Islamic Militant Movements



Islamic Militant Movements

Israel Trigger Islamic Fury

After the September 11 terrorist assault on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, many American analysts have been seeking to understand the source of the intense hatred against the United States that could have motivated an act of violence on such an unprecedented scale. In that context, a new canard is beginning to run through repeated news reports and features: that somehow America's support for Israel is behind the fury of militant Islamic movements, like that of Osama bin Laden, towards the United States. Indeed, a Newsweek poll conducted on October 4-5, 2001, found that 58 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. relationship with Israel is "a big reason terrorists attacked the United States."

These attitudes had to come from somewhere. For example, Caryl Murphy wrote in the Washington Post: "If we want to avoid creating more terrorists, we must end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict quickly."2 Similarly, Gary Kamiya, Salon magazine's executive editor, added: "A sword will hang over the U.S. until we convince Israel to make peace with the Palestinians."3 Appearing on ABC with Peter Jennings, Hanan Ashrawi also charged that the U.S. alliance with Israel was to blame for the September 11 attack.

 

Ideological Sources of Bin Laden's Anti-Americanism

A 1998 fatwa (religious ruling) issued by bin Laden jointly with militant Islamic leaders from Egypt, Pakistan, and Bangladesh provides an insight into the sources of his anti-Americanism.9 The document calls "on every Muslim...to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it." True, bin Laden uses language like "the Zionist-Crusader alliance" that sweeps in the issue of Israel, but the primary justification for doing so is that "for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, [and] terrorizing its neighbors."

The "Holy Land" is Arabia

The three areas of grievance listed in the declaration -- Arabia, Iraq, and Jerusalem -- will be familiar to observers of the Middle Eastern scene. What may be less familiar is the sequence and emphasis. For Muslims, as we in the West sometimes tend to forget but those familiar with Islamic history and literature know, the holy land par excellence is Arabia -- Mecca, where the Prophet was born; Medina, where he established the first Muslim state; and the Hijaz, whose people were the first to rally to the new faith.

Bin Laden issued an earlier document in 1996 called a "Declaration of War Against the American Occupying of the Land of the Two Holy Places" (referring to Mecca and Medina). Here, too, bin Laden demonstrated that his priorities focus first and foremost on the Arabian peninsula: "If there is more than one duty to be carried out, then the most important one should receive priority. Clearly after Belief (Imaan), there is no more important duty than pushing the American enemy out of the holy land ...