October 23, 2001

Ha'aretz - Monday, October 22, 2001
The Ubiquitous Palestinian Question By Ze'ev Schiff

It is not too difficult to understand the American approach that argues that, in order to fight fundamentalist Islamic terror, the assistance of Arab and Muslim states must be enlisted. However, it is totally unacceptable to argue that there is any connection - apparently, the inspiration for this line of thinking is primarily supplied by these states - between Islamic terror and the Palestinian-Israeli dispute, which is presented as the cause of such terror.

Using that kind of line of reasoning, one could argue that Islamic terror can be attributed to the dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. The terror that is produced by the Arab and Muslim world is a disease unto itself - an infectious disease that is causing the anthrax of anti-Semitism to rear its ugly head in a number of European countries.

One person who has made the connection between Islamic terror and the Palestinian-Israeli dispute is Saudi Prince (and billionaire) Al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz, who wanted to make a $10-million donation to the families of the victims of the September 11 terrorist attack on the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center. He claimed that one of the reasons for that terrorist attack was the attitude that Israel and the United States display toward the Palestinians. The mayor of New York City, Rudolph Giuliani, returned the check because he perceived in the would-be donor's remarks indirect justification for this act of terrorism.

There is, however, a prominent Saudi connection to the September 11 attack. First of all, Saudi Arabia is very much interested in helping the world forget that Osama bin Laden is Saudi, as well as were 12 of the perpetrators of the terror attacks on September 11.

Second, if Saudi Arabia is so concerned about the welfare of the Palestinians, why has it not transferred to them the funds that it promised it would provide? Why does Saudi Arabia, for example, not transfer the funds in bin Laden's bank accounts - which Saudi Arabia has so far refrained from freezing - to Palestinian refugee camps?

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak (who fights terrorism with methods that Israel would do well to avoid) similarly contends that 50 percent - on one occasion, he even said 80 percent - of the terrorist incidents in the world can be attributed to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Someone should ask President Mubarak whether the list of such terrorist attacks includes the attempt on his life in 1995 by fundamentalists associated with bin Laden. Was the Palestinian-Israeli dispute the cause of the massacre that was carried out by Islamic fundamentalists in 1997 in Luxor and which cost the lives of 58 Japanese and Swiss tourists? Those very same terrorists attacked the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad in 1995.

It would be useful to remind Mubarak that there was an Egyptian connection - in the form of Egyptian Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman - in the first attempt, in 1993, to blow up the World Trade Center.

It was neither the situation of the Palestinians nor France's negative attitude toward them that drove a group of Islamic fundamentalist Algerian terrorists to try in 1994 to crash a skyjacked Air France airliner into the Eiffel Tower. That attack would have taken place had it not been for the fact that French commandos seized control of the hijacked plane while it fueled up in Marseille. Is the cruel Islamic terrorism in Algeria, which has caused the deaths of thousands of civilians, including women and children, linked to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians?

Some people are claiming that, because Arabs and Muslims feel that they are discriminated against, they are led to carry out acts of terrorism. However, they are not the only ones in the world who sense that they are victims of prejudice. No has heard any reports of Hindus or Buddhists, who are discriminated against (many of them are victims of prejudice), putting in motion an operation to blow up skyscrapers and major government facilities in the U.S.

It is incumbent upon the Muslims themselves, especially Muslim religious leaders, to prove that these grave acts of terrorism are contrary to the tenets of Islam. The Muslims will not be able to justify such acts by attributing them to the Palestinian-Israeli dispute, which is what they tried to do at the conference of Islamic states in Qatar. Five of the 12 resolutions passed at that gathering concerned Israel and the terrorism it allegedly carries out. In one of the remaining seven resolutions, the delegates did not forget to propose donations to the Afghan people - that is, to the Taliban government.

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