Why Many Arabs Hate America

                              by Scott McConnell
                              September 12, 2001

        After the assassination of John F. Kennedy – before today,
        the most traumatic event for Americans in my lifetime –
        Malcolm X said "the chickens have come home to roost."
        Malcolm was reportedly gleeful and rancorous, and his
        audience laughed at his words: he meant to convey that
        Kennedy's death meant very little, compared to what whites had
        done to his people. But the phrase would not be inappropriate
        today – if said in sorrow – after thousands of innocents were
        killed in the worst terrorist assault in American history.

        Whether the World Trade Center perpetrator is Osama Bin
        Laden, or one of countless Arab or Muslim subgroups, we
        should not have any doubt: this attack was welcomed in much
        of the Arab and Muslim world. Palestinian leaders may have
        given it pro-forma condemnation, but the people on the Arab
        "street" were smiling and flashing "V" signs when they heard the
        news.

        Before Americans set their sights on revenge, (and revenge is
        expected, and necessary) they should at least understand why
        this attack delighted many, why United States foreign policy
        makes it hated in much of the world.

        The reasons were spelled out in part last month by Egyptian
        President Hosni Mubarak's foreign policy advisor Osama Baz.
        He came to Washington carrying the urgent message from the
        Arab world's most populous state: the United States would face
        mounting rage in the Middle East unless it did something to
        diffuse the escalating Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

        He was received politely by Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice
        and otherwise more or less ignored. A month before, Senator
        George Mitchell's carefully modulated plan for a Middle East
        cease-fire, which incorporated a freeze on new Israeli
        settlements in the Palestinian territories, had been allowed to
        die on the vine after Israel said no dice to a settlement freeze.
        America's unanimously pro-Israel pundit class paid no heed to
        Baz's visit, instead using their columns to shill for an Israeli
        military reoccupation of the West Bank, supposedly to solve
        Israel's terror problem once and for all.

        But the United States, supplier of the tanks and helicopters and
        rockets which Israel uses to control the West Bank and
        assassinate the odd Palestinian leader, cannot opt out of the
        Middle East peace process. By its large scale arms shipments
        and financial subsidies to Israel, it is already engaged. It is a key
        partner. The Oslo Peace process has aroused Palestinian hopes
        for a viable state, and one can't imagine that they would
        relinquish them now. In his attempted mediations, Bill Clinton
        eloquently gave voice to the reasonable core of Palestinian
        aspirations. Now George Bush, whose knowledge of the Middle
        East seems little deeper than what he picked up from a ride with
        Ariel Sharon on a helicopter, has decided to snub the Arab
        world.

          Israel and Palestine is not the only issue which arouses Arab
        rancor. The embargo on Saddam Hussein's Iraq, organized and
        led by the United States, and now ten years old, is responsible,
        UN officials estimate, for the death of more than half a million
        Iraqi children. Saddam Hussein – one of the world's cruelest
        tyrants, bears no small measure of responsibility for the current
        horror in Iraq. But while American policies have left him in
        power, they have done grievous harm Iraq's weakest, the old,
        the sick, the very young. Americans don't read or hear much of
        this – it is not on their front pages or TV screens. But there now
        must be at least tens of thousands of Iraqi parents who know
        that their children are dead because of the American embargo.
        It creates a sentiment – now widespread throughout the Middle
        East – which allows for the perpetrators of today's horrific deeds
        to be recruited.

        America's airwaves are alive now with ordinary people calling
        for vengeance against this most vile of attacks. I don't feel
        differently, and if I had lost a loved one, would volunteer for a
        revenge mission myself. But we shouldn't delude ourselves
        about why there is so much hatred for the United States. It does
        not come out of the clear blue. It is not because we represent
        freedom and virtue and light, while the Arabs stand for darkness
        and repression. American culture may represent something
        corrosive and immoral to certain Islamic sensibilities – that
        can't be helped. But that is not what provokes suicide bombers.
        American policies often kill, directly and indirectly – and this is
        why people are willing to sacrifice themselves to kill us in
        return.

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We Are All One World
  by War Resisters League Executive Committee

  As we write, Manhattan feels under seige, with all bridges,
  tunnels, and subways closed, and tens of thousands of
  people walking slowly north from Lower Manhattan. As we sit
  in our offices here at War Resisters League, our most
  immediate thoughts are of the hundreds, if not thousands,
  of New Yorkers who have lost their lives in the collapse of
  the World Trade Center. The day is clear, the sky is blue,
  but vast clouds billow over the ruins where so many have
  died, including a great many rescue workers who were there
  when the final collapse occured.
  Of course we know our friends and co-workers in Washington
  D.C. have similar thoughts about the ordinary people who
  have been trapped in the parts of the Pentagon which were
  also struck by a jet. And we think of the innocent
  passengers on the hi-jacked jets who were carried to their
  doom on this day. We do not know at this time from what
  source the attack came. We do know that Yasser Arafat has
  condemned the bombing. We hesitate to make an extended
  analysis until more information is available but some
  things are clear. For the Bush Administration to talk of
  spending hundreds of billions on Star Wars is clearly the
  sham it was from the beginning, when terrorism can so
  easily strike through more routine means.
  We urge Congress and George Bush that whatever response or
  policy the U.S. develops it will be clear that this nation
  will no longer target civilians, or accept any policy by
  any nation which targets civilians. This would mean an end
  to the sanctions against Iraq, which have caused the deaths
  of hundreds of thousands of civilians. It would mean not
  only a condemnation of terrorism by Palestinians but also
  the policy of assassination against the Palestinian
  leadership by Israel, and the ruthless repression of the
  Palestinian population and the continuing occupation by
  Israel of the West Bank and Gaza.
  The policies of militarism pursued by the United States
  have resulted in millions of deaths, from the historic
  tragedy of the Indochina war, through the funding of death
  squads in Central America and Colombia, to the sanctions
  and air strikes against Iraq. This nation is the largest
  supplier of "conventional weapons" in the world - and those
  weapons fuel the starkest kind of terrorism from Indonesia
  to Africa. The early policy of support for armed resistance
  in Afghanistan resulted in the victory of the Taliban - and
  the creation of Osama Bin Laden.
  Other nations have also engaged in these policies. We have,
  in years past, condemned the actions of the Russian
  government in areas such as Chechnya, the violence on both
  sides in the Middle East, and in the Balkans. But our
  nation must take responsibility for its own actions. Up
  until now we have felt safe within our borders. To wake on
  a clear cool day to find our largest city under seige
  reminds us that in a violent world, none are safe.
  Let us seek an end of the militarism which has
  characterized this nation for decades. Let us seek a world
  in which security is gained through disarmament,
  international cooperation, and social justice - not through
  escalation and retaliation. We condemn without reservation
  attacks such as those which occured today, which strike at
  thousands of civilians - may these profound tragedies
  remind us of the impact U.S. policies have had on other
  civilians in other lands. We are particularly aware of the
  fear which many people of Middle Eastern descent, living in
  this country, may feel at this time and urge special
  consideration for this community.
  We are one world. We shall live in a state of fear and
  terror or we shall move toward a future in which we seek
  peaceful alternatives to conflict and a more just
  distribution of the world's resources. As we mourn the many
  lives lost, our hearts call out for reconciliation, not
  revenge.
  This is not an official statement of the War Resisters
  League but was drafted immediately after the tragic events
  occurred. Signed and issued by the staff and Executive
  Committee of War Resisters League in the national office,
  September 11, 2001

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