As McGovern wrote about the exchange:
"All the American public gets is the boilerplate about how al-Qaeda evildoers are perverting a religion and exploiting impressionable young men. There is almost no discussion about why so many people in the Muslim world object to U.S. policies so strongly that they are inclined to resist violently and even resort to suicide attacks. ..."Why isn't there a frank discussion by America's leaders and media about the real motivation of Muslim anger toward the United States? Why was Helen Thomas the only journalist to raise the touchy but central question of motive?"
McGovern noted that only occasionally does a key part of that motivation slip out, Israel's abuse of the Palestinians, what al-Qaeda views as a ready-made and easy-to-use propaganda theme. McGovern cited, for instance, "an unusually candid view of the dangers accruing from the U.S. identification with Israel's policies" in an unclassified study published by the Pentagon-appointed U.S. Defense Science Board on Sept. 23, 2004.
Taking on President George W. Bush's favorite canard for explaining anti-Americanism in the Middle East, the board stated:
"Muslims do not 'hate our freedom,' but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the longstanding, even increasing support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and the Gulf States."Thus, when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy."
McGovern also spotted a brief reference to this reality in the 9/11 Commission Report, which states: "America's policy choices have consequences. Right or wrong, it is simply a fact that American policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and American actions in Iraq are dominant staples of popular commentary across the Arab and Muslim world." (p. 376)
There was also a notation in the report about why Khalid Sheikh Mohammed claimed to have "masterminded" the attacks on 9/11: "By his own account, KSM's animus toward the United States stemmed ... from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel."
Various suicide-bombers, like the failed underwear-bomber Abdulmutallab, have conveyed to associates that they also were radicalized because of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, especially the brutal assault on Gaza in 2008-2009.
A similar motive was attributed to Humam Khalil Abu Mulal al-Balawi, a 32-year-old Jordanian physician from a family of Palestinian origin, who killed seven American CIA operatives and a Jordanian intelligence officer in Afghanistan on Dec. 30, 2009, when al-Balawi detonated a suicide bomb.
Al-Balawi's widow, Defne Bayrak, said her husband "started to change" after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. His brother said al-Balawi "changed" during the three-week-long Israeli offensive in Gaza, which killed about 1,300 Palestinians.
At that time, Al-Balawi volunteered to treat injured Palestinians in Gaza, but was arrested by Jordanian authorities, according to his brother. Al-Balawi was then apparently coerced into becoming a spy to penetrate al-Qaeda's leadership, but instead decided to kill himself and his "handlers."
Today, the situation in Palestine (and especially Gaza) remains a festering wound, infecting U.S. efforts to improve relations with the Muslim world and open to exploitation by al-Qaeda and other violent extremists.
Ultimately, if peace in the region is ever to come and if the scourge of terrorism is ever to be minimized, the Palestinian issue must be resolved. Yet, Israel's right-wing government shows little inclination to make meaningful concessions and the U.S. press appears more eager to gloss over the problem than to explain how it remains a key al-Qaeda recruiting tool.
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