IP: Alternate view of Arab anger

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 22:52:50 -0700
> From: Mike Rain <mrain () compuserve com>
> To: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
> Subject: Alternate view of Arab anger
>
> Dave, in case this hasn't already appeared on IP, this is a counterpoint 
> to Jim
> Muir's BBC piece.
>
>
> Israel Isn't the Issue
>
> Islamic fanatics hate America in its own right.
>
> BY NORMAN PODHORETZ
> Thursday, September 20, 2001 12:01 a.m. EDT
>
> Is American support of Israel behind the hatred of this country that 
> pervades the
> Arab world and that literally exploded into the World Trade Center and the
> Pentagon on Sept. 11? Certainly this is what many in Europe believe, 
> though thus
> far in the United States only a few anti-Israel intransigents, like the 
> columnist
> Robert Novak, have voiced any such sentiment in public.
>
> ...
>
> The point is that if Israel had never come into existence, or if it were 
> magically
> to disappear, the United States would still stand as an embodiment of 
> everything
> that most these Arabs consider evil. Indeed, the hatred of Israel is in 
> large part
> a surrogate for anti-Americanism. Israel is seen as the spearhead of the 
> American
> drive for domination over the Middle East. The Jewish state is a 
> translation, as
> it were, of America into Hebrew--the "little enemy," the "little 
> Satan"--and to
> rid the region of it would thus be tantamount to cleansing an area 
> belonging to
> Islam (Dar-al-Islam) of the blasphemous political, social, and cultural 
> influences
> emanating from a barbaric and murderous force. But the force, so to speak, 
> is with
> America, of which Israel is merely an instrument.
>
> <snip>
>
> http://opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=95001175



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