Bin Laden: Palestinian cause fuels war on the West
The Palestinians’ decades-old fight with Israel inspires the war between Muslims and the West, Osama bin Laden said in an audiotape three days ago.
Unfortunately, instead of accepting the former West Bank of Jordan as the Palestinian homeland, bin Laden and other radical Islamists insist that Israel be destroyed to settle the matter.
What did bin Laden say in his Friday message? He said:
“We will continue our struggle against the Israelis and their allies. We are not going to give up an inch of the land of Palestine….
“The Palestinian cause is the major issue for my [Islamic] nation. It was an important element in fueling me from the beginning and the 19 others [who hijacked airplanes for the Sept. 11, 2001, suicide attacks] with a great motive to fight for those subjected to injustice and the oppressed.”
He said the Western news media has been “portraying the Jewish invaders, the occupiers of our land, as the victims, while it portrayed us as the terrorists.”
“Sixty years ago, the Israeli state didn’t exist. Instead, it was established on the land of Palestine raped by force. Israelis are occupying invaders whom we should fight. …
“Peace talks that started 60 years ago are just meant to deceive the idiots. After all the destruction and the killings ... your leaders talk about principles. This is unbearable.”
“Instead of punishing him [former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin] over his crimes ... he was awarded a Nobel prize. …
“To Western nations ... this speech is to understand the core reason of the war between our civilization and your civilizations. I mean the Palestinian cause.”
Jewish-Christian alliance. Bin Laden said things like this before. In 1996, in his declaration of war on the West, he said:
It is not concealed from you that the people of Islam had suffered from aggression, iniquity and injustice imposed on them by the Jewish-Christian alliance and their collaborators to the extent that the Muslims’ blood became the cheapest and their wealth and assets looted by the hands of the enemies. Their blood was spilled in Palestine and Iraq. …
Utmost efforts should be made to prepare and instigate the [Islamic] nation against the enemy, the American-Israeli alliance occupying the country of the two holiest sites [Saudi Arabia], and the root of the Messenger [Muhammad]. …
My Muslim Brothers of the world: Your brothers in the land of the two holiest sites and Palestine are calling upon you for help and asking you to take part in fighting against the enemy, your enemy: the Israelis and Americans. They are asking you to do whatever you can within one’s own means and ability, to expel the humiliate and defeat the enemy out of the sanctities of Islam.
Careers of tyrants. It’s interesting how much the Israel-Palestine clash upsets some Arabs and, of course, the Persians in Iran. Israel and its occupied territories are a relatively tiny part of the Middle East, and yet we’ve seen all this ugly friction for all these years.
If the Arab and Iranian dictators and terrorists wanted peace and progress for their people, they’d have it by now, simply by granting the democracy that is the people’s right. Instead, the leaders keep their tyrannical careers going by stirring up hatred for 7 million Israelis, who are doing fairly well in a democracy, in spite of the constant threats and attacks from neighbors.
Yesterday, bin Laden followed up the May 16 audiotape with another tape accusing Arab leaders of selling out the Palestinians by refusing to destroy Israel.
Never for freedom. Notice that bin Laden’s solution to everything is war. He never calls for freedom. Instead of liberating more of the Middle East, giving it a real chance for a lasting peace, he wants that region and other regions imprisoned under his arbitrarily repressive rules.
His dreams amount to a totalitarian police state. No population, no nation wants that. Don’t believe me? Then let the people of each Middle Eastern nation vote every four or five years on one question: Do you want an unelected theocracy controlled by self-appointed “holy men”? Do you want any unelected government? Or do you want democracy and all the freedoms that go with it?
Bin Laden could never win a free vote. When you’re has hungry for power as that silly man is, the only other choice is coercion. That explains everything.
Frank Warner
Ron Paul's solution is to ignore all of that mess in the Middle East.
Posted by: CJW | May 19, 2008 at 01:12 PM