceit, but it only
means that your blood will continue to be shed." He was not too blinded
by passion to see the injustice being done to ordinary Americans: ". . .
an important truth becomes clear, which is that we are both suffering
injustice at the hands of your leaders, who send your sons to our
countries, despite their objections, to kill and be killed." He
identified a common enemy benefitting from all the carnage: "It is all
too clear . . . who benefits most from stirring up this war and
bloodshed: the merchants of war, the bloodsuckers who direct world
policy. . . President Bush . . . the big media . . . the United Nations .
. . These and others are groups who are a mortal danger to the entire
world, the most dangerous and difficult of these being the Zionist lobby
. . ."
Condemning the transparent fraud of Bush's talk of peace,
he asked: "Why hasn't he spoken about the one who slit open the bellies
of pregnant women in Sabra and Shatila . . . the 'man of peace' [Ariel
Sharon]?" He reiterated that al-Qaeda violence was retaliatory: "We only
killed Russians after they invaded Afghanistan and Chechnya, we only
killed Europeans after they invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, and we only
killed Americans after they supported the Jews in Palestine and invaded
the Arabian peninsula. . . " He offered to make peace with any state
that agreed to leave Muslims alone: "So I present to them this peace
proposal, which is essentially a commitment to cease operations against
any state that pledges not to attack Muslims or intervene in their
affairs . . . It will come into effect on the departure of its last
soldier from our lands."
Just days before Bush was re-(s)elected
in November 2004, bin Laden released a video telling the American people
that its security was in its own hands, that it could achieve safety by
reigning in its lawless government. "We have been fighting you because
we are free men who cannot acquiesce in injustice . . . Just as you
violate our security, so we violate yours. Whoever encroaches upon the
security of others and imagines that he will himself remain safe is but a
foolish criminal. When disasters happen, intelligent people look for
the reasons behind them, so they can avoid them in the future."
Bin
Laden's determination to rectify the injustice of dismembering
Palestine is apparently not going away. On March 20, 2008 a videotape
reputed to be his was aired on Al Jazeera, in which he urged holy war on
behalf of the Palestinians. "Palestine cannot be retaken by
negotiations and dialogue, but with fire and iron."
Endnotes:
*Political awakening . . . . see Bruce Lawrence, ed., Messages To The World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden, (Verso, 2005) p. 31 Stops wearing Western clothes . . . .Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower - Al Qaeda
and the Road to 9/11, (Knopf, 2006) p. 75
The Sources:
"Bin laden accuses pope of 'crusade' in new tape," March 20, 2008 msnbc.com
Bruce Lawrence, ed., "Messages To The World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden" (Verso, 2005)
Lawrence Wright, "The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11," (Knopf, 2006)
Alfred Lilienthal, "The Zionist Connection - What Price Peace?" (Dodd, Mead, 1978)
Anonymous, "Imperial Hubris - Why The West Is Losing The War on Terror," (Brassey's, 2004)
Robert Fisk, "The Great War For Civilisation - The Conquest of the Middle East," (Knopf, 2005)
-----Michael
K. Smith is the author of "Portraits of Empire" from Common Courage Press.
He co-blogs with Frank Scott at www.legalienate.blogspot.com
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