Why they hate us

I remember listening to a US journalist interview a Middle Eastern journalist about 9-11. He asked him, "after 9-11 do Arabs care about American deaths?"

The Arabic journalist responded:
"Yes, yes we do care about your deaths, but could you care at least a little bit about our deaths."

To this, the US journalist appeared visibly annoyed.

The point is, they saw what happened as horrible, but Israelis have been killing tens of thousands of Arabs (in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories -- in addition to the countless numbers tortured) with US weapons and assistance. In addition, the US attacked Iraq for an invasion which was benign compared to Israel's invasion of Lebanon which left some 20,000 people killed in the summer of 1982. And then Israel proceeded to occupy Lebanon in violation of numerous UN resolutions for 18 more years till they were finally forced out by the Lebanese resistance. Even this Lebanese resistance has now been labelled terrorist by the US at Israel's insistence. Imagine that, a people fighting on their own soil against a foreign army on their land -- and they are the terrorists!


But all the Arabs get is the sanctity of UN resolutions as far as Iraq is concerned, and the necessity of bombing Iraq to death because there may be a toothpick somewhere in the country with which they may prick a helpless Israeli.

Many people of the region believe in fact that the US attacked Iraq to protect Israel -- using Iraq's invasion of Kuwait as a pretext to declaw it so that it would not be a threat to Israel. I don't know if that is all there was to it, but that is what many people in the region believe.

Anyway, the way they see it, the US killed somewhere in the range of 1.5 to 2 million Iraqis (half a million of which were children under the age of six) for Israel's sake and gives Israel all it needs to allow it to continue to oppress them, use them as slave labor, and steal their land.

That discrepancy between the way the US has dealt with Iraq (attacking it to uphold UN resolutions and remove its military capability) and Israel (helping it defy UN resolutions and arming it to the teeth) is what really drives people nuts there.

There would be no terrorism directed towards Americans or even hatred if the US joined the world community in the long recognized solution to the conflict based on UN resolutions accepted by the world community but rejected by Israel with US diplomatic support.

It is often said, that Israel is our only ally in the Middle East. The truth is, if it weren't for Israel, we wouldn't have any enemies in the Middle East.