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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Win Smith who wrote (3469)	10/8/2001 12:45:09 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Two interesting facts: 1) bin Laden crowns himself head of jihad everywhere, esp. the Palestinian intifada, dismissing Arafat as "debauched" and "deserving the wrath of God", 2) for the first time, PA police uses live ammo to break up a pro bin Laden Hamas demonstration in Gaza. Remember the piece I posted a couple of days ago from Haaretz, where the IDF said that Arafat was reaching the moment when he had to control Hamas or be destroyed by Hamas? I think bin Laden may have just pushed things over the edge. from Debka (usual warning -- unsubstantiated): Bin Laden declared that the objectives of his war included Israel disappearing and the Palestinian people and the Aqsa Mosque being saved from the non-believers. Underscoring the strong US-Israel link, he declared: “America has announced its total support of the Zionist entity… a stupid policy.” He went on to vow: “America will not live in peace before peace reigns in Palestine.” The objectives Bin Laden set himself were clearly laid out: The war on “the infidels” would go on and no American could dream of security before “we have it in Palestine” and “all the infidel armies leave the land of Muhammad”. DEBKAfile’s experts on terror advise Israeli authorities to treat Bin Laden’s threats seriously and prepare for the onset of Al Qaeda terrorist attacks. The assertion by President George W. Bush minutes into the assault on Afghanistan that the war was not against Islam but the terrorism practiced by Moslem extremists, brought forth this response: ”The war against Afghanistan and Osama Bin Laden is a war on Islam.” In Islamic terms, he disposed neatly of Yasser Arafat’s yearlong attempt to turn his confrontation against Israel into a holy war and to crown himself the defender of Al Aqsa. To this end, Arafat was ready to enlist the Lebanese Shiite Hizballah and the extremists Jihad Islami and Hamas, turning his security organs into the operational arms of these militant groups. Bin Laden easily cut the Palestinian leader and his intifada down to size as no US president or Israeli prime minister has ever done. He referred to him as “debauched” “a follower of injustice” and deserving the “wrath of God”. With one hand Bin Laden hallowed Arafat’s Jihad; with the other, he pronounced him unfit to lead it, placing himself at the forefront of the holy war. DEBKAfile’s Palestinian sources report that Arafat hurried over to Cairo to confer with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on the embarrassing situation in which the Palestinians and most Arab rulers find themselves. Bin Laden’s contempt for those rulers is manifest and deeply feared as capable of generating popular unrest in their capitals. The meeting of Islamic and Arab foreign ministers opening in Doha, Qater Tuesday, October 9, will be hard pressed to take a stand on the conflict and formulate an attitude on the Bin Laden issue.