Creating the Conditions
Immediately after 9/11 when everyone and their uncle was offering up their opinion as to how such a thing could have happened to Fortress America, there was also an offside question of why - why had 9/11 happened. We soon knew the facts of how: Saudi Arabian Islamic Fundamentalists who'd been living and working in the United States for years, had paid cash for commercial flight lessons, and once they'd learned how to make mid-flight turns, they hijacked American planes out of American airports and crashed them into the WTC.
The why was answered by the Bush Administration, "Because they hate our Freedoms", and any dissenting opinions of that absolute (not to mention, bizarrely simplistic and completely uninsightful) view were branded traitorous or of the tinfoil hat conspiracy nut variety. Even our own Prime Minister at the time, who would send troops to Afghanistan, ostensibly because the Liberals believed it was the right thing to do (ahem, sure: Liberals = right thing to do; we aren't immune to being deluded by our government, either, I guess) opined traitorously that American foreign policy had a lot more to do with 9/11 than the official line was allowing for - that poverty and the effects of poverty and a sense of having no control over their futures were factors that Americans should take into consideration when assessing the rise of what was now known as Islamic Terrorism coming from muslim Arab countries.
But, of course, the Terrorists were Saudi Arabian, the War on Terror supporters would point out to completely negate the forwarding of that argument. And they were right. The people who had carried out the attacks were Fundamentalist Islamists from Saudi Arabia - not poor peasants from a Third World hellhole. And what had the people working in the WTC done to deserve such a fate, even if the Terrorists had been poor peasants from a Third World hellhole? Nothing. They were many of them just file clerks and receptionists and food court vendors - from all over the world.
Nope. 9/11 was clearly the work of a well-financed terrorist network headed up by an evil mastermind who was planning to take over the world and force everybody into the cult of Islamic Fundamentalism - if he wasn't stopped fast and by any means necessary.
Around that time, too, there was a pop culture incident that still sticks in my craw. The President, who had gone - overnight - from being the butt of late night talk show jokes to being the War President, would refer over and over and over to the Terrorists as cowards. Cowards who hated our Freedoms. Well, Bill Maher lost his show "Politically Incorrect" for calling the President on his use of the word "cowards" to describe the Terrorists who had flown the planes into the WTC - and he was right, although he still lost his show. Suicide bombers are most certainly not cowards. The masterminds who send them out to blow themselves up for the sake of a shared political ideology may be cowards, but suicide bombers themselves are not cowards.
Suicide bombers are a last resort and the result of having no other way to fight an oppressor. But killing yourself for a cause you believe in is terrifyingly brave, to my Western mind. Not sane or rational - but brave, nonetheless.
Still, I never agreed with the notion that American foreign policy created the conditions for Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorism - mostly because I don't really know that much about American foreign policy. So much of it is out of the public purview that I doubt many people who aren't actually involved in the shady world of covert operations have any inkling of what really goes on "out there". And even though what we know about Afghanistan would certainly point the way to American foreign policy in the 80s having led to the Taliban in the 90s, it doesn't explain the Saudi Arabian Terrorists who flew the planes into the WTC.
It was hard enough not knowing whether to believe or disbelieve that the C.I.A. had no Arabic speaking operatives tracking the machinations of Al Queda. It seemed such a genuine admission at the time, that no one saw it coming because there were no Arabic speaking spies doing espionage or infiltrating Arab terrorist organizations - but looking back, all I see is disingenuous denials of any plausible explanation for why 9/11 happened, and why the reaction was what it was such that it ultimately lent credence to the tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists, let alone what traitors like our own Prime Minister were saying was the cause. But without infiltrating the C.I.A. myself, I guess I have to take its word for it that no one thought to have Arabic speaking operatives tracking the machinations of a well-financed terrorist network headed up by an evil mastermind who was planning to take over the world and force everybody into the cult of Islamic Fundamentalism.
So, let's leave off 9/11 and assume that the Terrorists did what they did because they hate our freedoms and that the American administration's response was all on the up and up - and take a hard turn over to Gaza and what is currently going on in the Palestinian Occupied Territories. Now, I believe that there will never be two states in Israel - and that there never was any realistic prospect of there being two states in Israel. There will only ever be Israel and the Palestinian issue will never be resolved. It's always been over for the Palestinians, in my opinion, and the effort to pretend the opposite is just so much smoke and mirrors - albeit very instructive smoke and mirrors.
Because Gaza, Dear Reader, is where we can look - right now - to see how the conditions for Islamic Fundamentalism are and have been created. All you need is a population with absolutely no hope of a better life here on Earth, a group of young men (and women) who want to do something, anything, other than go quietly into the night, and a very clear target as to who your oppressor is.
Now, remember those elections in the Palestinian Occupied Territories? Well, think about it. Who would you elect if you were Poland and the choice was between Chamberlain and Churchill and Hitler had just taken you over? That's right. You'd vote for the guy who was willing to take it to the wall and not negotiate with the occupier.
Or would you? Maybe you wouldn't. Maybe you'd vote for the guy who's going to work with Hitler to get the best deal he can for his people. Personally, I'm not sure who I'd vote for but I know for a fact that most of the people I do know would vote for (analogy over) Hamas. They'd vote for the guys who were willing to die trying to defeat the enemy, and the enemy is always the oppressor, which in the case of the Palestinians is Israel. You can say that the Palestinians are their own worst enemies, but you can't say that Israel isn't their oppressor. And the two aren't mutually exclusive, in any case.
So, although Israel certainly isn't responsible for the Palestinian Issue, it most definitely is responsible for the conditions that gave rise to the election of Hamas. I really don't think there can be any disagreement there and I don't think there should be - in spite of all the arguments put forward by Israel that the Palestinians have done this to themselves. What is going on in Gaza is very instructive, there is a great big lesson being taught to the West right under our noses, and, although it doesn't answer the why of 9/11, it does answer the why of Islamic Fundamentalism and suicide bombers, I think.
Does Israel have to worry, really, about Hamas and the Palestinians? Of course not, Dear Reader. Every time Hamas fires one of its home-made rockets into an Israeli neighbourhood, it gives Israel the excuse it almost doesn't need anymore (because it's already got the vow from Hamas that it will never recognize Israel's right to exist) to tighten the noose around Gaza, kill more Terrorists, and put up new settlements to secure territory for Israel and Israeli citizens.
The conditions were created for Islamic Fundamentalism to take hold and hope and reason are nowhere to be found in Gaza. All there is left is a fight to the death. It's that simple, really. Gaza is full of evil doers now. Because you can't have nothing to lose and not expect the people who do to not be so terrified of you that Geneva Conventions and Rules of War and International Codes of Conduct, by necessity, go right out the window and you may as well call up your suicide bombers as go quietly into the night.
