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Friday, June 12, 2009

Osama Bin Laden ready for peace agreement!

As a followup to my previous post about how Joe Klein ecstatically latches onto a Hamas leader's use of the word "Israelis" instead of "Zionists" as proof of his moderation, I just found this transcript of an Osama bin Laden videotape from 2004:
I say to you, Allah knows that it had never occurred to us to strike the towers. But after it became unbearable and we witnessed the oppression and tyranny of the American/Israeli coalition against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, it came to my mind.

The events that affected my soul in a direct way started in 1982 when America permitted the Israelis to invade Lebanon and the American Sixth Fleet helped them in that. This bombardment began and many were killed and injured and others were terrorized and displaced.

Bin Laden used the word "Israelis," not "Zionists"! This must mean that he has become more amenable to reaching a peace agreement with the US and Israel, and that he is signalling to the West his willingness to be flexible!

Not only that, it proves that Bin Laden is more moderate than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who still only uses the word "Zionists" to describe Israelis.

Not that Ahmadinejad is completely fanatical. After all, he has used the word "Israel" on occasion and not "The Zionist entity":

  • "Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury."

  • "Remove Israel before it is too late and save yourself from the fury of regional nations."

  • "The skirmishes in the occupied land are part of a war of destiny. The outcome of hundreds of years of war will be defined in Palestinian land. As the Imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map."

  • "If the West does not support Israel, this regime will be toppled. As it has lost its raison d' tre, Israel will be annihilated."

  • "Israel is a tyrannical regime that will one day will be destroyed."

  • "Israel is a rotten, dried tree that will be annihilated in one storm."
  • Yes, it appears that every radical Muslim who calls for the destruction of Israel is really just posturing, and really is playing to their own audience but in fact want peace. And it takes the finely attuned ears of the Joe Kleins of the world to correctly interpret their rhetoric and make the rest of us understand that the words and actions don't matter - just the hopes of those who interpret them over-optimistically.