* Below is the second installment in MEMRI's 'Terror in America' series. ---------------- Special Dispatch September 20, 2001 No. 270 Terror in America (4) Arab columnists: The perpetrators of the attacks are not Arabs or Muslims Many columnists in the Arab media have discussed the identities of the perpetrators of the New York and Washington, DC attacks. Some chose to disregard the findings of the FBI investigation (that the perpetrators were Arabs and/or Muslims), presenting instead a series of American and international elements that they believe carried out the attacks. Following is a review of possible perpetrators according to the Arab media: Bush and Powell Did It The possibility that the US attacks were a conspiracy hatched by President Bush and Secretary of State Powell was presented by Samir Atallah, a columnist for the London daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat. He wrote: "I have a sneaking suspicion that George W. Bush was involved in the operation of September 11, as was Colin Powell." "The reasons for this are as follows: George W. Bush was the president who has garnered the least support of all US presidents throughout history. He won the election by a miniscule majority that would not have won a town council [position] in a village in South Egypt. His presidency was in doubt from the beginning. It was said that the poor way in which he entered the White House would divide the American nation. It was said that he is not worthy [of being president], that he is a man who takes no interest in what is happening in the world, a man who does not know the name of the president of Pakistan..." "[But] after September 11, George W. Bush is the first president since Roosevelt with both parties behind him, with no one opposing him. He is the first president in the history of the US to have received an unprecedented amount of financial, political, and military support, and to have it approved so quickly. He continues the line of the Bush family: losers at peace, but leaders at war. Every George Bush in the family, fathers and sons, has his own world war..." "Regarding the involvement of Colin Powell... it was General Powell's fate to be the one to declare war together with both George Bush Sr. and with George Bush Jr. It might have been noticed that Powell was the first to use the word 'war,' and the first to name Osama bin Laden. Just as he commanded the military in Iraq, he will command diplomacy during the war declared on the unknown..."(1) Israel, International Zionism, or the Jews Did It This theory has been very popular among various columnists in the Arab media. Columnist Ahmad Al-Muslih, for example, stated: "What happened is, in my opinion, the product of Jewish, Israeli, and American Zionism, and the act of the great Jewish Zionist mastermind that controls the world's economy, media, and politics..." "The goal of the suicide operations in New York was, in my opinion, to push the American people, President Bush, and NATO to submit even more to the Jewish Zionist ideology and the historical goals [it has held] since the Basel Congress in 1897, under the Zionist-Jewish slogan of 'Islamic terror'... We have said in the past that Jewish-Israeli-American Zionism is leading the region to disaster, and that it is trying to lead the Americans and its worldwide allies to world disaster. Perhaps what happened on American [ground] is the beginning of the world disaster."(2) The Lebanese-Jordanian Holocaust denier Hayat Al-Hweiek 'Atiya also hastened to point an accusing finger: "Maybe some will think that I am hallucinating things when I speak of Jewish Zionist hands behind the terrible event that struck at the US. Maybe [they will say] that this is one of many hands. But anyone following the reactions has noticed one headline: the American-Zionist-Israeli 'Holy Alliance' indicate that "international terror" is to blame. By international terror, [this alliance] means, first and foremost, Islam and the Arabs..." Al-Hweiek 'Atiya continues: "In a lengthy interview with the Arab League representative in Paris for the [Egyptian] French-language Al-Nil television channel, [the representative] refrained from pointing directly at the Jews, because as an official he cannot do such a thing before an investigation reveals it, but he [implied] it..." "We must direct all diplomatic and media efforts not only towards washing our hands of it and denying our involvement from the defendant's seat but also to [launching] a counter-campaign that will shift us to a stronger offensive position."(3) Jordanian columnist Rakan Al-Majali wrote that "it is clear that Israel is the one to benefit greatly from the bloody, loathsome terror operation that occurred yesterday, and that it seeks to benefit still more by accusing the Arabs and Muslims of perpetrating this loathsome attack... Only Israel does not fear the discovery that the Jews are behind this operation, if indeed it was so; who in the US or outside it would dare to accuse them, as every blow to them means talk of a new 'Holocaust?' They, more than anyone, are capable of hiding a criminal act they perpetrate, and they can be certain that no one will ask them about what they do."(4) Jordanian columnist Jihad Jabara added: "I personally eliminate the possibility that Arab and Islamic organizations stood behind these acts... Why [couldn't it be] that Zionist organizations perpetrated it, so that Israel could destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque while the world was preoccupied with what happened in America...?"(5) Jordanian columnist Mussa Hawamdeh stated: "I say that Israel benefits from the explosions... We all know that there are extreme religious groups in the US who believe that the coming of the Messiah is near, and who aspire to purify Americans of all their human crimes. Among them are those who believe in committing suicide in order to reach Paradise, through punishing the human race. Mass suicide of entire groups has already occurred. We do not know whether Jews as well, more precisely the Mossad, have not had a hand in what happened, out of evil and dangerous intentions."(6) American Extremists, Japan, China, Russia, or Opponents of Globalization Did It The Arab media presented a lineup of other suspects who are neither Arab nor Muslim. Syrian columnist Hassan M. Yussef wrote: "There is a possibility that this was an [act of] ancient retribution... The US declared war on Japan, and used the atomic bomb for the first time, against Hiroshima and Nagasaki. [The bomb] killed more than 221,983 Japanese, and was the cause of the Japanese defeat and the end of the war in 1945. Has the tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki been resurrected sixty years later?"(7) Palestinian columnist Tallal 'Awkal added: "The ostensible motives of the Palestinians and Arabs [to carry out the attacks] are no different from those of millions of nations on the face of the Earth who suffer from American and Western oppression and injustice... [The Americans] should seek the perpetrators far from the region. Not everyone interested in confronting American policy also has the means to carry out such an act... Why can't the motive be a settling of historical accounts from World War II? Why can't the background [to the attack] be protest by those harmed by globalization; we noticed the strengthening of the spirit of their battle in Seattle, Genoa, and Athens...? Why can't the motive be linked to those harmed by the missile defense system?"(8) Lebanese columnist Nur Al-Din Sat'e determined that "[Perhaps] the perpetrators of the attack belong to local American militias... It could also be that they are young people who hacked into the computer directing internal air traffic and aimed the airplanes at painful targets..."(9) Columnist Abd Al-Jabbar Adwan wrote: "Who are the ones who benefit from this act? They are, beyond a doubt, not the Arabs. An initial examination shows that some, such as Russia, China, and Israel, will benefit without any of them necessarily planning the operation. Perhaps everyone will be surprised to find that, once again, the operation was 'Made in the USA,' as American society is filled with extremist religious groups who consider themselves enemies of the state, its mechanisms and its liberal society..." "It is known that the American government intends to push forward the missile defense shield project; China, Russia, and several other European states are opposed to this, and President Bush is not interested in their position. It is also known that the American explanation of the need for this system establishes that it is not directed against China or Russia, but against countries described as 'rogue' states or terrorist movements..." "Is there a connection between the missile defense system and the acts in New York and Washington? This question remains up in the air. In any event, we must imagine the danger the Chinese and Russians perceive at being stripped of their deterrent capability. [This would be the case if] President Bush pushes this system through [Congress] claiming [it is part of] the war on terror ... mostly since the American government wants to weasel its way out of agreements limiting missile proliferation and [preventing] the development of weapons of mass destruction." "The benefit to Russia and China from this terror will be revealed a long time from now; however, the benefit to Israel will be evident sooner. If Israel is behind this terror, then its plan is for a joint US-Israeli military strike, within a few weeks at the most, against some Arab states. In this way, it will [eliminate the possibility that]... Americans will understand Arab issues, particularly Palestinian issues." "...Even if it is proven that the perpetrator [of the US attack] is an American organization or a mafia gang, the damage to the Arabs is already done, as once an hour it is said that they are willing to support and commit such [acts of] terror... while Israel is deep in mourning and reminds the world that it too is subject to these kinds of suicide operations...(10)" Endnotes: (1) Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), September 14, 2001. (2) Al-Dustour (Jordan), September 13, 2001. (3) Al-Dustour (Jordan), September 13, 2001. (4) Al-Dustour, (Jordan), September 13, 2001. (5) Al-Rai, (Jordan), September 13, 2001. (6) Al-Dustour (Jordan), September 13, 2001. (7) Tishrin (Syria), September 13, 2001. (8) Al-Ayyam (Palestinian Authority), September 13, 2001. (9) Al-Safir (Lebanon), September 12, 2001. (10) Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), September 13, 2001. --------------------------------- Special Dispatch September 20, 2001 No. 271 Terror in America (5) British pro-Syrian journalist Patrick Seale: Suicide attacks are immoral but highly effective; the terrorists sought a 'balance of terror' with the US The pro-Syrian British journalist Patrick Seale, author of Hafez Assad�s biography, published an article in the London Arabic-language daily Al-Hayat examining the efficacy of suicide attacks on the US and Israel. (1) Seale opens his article stating that "there is no proof [implicating] extremist groups in the Arab and Islamic world. It is not only Arabs and Muslims who have reasons to hate the US. Across the world, there is a developing movement of anti-globalization activists; there are [also] 'ecological terrorists' who maintain that US policies endanger the future of the earth. Similarly, we must not forget that in the US itself are those opposed to the federal government, like Timothy McVeigh who blew up the Federal building in Oklahoma [City]; finally, there are various radical groups in the Third World that place the blame for the suffering and destruction caused to their countries on the US..." "It should be immediately pointed out that morally, such operations must arouse the deepest disgust, and they should be condemned as harshly as possible because they violate the 'rules of war,' killing and injuring innocent civilians. Similarly, the willingness of a few to commit suicide and to kill others testifies to a deep internal perversion. Most human beings are not capable of understanding such self-sacrifice, which became known by the name of 'kamikaze,' because it goes against human instinct. But at the same time we must notice that many countries violate the 'rules of war,' or have violated them in the past. The US killed a large number of innocent civilians in Vietnam, Cambodia, Latin America, Iraq, and many other places, not to mention the tens of thousands of innocent Japanese [who were killed] in the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. Britain too, bombed German cities, causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians in a morally questionable strategy that is still the subject of deep disagreement..." "In light of the suffering of the Palestinians, is it legitimate for them to strike at Israeli citizens with suicide bombings? There is no doubt that morally it is a mistake to kill innocent citizens, no matter what disagreements [the attackers] may have with their government. But if we put aside the moral issue, we must ask ourselves whether suicide bombing has an effect or not. The answer to this question requires us to look at the goals of Palestinian suicide bombers and of those who send them." "First, the bomber seeks to create a balance of terror. The Palestinian terrorist�s aim is to deter Israeli terror - i.e. 'if you kill my people, then my people will also kill!' The aim is to force the Israeli government and military to use restraint, and to hesitate before they attack the Palestinians, because the Israelis will pay dearly. There is no doubt that the terrorists who attacked the US sought to attain a balance of terror as well." "Second, and more importantly, the Palestinians, by means of attacks in the heart of Israel, seek to persuade the Israelis that they will pay a high price for their occupation. They want to force Israelis to apply pressure on their government to withdraw from the occupied lands. The attackers' main goal, therefore, is to put an end to the occupation. Their claim is as follows: If the Palestinians attack only settlers and Israeli military personnel, the mass of Israelis in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, Acre, Netanya, and the Negev development towns will not realize how costly the occupation is. Only by bringing the war home to the heart of Israel will the Israeli public be made to understand that the time has come to return the settlers to their homelands, to withdraw from the occupied territories, and to allow the establishment of a Palestinian state." "This claim is important. The suicide bombings shook public opinion in the US and Israel. They aroused horror in the hearts of simple Americans and Israelis. In Israel, the attackers have managed to wear down Israeli morale. They have made many Israelis change their lifestyles and think twice before going to crowded marketplaces, entering restaurants, or getting on a bus." "The US has also become accustomed to attack without being attacked. It too was enraged and disconcerted by the explosions. Will it seek mere vengeance, or will it reexamine its policy as a superpower?" "In addition to their immorality, suicide bombings cause additional problems that are likely to significantly undermine their effectiveness." "Many Israelis maintain, mistakenly, that these explosions are proof that the Palestinians do not differentiate between the occupied territories and Israel [proper]. That is, the Israelis have begun to think that the Palestinians - from the Palestinian Authority, with Yasser Arafat at its head, to Hamas and Islamic Jihad - seek not only to put an end to the occupation, but also to annihilate the State of Israel itself!" "Many Israelis, like many of their friends abroad, are completely convinced that the existence of Israel is in danger. In an existential conflict, any weapon, any barbaric operation, any response, violent as it may be, is justified." "If the Palestinians have declared war on Israel - and suicide bombings are perceived as a kind of war - many Israelis claim that Israel�s assassination of Palestinian leaders and destruction of the Palestinian civilian infrastructure (such as the power station in Jenin) are justified." "Similarly, the US now sees itself at war with terrorists operating in secret who have succeeded in bringing the most powerful country in the world to a halt. In war, any weapon, any violent response is considered justified." "However, let us hope that a different mentality will hold sway in the US, and that it [the US] will reexamine its policy and will not be blinded by the need to strike at unseen enemies... The clear lesson from the horrible events to which we were witness is that the only guarantee of the US�s and Israel�s security is a just and comprehensive settlement in the Middle East, one that will meet the rights and interests of all the sides." Endnote: (1) Al-Hayat (London), September 13, 2001. ------------------------------------- Special Dispatch September 20, 2001 No. 272 Terror in America (6) Lebanese professor: It is permissible to rejoice over 'the penetrating of the bastion of American colonialism'; 'Everyone gloated at the misfortune of the American administration, while its leaders scrambled to find a place to hide' Images of Palestinian jubilation following the September 11th attacks have attracted the attention of the Arab media. Most writers criticized both Palestinian reactions of joy to the disaster and the American and Israeli media networks that broadcasted images of these scenes. They claimed that American media networks used the pictures of a few Palestinians who celebrated the attacks, in order to distort the image of the entire Palestinian people. The editor of the Palestinian Authority mouthpiece Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Hafez Al-Barghouthi, claimed that the film crew enticed the Palestinians to rejoice: "The crew of one of the satellite channels artificially created feelings of joy among the children in occupied Jerusalem. Crew members asked the children to dance for them and [the children], enraptured by the camera, did so... The occupier dreams of shifting the cameras from our dismembered body parts to the [dismembered] body parts of others in the world... The Palestinians have no interest to gloat. [Those few who gloated] do not represent our public opinion. It is a whim that might also have [been expressed] in other parts of the world, even in the Western world. But in these instances [in the Western world], the cameras did not reach those places..."(1) However, University of Lebanon lecturer Mustafa Juzo published an article in which he stated that the displays of joy are understandable, and called those criticizing them "hypocrites"(2): "History will testify that the Arabs have never carried out barbaric wars. It is known that the rules of war customary in the Islamic conquest were far superior to those implemented by the United Nations today. The humane approach - even relatively in past centuries - is what characterized the behavior of the Arab and Muslim conquerors. " "In contrast, terror as we know it today was introduced in the region only at the beginning of the 19th century, by Western colonialism and the Zionist gangs. Therefore, the killing of innocents distresses every Arab, even if the slain are his enemies. Hence, many Arabs expressed identification with America's tragedy. This is the truth." "However, another truth is that most Arabs, and perhaps also most of the Third World, did rejoice, not because of the killing of thousands of innocent Americans, but because of the penetration of the bastion of American colonialism and the offensive within its home turf. No one thought for a moment about the people who were inside the tallest of the world's towers as they burned; everyone thought of the American administration and rejoiced at its misfortune, while its leaders scrambled to find a place to hide." "There is a large degree of hypocrisy and idiocy. Does anyone think that the CIA does not know how much it is hated by the Arab people, and how happy the oppressed people in the Third World are at the tragedy that has struck it? [Therefore, there is no point] in our trying to prove to them that the Arab people are not gloating over the American misfortune. Can anyone really believe that a people of whom the US has killed hundreds and thousands times the number of people killed in New York and in Boston [sic], is sorry, and is not happy, when he witnesses this smack to the face of its most bitter enemy?" "The meaning of terror according to the American [dictionary] is known. [The term] refers to any resistance to the new colonialism. In contrast, the collective and racist annihilation of peoples constitutes (according to the American dictionary) a civilized action that should not be resisted." "The Arab wise-guys (referring to those who condemned the attacks) are granting the US - who has opposed them in all international forums and in all arenas of the war - permission to attack their peoples and their friends, especially in light of the fact that the American investigators are restricting their investigation to [suspects with] Arab names, as if the Arabs are entirely to blame... It never occurs to the US that there are others who benefit more from the attacks on the US cities than the Arabs and the Muslims. I refer mainly to Israel, especially since one of the suspects mentioned by the media lived in occupied Palestine and could very possibly have been used by Israel..." "There is no doubt that several Arab intellectuals have put their fingers on a painful truth, saying that terror can be eliminated only by removing the reasons for it, and that the strike on the US is the result of the oppression it inflicted on nations. Some Arab states demanded to distinguish between terror and resistance. There must also be a scientific and correct definition of terror. Terror is the use of violence against innocent civilians with the aim of achieving political, religious, or racist goals - provided that the civilians subjected to that violence are not partners of the military, do not constitute a militia, and are not benefiting from the military aggression in ways such as living on occupied land, or profiting from the property of the people whose land is occupied..." "The funniest thing is that the Arab media and intellectuals encouraged the Arab rulers and people to please America; they chastised anyone expressing joy, as if the Arabs should be seeking forgiveness for every crime carried out in the US out of fear that the enemy, whether the one close by [Israel] or the one far away [the US], will take revenge..." "Arabs must make the American leaders understand that the occupation cannot be rewarded by love, and that American interests are not more important than the rights of human beings... [America] must understand that someone who successfully infiltrates its home turf and attacks its Department of Defense can strike painfully at its interests outside the US with greater ease." "May Allah have mercy on the innocents that the American administration murdered by means of the hijackers; among them are several of our countrymen. True, that administration did not carry out the crime itself - but it caused it, and whoever causes a crime bears a large part of the responsibility for it." Endnotes: (1) Al-Ayyam (Palestinian Authority), September 13, 2001. (2) Al-Hayat (London), September 17, 2001. ************************ The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) is an independent, non-profit organization that translates and analyzes the media of the Middle East. Copies of articles and documents cited, as well as background information, are available on request. The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) P.O. 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