A statement titled "Letter to the American People," allegedly
written by Osama bin Laden and disseminated over the Internet
in Arabic a few days before last week's double attack in
Mombasa, says that Israel's very existence is the main reason
why Bin Laden's al-Qaida organization has declared war on the
United States. This is the first time that Israel has figured
prominently in al-Qaida's rhetoric and seems to indicate a
shift in strategy.
"The creation and continuation of Israel is one of the
greatest crimes, and you [the Americans] are the leaders of
its criminals," the letter said, according to an English
translation published in the British journal The
Observer.
"[T]here is no need to explain and prove the degree of
American support for Israel. The creation of Israel is a
crime which must be erased. Each and every person whose hands
have become polluted in the contribution toward this crime
must pay its price, and pay for it heavily."
While previous al-Qaida publications have mentioned the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the U.S. presence in Saudi
Arabia has hitherto been the organization's No. 1 complaint
against America. The explicit call for Israel's annihilation
is also unusual.
Observers said that the Palestinian issue is being given
greater prominence because it unites the Muslim world more
than any other issue.
Even before the Mombasa attack, the intelligence services had
predicted that due to the difficulties al-Qaida was
encountering in hitting American targets, it was liable to
start focusing on Jewish and Israeli targets instead.
The letter also attacks the Jews as a whole for the
"fabricated lies that the Jews have a historical right to
Palestine, as it was promised to them in the Torah." Only
then does it get to the present conflict, saying "the blood
pouring out of Palestine must be equally revenged."
Later, it also blasts America for having "supported the Jews
in their idea that Jerusalem is their eternal capital, and
agreed to move your embassy there" -- something that in fact
the U.S. has repeatedly refused to do.
Only after this lengthy treatment of the Israel issue does
the letter proceed to a one-sentence mention of other
conflicts involving Muslims, including Kashmir, Chechnya and
Somalia, and accuses America of supporting the non-Muslim
parties to these conflicts. It also attacks Arab governments
that have recognized Israel.
The letter is novel in that it offers al-Qaida's first
explanation of why it deems attacks on American civilians
legitimate - because their elected representatives in the
administration and Congress are responsible for these crimes
against Muslims, and because their taxes pay for "the planes
that bomb us in Afghanistan, the tanks that strike and
destroy our homes in Palestine, the armies which occupy our
lands in the Arabian Gulf, and the fleets which ensure the
blockade of Iraq. These tax dollars are given to Israel for
it to continue to attack us and penetrate our lands."
