What has been the impact of the September 11 terrorist attacks?
• No Palestinian was among the terrorists, so the attacks were totally unrelated to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. • No Palestinian force is fighting alongside the Taliban, so the war in Afghanistan is totally unrelated to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. • However, Israel claims that its war against Palestinian extremists is as justified as America’s all-out war against Al Qaeda. • However, Palestinians claim that America is closing an eye on Israel’s atrocities while condemning the Taliban atrocities. • The public opinion in all Arab countries tends to agree with the Palestinians, that the US war against terrorism displays a double standard. • The US feels pressured to put an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict so it doesn’t distract the world (and particularly the Arab world) from its war against (the other kind of) terrorism, and therefore the US is applying pressure to both Israel and Arafat to stop the violence and resume negotiations. • So far Palestinian terrorism has o
