There would have been no Bin Laden, if the Israelis and Palestinians were living in peace. Bin Laden's and his followers' rage was created and nurtured by the Arab-Israeli conflict
This goes with the line that inter-Arab relations would have been loving and gentle, if not for the Israeli-Arab conflict. They are both a load of hooey.
Let's review bin Laden's career. Got the jihad fervor fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. He was kind of pro-American at that point since America was supplying him weapons. He didn't turn against the Americans until they "defiled" Saudi Arabia by stationing troops there to protect it. The US did that because Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, another conflict not caused by Israeli-Palestinian relations.
In his whole career from the eighties up until about a year ago, bin Laden never even mentioned the Palestinians. His number one demand was and is, no Americans in Saudi Arabia. He added the Palestinians as an afterthought for marketing purposes.
Now, to be sure, the existence of Israel is a great grievance with him, as with all the other Islamists. They will list their grievances against the "Franks" at great detail, starting with the Crusades, continuing through La Reconquista (Spain), moving on to Colonialism and the creation of Israel, and the general meddling of the US (as inheritor from France and Britain) in the Mideast.
However, if you think that these grievances really center around Palestinian suffering, or that they could be redressed by Israel's giving back the West Bank, you are quite mistaken. They can only be redressed by the West's getting out of the Umma totally: No Israel. No American troops. No Western influence. Period. Restore the Caliphate. I presume he wants Spain back too.
In this, OBL is franker than the Palestinians, who have learned to talk a line that will find sympathy with liberal Westerners.
There is no question in my mind that a key reason of Islamic fundamentalism is the impotence felt by the Arabs after the many humiliating defeats at the hands of the (US supported) Israelis
The Arab world has been suffereing from this feeling of impotence since Napolean showed up in 1798 and conquered Egypt with ease. They have gone through several ideas trying to recoup against the West, modernization, socialism, pan-Arab nationalism, etc. With the Islamists they are trying out totalitarianism wrapped in the green flag of Islam, a particularly stupid and dangerous idea. Israel, to be sure, is a particular thorn in their side, but the natural corallary of your idea is that Israel would have to be destroyed to provide a lessening of this feeling of "impotence". Is this what you recommend?
The Arab-Israeli conflict has dominated the Arab popular media for decades and is the key reason for the anti-US feeling of the Arab masses. Couple this with poverty and lack of democracy and you have the perfect environment for the development of extremism
The two things are not coupled by accident. The Arab popular media (nearly all government controlled) feed the populace huge doses of anti-American and anti-Semitic propaganda, to deflect dissatisfaction from the government, its natural target. Saudis in particular read Nazi propaganda day in, day out, as a matter of course. As Tom Friedman just pointed out, the Saudi poet who accused judges of corruption went to jail and his editor was fired. But the Saudi professor who accused the Jews of mixing the blood of Gentile victims into their pastries still has his job. His editor made some sort of a lame apology -- after the US State Department noticed the blood libel and complained. He still has his job too.
What the region needs is not the end of Israel, but the creation of some legitimate regimes. |
