Bin Laden Sounds Off Again

By Alan Caruba

On the fifth anniversary of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, Osama bin Laden was sounding off again from whatever cave he’s in. More likely he is staying at the Tehran Motel Six, surrounded by family, bodyguards, and Iranian keepers.

He was calling for—what else—a holy war to liberate the Palestinian lands, otherwise known as the nation of Israel. The very notion of a successful democracy in the midst of Middle Eastern dictatorships and monarchies drives him and his followers’ crazy. Turns out, Israel is full of Jews!

So bin Laden, famed founder of al Qaeda, brother to the Taliban, and perpetrator of 9/11, was urging the Palestinians to ignore political parties such as Fatah and Hamas “mired in trickery of the blasphemous democracy” and to rely on armed might. Democracy bad. Theocracy good.

It is probably impolite of me to point out that every time Arab nations attacked Israel, they got their heads handed to them. Egypt sued for peace and is no longer an official enemy, along with Jordan.

Israel has occupied Lebanon on and off thanks to the Palestinians in its midst who kept provoking conflict, thus leading to large parts of Beirut being reduced to rubble, along with sundry other death and destruction. For fifteen years, from 1975 to 1990, Palestinians provided a civil war in Lebanon that rendered the place uninhabitable.

After a brief difference of opinion between Fatah, an arm of the late, unlamented Yassir Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization, and Hamas, a wholly owned operation of Iran and Syria, as is Hezbollah, a shootout between the two resulted in Hamas being in charge of Gaza. Yes, Hamas had been democratically elected to power in Gaza on its platform of killing every Jew.

Having sent more over 4,000 rockets into Israel since being granted “land for peace” by the Israelis who voluntarily and unilaterally withdrew from Gaza, the Palestinians are amazed and appalled that the Israelis respond by blowing up those using the rockets, standing near those using the rockets, or distantly related to those using the rockets.

Bin Laden also called on all good Arabs to “help in support of their mujahedeen brothers in Iraq, which is the greatest opportunity and the biggest task.” Considering that Sunni tribes have turned against al Qaeda and that martyrdom is the primary "opportunity" being offered, there’s a strong likelihood that Iraqis have figured out al Qaeda is not their friend.

As the geniuses in the CIA opined, it appears that bin laden was seeking to merge the Palestinian cause into the wider al Qaeda struggle. Or maybe he’s just running out of martyrs? When your life sucks as badly as it does for most Palestinians, it’s an option.

In Israel, the foreign ministry spokesman told the Associated Press that Israel does not comment on bin Laden’s statements. This is very intelligent in lieu of how idiotic the man sounds these days.