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October 12, 2001/Tishri 25, 5762, Vol. 54, No. 5
Palestinians cheer bin Laden rhetoric
GIL SEDAN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Nowhere else on the planet was Osama bin Laden more popular this week than in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It took Palestinians just one night, after the news spread of the first air attack on Kabul, Afghanistan, before they took to the streets in protest.
Like the rest of the world, most Palestinians spent the night of Oct. 7 glued to their television screens watching every second "of the best show in the world," the speech of suspected terrorist mastermind bin Laden, that apparently had been recorded before the attack took place and aired just afterward on Qatar's al-Jazeera network.
"I swear to God that America will not live in peace until there is peace in Palestine and the army of the heathen will leave the Land of Mohammad," bin Laden said in his speech, referring to Saudi Arabia.
He then named honored "battle sites" where Palestinian militants have clashed with Israeli soldiers in the past year - Rafah, Ramallah and Beit Jalla.
At last, Palestinians noted with satisfaction, it would be clear to the world why it was suffering from terrorism - because of Israel.
The most quoted source in the Palestinian territories - after bin Laden - was a Newsweek public opinion poll showing that 58 percent of Americans believe that U.S. support for Israel in some measure is responsible for the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said any attempt to link the Sept. 11 attack to Israeli policy toward the Palestinians was ridiculous.
"What's he blabbering about?" Peres said of bin Laden on Israel Radio. "You don't need any war of liberation for the Palestinians. We offered them liberation without war."
Millions of Muslims throughout the world shared bin Laden's analysis that this was a war between Islam and a corrupt West.
In the first 24 hours of the U.S.-led retaliation against Afghanistan, overt Palestinian protest was limited and the intifada continued at its slow, bloody pace. Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat withheld official reaction to the Oct. 7 air strikes on Afghanistan and forbade P.A. officials from commenting on them.
Reeling from the negative publicity when Palestinians celebrated the Sept. 11 terror attacks on America, Arafat ordered that demonstrations of support for bin Laden not be filmed. The Palestinian Authority tried to ban the Oct. 8 protest in Gaza and, when that failed, to suppress it. Two protesters were killed in clashes with Palestinian police, and 10 policemen reportedly were injured.
According to press reports, the P.A. closed Gaza City's universities to silence Islamic militants and prevented reporters from covering events in the Gaza Strip.
Like the rest of the Western world, Israelis feared possible terror retaliation for the Oct. 7 strikes - but then, terrorism has become part of the daily routine here.
"There is perhaps no other country in the world which is so well-prepared for terrorism like Israel," Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer said. On the eve of Simchat Torah, Ben-Eliezer urged Israelis to celebrate as they had planned, stressing that Israel is not part of the evolving war.
"There is nothing new in the fact that we are on bin Laden's map," Ben-Eliezer said. "I am more troubled by Jewish targets in the world. He might reach such targets as well."
Despite Ben-Eliezer's calming words, Israel feared a possible flare-up on various fronts - Israeli and Jewish targets abroad, Hezbollah militants on the border with Lebanon and Palestinian militants.
The fact that initial reaction was subdued did not mean trouble would not flare up later on. It generally was assumed here that as long as the Americans did not attack targets like Iraq or Hezbollah, there was no immediate danger of a local escalation.
However, Ze'ev Schiff, military analyst for the Israeli daily Ha'aretz, suggested it was quite possible that organizations such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah might try to open "a second front" to make life difficult for the Americans.
Palestinian leaders and the Palestinian public were divided. The Palestinian cabinet met Oct. 7 for an emergency session, but whereas Arafat is keen on remaining part of the American coalition, hatred against America currently runs deep in the Arab world in general and among Palestinians in particular.
"No other people has suffered so much from terrorism like the Palestinian people," said Abdul Aziz Rantisi, a Hamas leader in Gaza. "America has always stood by Zionist terrorism."
Israeli Arabs expressed similar feelings, and Israeli Arab Knesset members condemned the American-led attacks. Knesset member Ahmed Tibi backed bin Laden's comments, calling his use of the Palestinian issue "sophisticated and emotional" and predicting that Arab and Muslim pressure on Israel would grow as Afghani casualties mounted.
"Today they have declared war on Islam," said Abdul Hakim Mufid, senior editor at the newspaper of the Islamic Movement in Israel. "The West has brought the calamity upon itself after hundreds of years of colonialism and imperialism."
Initial hopes have faded that Iran, a leading supporter of world terrorism, might join President Bush's anti-terror coalition. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's spiritual leader, condemned the British-American attack. He thus joined Iraq, which was the first Arab state to come out against the attack.
More moderate Arab regimes were concerned about a possible domino effect, fearing that the offensive against Afghanistan could cause instability in countries like Pakistan and Indonesia - which in turn might stir up spirits among radical Islamic elements in countries like Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Egypt supported the Oct. 7 attack on condition that it be limited in scope.
Israeli Professor Emmanuel Sivan, an expert on Islam, said recently that the attacks in New York and Washington were part of the "third wave of the activities of radical Islam." The two previous waves were Islamic terrorism in Arab countries such as Syria, Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt, including the murder of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat 20 years ago this month.
The previous waves failed, Sivan said, but radical Islam is now engaged in a third wave - against the Western world.
"I am quite sure the West will succeed in winning this round," Sivan said last week in an interview with the Israeli daily Yediot Achronot. "But if there is something that frightens me it's the knowledge that there will be a fourth wave, which once again will focus on the Arab countries. I am not convinced that the Arab countries will succeed in overcoming it."
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