• How the Official Palestinian Authority Press Views Bin Laden Public Condemnation; Private Glee
• The Double Message of the Israeli Government by David Bedein, Bureau Chief, Israel Resource News Agency
• Yusuf Abu Snena - Headlines of his Sermon on Friday, 26th October as Broadcast on the "Voice of Palestine" PBC Radio THE PALESTINIAN WAR ON AMERICA

The Report

Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat laid down strict guidelines for press coverage of Bin Laden's attacks on the United States. The directives banned any coverage of the widespread demonstrations in support of Bin Laden in such cities as Gaza City, Nablus and Rafah. But the newspapers were encouraged to be venomous toward the United States and the West in an effort to provide a framework of empathy for Bin Laden's attacks.

At first, PA newspapers prominently displayed the condemnation over the September 11 attacks by Arafat and several leading officials. This included Arafat's donation of blood in Gaza for the victims in the United States, Still, the condemnation was selective and included only those Palestinians who focus on the West, such as PA International Cooperation Minister Nabil Shaath, PA Information Minister Yasser Abbed Rabbo and Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi, who is Arafat's unofficial spokeswoman in the West. Aides to Arafat who dealt with such allies as Iran, Iraq and Syria were silent.

At the same time, the PA press avoided virtually all coverage of the demonstrations in support of Bin Laden in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The demonstrations took place hours after Islamic suicide attackers destroyed New York's World Trade Center and a wing of the Pentagon in Washington. At first, the PA allowed the pro-Bin Laden rallies as long as foreign journalists were banned from recording the enthusiasm expressed over the killing of 6,000 a.m.ericans. But as the demonstrations were being reported in the West and spread throughout the PA areas, Arafat ordered his security forces to stop the rallies.

PA Censors Reports on Anti-U.S. Protests

In Gaza City, the efforts to stop the demonstration by supporters of the Arafat-led Fatah movement and Islamic opposition members were bloody. Three Palestinian students were killed and a dozen were injured on October 8. Demonstrators accused Palestinian officers under the command of Brig. Gen. Ghazi Jabali of shooting at protesters. At first, the PA turned silent and then referred to the police officers as "masked gunmen." The reason for the pro-Bin Laden demonstrations was censored. Instead, the Palestinian press referred heavily to the "unfortunate events in Gaza." The nature of the pro-Bin Laden rally was not mentioned.

The leading force in shaping the Palestinian message was the Ramallah-based Al Hayat Al Jedida, which is owned by the PA. The newspaper -- with the smallest circulation of the three Palestinian dailies but receiving the largest official subsidy -- viewed the Gaza City shootout as a threat to Palestinian unity rather than a call to support Bin Laden. The newspaper on October 10 provided extensive coverage of the calls to stop internecine strife and heal the rift within society.

"Numerous appeals were voiced by the leadership yesterday, including nationalist and Islamic forces and human rights roup, to immediately stop the calls that were voiced in the unfortunate events in Gaza, in which citizens fell victim and many were wounded, and to ban the internal fighting in light of the difficult conditions that are taking place at this time," Al Hayat Al Jedida said on October 10.

At the same time, the PA press was ordered to stress that regardless of the attacks on the United States and Palestinian support for Bin Laden, the Palestinian people remained the chief victims of terrorism. The message was relayed by Arafat to all Palestinian newspapers on October 10. Arafat said he condemned "terrorist acts against the American people when the Palestinian people fall victims to terrorism and occupation."

Bin Laden Obtains Understanding

The political editor of Arafat's Wafa news service, elaborated. The editor, who represents Arafat's thinking, warned Palestinians to refrain from public support of Bin Laden. The Palestinians were urged not to be swept away by the support expressed by Bin Laden in the video broadcast on the Qatari-owned A-Jazeera satellite channel, popular in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The editorial warned that words "have a greater lethality than weapons" and whipped the Palestinian populace into a frenzy.

Here, the editor referred to the damage of the pro-Bin Laden riots. He said young Palestinians in Gaza city had engaged in "activities full of hostility, arsons and various attacks that do not suit our tradition and what we are going through from the killing terrorism, hunger and tearing of limbs. What took place in the Gaza Strip, the clashes with our national police, disturbs us. And it does not matter who is the source or who started it or who attacked, who shot or who threw a firebomb."

At the same time, the Wafa editor expressed understanding with the enthusiasm showed by Palestinians over Bin Laden. Bin Laden's target, the United States, was deemed as a supporter of Israel and an oppressor of Palestinians. At the same time, the PA news service urged Palestinians to be wary of Bin Laden's goals.

"Osama Bin Laden threw into the air expressions that the Palestinian people were forced to absorb," Wafa said. "The Palestinian people do not support terrorism and operates within the upgrading against the occupation. Nobody can criticize or condemn us because our true targets are against occupation troops and settlements and against all that which is opposed by international law -- not against citizens. It seems that some people are itching to threaten the United States that oppresses us. This is something else. Bin Laden's words went to the heart of the frustration by Palestinians and the oppression they suffer and the treatment they receive from the United States. But we have to understand that this is a framework that will turn us into frustrated people. We have to change the conception toward us. We are not enemies of the United States and the West. The most dangerous thing about Bin Laden is his attempt to turn the war as a conflict against Muslims, Christians and Jews and thus sacrifice the Palestinian conflict and damage the legitimate Palestinian rising."

Palestinian legislator Ashrawi, who is also spokeswoman for the Cairo-based Arab League, reiterated this theme. She also dismissed Bin Laden's right to speak for the Palestinian people. But in remarks reported by Al Hayat Al Jadida, Ashrawi linked terrorism in the Middle East to U.S. support for Israel. "Washington will act according to its interests and its solidarity with Israel until it becomes clear to the U.S. that Israel is the source of instability in the region, something which is costly to the Palestinian people and the greater Arab world," she said.

Israel Was Behind the Anti-U.S. Riots

When the pro-Bin Laden riots died down, the Palestinian press turned to condemnation of the U.S.-led war against Afghanistan. Now, those killed by Palestinian police were no longer termed "wild youngsters." They were termed "martyrs," a term used for Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks and regarded as heroes. At the same time, Palestinian newspapers reported Arafat's assertion that an Israeli agent was arrested for organizing the pro-Bin Laden demonstrations. Arafat said the Israeli agent gave 8-10 Palestinians gifts and cameras to record the demonstrations. There was no confirmation of this charge from any other source.

Al Hayat Al Jedida ran a cartoon on October 11 that showed Uncle Sam, or the United States, carrying a missile. Behind Uncle Sam was Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, his hands full of blood. The cartoon is entitled: "Washington intends to attack other countries." An accompanying article compared the Palestinian victims of the war with Israel to the Afghan victims in the U.S. offensive.

The dailies were also full of reports that reflected Palestinian anger toward Washington. Palestinian newspapers published a poll by Bir Zeit University that 90 percent of Palestinians believed that Washington support of Israel was the source of hostility toward the United States. Most of those polled expressed hatred toward Washington's policy or the United States. The October poll reported that more than 72 percent oppose Arab or Palestinian participation in the U.S.-led war against terrorism.

The Futility of a U.S. Counter-Strike

The Jerusalem-based Al Quds daily took a different approach on October 11. The newspaper tried to demonstrate the futility of the U.S. war against Bin Laden. A cartoon showed a fat U.S. general asking a junior officer: "Check how much damage was achieved by 90 missiles." The soldier replied: "The damage is 90 missiles, commander."

Al Hayat Al Jedida relayed a similar message on October 15. It showed President George Bush telling Americans: "We will fight terror." The second image shows telling Bush: "And we will win." The third image shows a forlorn Bush on top of an Afghan mountain, remarking "Wow, I have no idea how." The newspaper featured an accompanying article that termed the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan as "a war of terror against terror, a confrontation between terrorists. And here [in the PA], the angel of death is still among us. The [Israeli] government of murder continues to kill and has exacted several times the number of people that fell in the two two towers and those that fell in Afghanistan."

The Ramallah-based Al Ayyam continued with this theme in a cartoon on October 19. The drawing showed a huge bat with bared teeth threatening Ramallah. On the wings of the bat is written "Terrorism." But the "o" in "terrorism" contained a star of David.

Backlash Against Giuliani

Nowhere was there a greater expression of Palestinian venom against the United States than in the episode of New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's rejection of a Saudi gift of $10 million. In October, Giuliani dismissed a donation by Saudi Prince Walid Bin Talal, terming it "blood money." The Palestinian press joined with its counterparts in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Gulf countries in terming the attitude of the American as the root cause of all evil. Here, Giuliani was described as a Zionist supporter who allowed Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert complete access to City Hall and was even deemed a deputy mayor.

The Palestinian charge was led by Al Hayat Al Jadida editor Hafez Barghouthi wrote. Barghouthi poured his wrath on Giuliani, terming him a fraud and hater. "New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani became obsessed by his hatred of Arabs even before the terrorist attacks on New York," the flamboyant editor wrote on October 17. "He hides his first name, chosen for him by his Italian father, so as not to remind the Jewish voters of the infamous Rudolph Hitler. This is why he prefers to shorten it to Rudy."

Barghouthi defended the Saudi refusal to cooperate with the U.S. war against terrorism. The editor said the Saudi kingdom is defending its rights by refusing to help in the effort against Bin Laden. Barghouthi did not refer to the connection between Riyad and Bin Laden.

"There is an intense offensive against Saudi Arabia because it is not automatically signing up for the American war; on the contrary, it has many legitimate reservations regarding Western policy towards the Arabs," Barghouthi wrote. "Anyone following the Israeli and American columnists smells a media trap aimed at accusing the Saudi kingdom of terrorism, and even of harboring terrorists. [This is] not because it is true, but because Saudi Arabia is fighting alone on several fronts to protect the uniqueness of Saudi policy. It will not enter into another's war when it does not know where that war is headed; it fights terrorism in its own way and protects the interests of itself and its citizens."

Allies of Giuliani were not ignored. This included New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who welcomed the decision by the New York City mayor and criticized Saudi Arabia.

"Friedman says that the United States is not responsible for what he calls the widespread 'frustration' among young Saudis that makes them support Bin Laden," Adli Sadeq writes in Al Hayat Al Jedida on October 17. "He contends that it is not Washington that maintains an autocratic regime, and denies young people their political rights. He chides the Arab countries for their failure to [deal with] the challenges of development, and says that North Korea's average per capita income in 1950 was similar to that of Arab countries, but that today Korea has left the Arab states far behind. According to him, the United States is not responsible for this."

"Thomas Friedman is a liar and a fraud," Adli Sadeq continued. "The United States is the enemy of the democratic aspirations of the Arab peoples; it is the friend and protector of dictatorships and autocracies; it is the number one schemer against development in the Arab world. With regard to the media attack on Saudi Arabia, I maintain that Riyad is doing the right thing. Refraining from joining the Americans. is counted in the tally of the Saudi government's good deeds."

The Palestinian reservations regarding Bin Laden did not include the use of Islamic suicide attacks against Israel, the United States and its allies. Palestinian newspapers praised the use of suicide bombers, particularly against Israel. But the newspapers quoted Islamic clerics as promising Islamic suicide attackers heaven with scores of virgins to service them.

"The Americans and the eunuchs at their sides [i.e. the rulers of Arab and Islamic countries] think that if they kill us, they will win," Dr. Yunis Al-Astal, a lecturer in the Islamic Law Department at Gaza Islamic University, wrote in the Hamas weekly Al Risala on October 11. "They do not know that with their weapons they only expedite our arrival in Paradise. We yearn to reach paradise; it is our abode, and in it are 'the black-eyed,' confined to pavilions, and also there are [women] with downcast eyes whose chastity has not been violated before us by either man or jinn. In contrast, the value of this world in which we live, which they [the U.S. and its Arab allies] think that they have attained, is in our eyes not worth the wing of a mosquito."

The Islamic Jihad's weekly, Al Istiqlal, focused on the merits of suicide attacks in the wake of the destruction of the World Trade Center. The newspaper on October 4 published announcements of the death of suicide bombers that resembled wedding announcements. Indeed, Islamic newspapers as well as some secular publications in the Palestinian press regard the suicide bomber as marrying a "black-eyed virgin" in heaven.

"With great pride, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad marries the member of its military wing, the martyr and hero Yasser Al-Adhami, to 'the black-eyed,'" Al Istiqlal writes.

Palestinian Media Watch and MEMRI provided some of the translations for the above report.

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A case in point:

On October 28, 2001, the state of Israel spoke in two tongues concerning Yassir Arafat's responsibility for the current wave of Arab terror in Israel.

Throughout the morning of October 28th, Israel's minister of Foreign Affairs, Shimon Peres, gave an endless round of news interviews, to Israeli and foreign news bureaus in which he said that Arafat was not responsible for the current wave of terror.

Peres spoke of Arafat's arrests of terrorists, and of Arafat's efforts to quell Islamic terror groups.

In the afternoon of October 28th, Peres took the unprecedented step of initiating an appearance on the Voice of Palestine radio station in which he assured his listeners that the Palestinian Arab people would soon have a state of their own.

Meanwhile, on the same day of October 28th,, IDF sources met with more than a hundred journalists to provided data that connected Arafat and the PLO to every form of Arab Islamic terror activity that currently plagues the state and people of Israel.

IDF sources noted that when Islamic terror groups train and operate in the full view of the Palestinian Authority security services, they get the message that their activity operates with the full blessing of Arafat's regime.

IDF sources provided the media with documentation that the Islamic Hamas terror group's military wing operates as an official integral part of Arafat's Palestinian Authority security forces in Gaza.

IDF sources told the media that they were were not surprised that on the morning of October 28th that two Hamas terrorists in the service of the Palestinian security services had that very morning murdered four more women and wounded fifty civilians in cold blood at the Hadera bus station.

IDF source emphatically pointed out that the Hamas killers were on the list of wanted terrorists whom Arafat had refused to arrest - especially since they were operating in the open.

This double message that the Israeli government has conveyed to the media and to the world at large, has continued since October, 1986, when Shimon Peres became the Foreign Minister of the State of Israel and when Dr. Yossi Beilin became his deputy at that ministry. Peres and Beilin revised the way in which the government of the state of Israel would relate to the PLO - Even though this seeming policy change did not sit well with then- Likud Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir

At the orders of Peres and Beilin, no longer would the Israeli government ministry of foreign affairs distribute the PLO covenant. No longer would the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs define the PLO as an enemy. The 1986 Peres/Beilin policy change paved the way for the US government to recognize the PLO two years later.

This policy change in the Israel Foreign Ministry became permanent.

Even when the Likud held power in 1990-1992 and 1996-1999, Israel's Foreign Ministry would not provide governments of the world with the basics of PLO involvement with terror activity.

Even though Israel Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu hired a high level professional staff to provide the media with weekly reports of PLO involvement in terror activity, which functioned under the able direction of David Bar Ilan. Yet when I covered the negotiations conducted by Netanyahu government with the PLO in Oslo in August 1998 and at the Wye Plantation in October 1998, the Israeli embassies in Washington and in Oslo did not distribute any of the material on the PLO that the office of the Israeli prime minister had prepared in Jerusalem. Upon further investigation, Iraeaeli embassy officials informed me that this was a matter of policy.

The bottom line: When the Prime Minister of Israel and the IDF prepare carefully researched material on the PLO, Israel's representatives abroad, working under the aegis of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, will make sure that material critical of the PLO will never reach beyond the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.

The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs is invested in an Oslo process that has engaged in a policy of repackaging Yassir Arafat and transforming him from a terrorist into a statesman, reality not withstanding.

The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs is armed with a substantial budget to promote that view, and works in tandem with Dr Yose Beilin, whose Economic Policy Forum, funded by the European Union, continues to prepare new plans of appeasement for the PLO.

Neither Peres nor Beilin demand that the PLO disarm the Islamic terror groups inside their security services not even to modify the new school curriculum of the Palestinian National Authority which trains a new generation for war with the state and people of Israel

With public opinion polls showing the Israeli left at an all time low, Peres and Beilin recognize that their current Arafat appeasement efforts represent their "last hurrah" of a ministry of foreign affairs which they "reconstituted" in 1986.

Peres and Beilin will now make that one last effort to appease Arafat.

The solution for journalists :To ignore Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and to report the reality of the PLO.

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"More than 50 were killed during the last week on our holy land, and they have become Martyrs, not for their own sake but for the sake of our nation. Israel's call to fight fellow Palestinians, as a condition for Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian lands and cities, must be dismissed out of hand. This is only a tactic to cause a split in the nation and a civil war, which is unacceptable. the U.S. support for renewed Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and cities should serve as a lesson to those who shed tears for the American bloodshed (on 11 of September) and for those who did not shed tears for the Palestinian loss of blood. All we have to say is: Trust in Allah and stand up to the insults from the Americans to the Arab people.

In last week's sermon we warned against believers in the false American promise to support the establishment of a Palestinian state. which they wish to be a persecuted and a rebuked country without a nation, if the criminal aggression continue it will be a weak nation, without dignity, especially if the vagueness of the other Arab States continues, then the nation will become no more then a guinea pig prior to its establishment. The attack on our Islamic allies seems to be a repetition of the First World War, reminding us of the cooperation between the heretics to bring down the German nation, which was destroyed by the heretic nations, thus giving those heretic and imperialistic nations the freedom to invade our Arab Muslim homelands. These heretic nations are once again attacking, like dogs, Muslim Afghanistan, and are fighting Islam everywhere. And the True Believers and the Afghans can only trust in Allah.

Hostile American planes are killing innocent people who are supported by Arab Muslim and other countries. These are heretic nations seeking to destroy Islam. but, servants of Allah, do not forget. We must all give praise to Allah.

Allah will not allow them to conquer Palestine and following that, other Arab cities like Damascus, Beirut, Baghdad and there after Kabul.

Imperialism is returning to Arab regions, through the guise of a "war on terror", and therefore the question must be asked: When the English and the French fought the Nazis, were they then also fighting terror or were they fighting Islam?. The war in Northern Ireland has been continuing for tens of years. Why did we never hear the word "terrorism" in this case? Why do we only hear the word "terror" used against the Muslims, whom the enemies of Islam want to destroy. This is part of the Crusaders plan . . . .

We must all praise Allah and unite. The events of today are like those of the past. "The issue today is not only Afghanistan but it also points to Europe and those who support Europe both from the east and from the west. This is an attempt to return to the wars of the Crusades."

We urge all Muslims to unite in a war against the Crusaders, and pray that Allah will bring vengeance upon them.

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