Interview with Ali Abunimah
By Charles A. Morse
web
posted October 1, 2001
I interviewed Ali Abunimah, Vice President of the Arab-American Action Network, on my radio broadcast (9/26) in order to solicit an Arab-American response to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Abunimah, using a lofty tone so familiar to me in past interviews with leftist intellectuals, presented a classic left-wing anti-American perspective on the event. I hope for the sake of our country that his views don't reflect the majority of Arab-Americans and I have good reason to believe that they do not. Unlike Abunimah, a self-appointed Arab-American leader, I believe that most Arab-Americans and Muslims here, including many whom I've met over the years, are good patriotic Americans.
I asked my guest why he felt the terrorists, all identified as Muslim, harbored such a hatred for America and Americans that they would execute this mass murder of 7,000 people. His response, after mouthing a rather obligatory statement of regret over the attack, was that the terrorists sought revenge against America by blowing up the World Trade Center, a symbol of capitalism, and the Pentagon, a symbol of the military, because of Arab anger over American support for Israel, American military support to despotic Arab regimes, and the American embargo against Saddam Hussein's Iraq. This was the same type of Marxist analysis, along with a mix of fanatic Islamic notions, used by Osama bin Laden in his public utterances to justify terror against America.
The unquenchable hate and utter contempt for our culture that the terrorists and their circle of fellow travelers and camp followers have toward America has been on display in Israel for many decades. As far as American military support to despotic Arab regimes is concerned, is there, or has there ever been any other type of regime in the Islamic world? Abunimah worked into his diatribe the idea of establishing a "democratic" Palestine, but where is there, or where has there ever been a "democratic" state anywhere in the Middle East?
What he means by a "democratic" Palestine, based on the Arab record of past and present, is a state that would be, essentially "Judenrein" with a couple of token Jews allowed to live as "dhimmis." America, for moral and practical reasons, supports Arab states that are relatively less despotic than their radical neighbors who threaten them. We have been invited to help these states resist military threats and internal conspiracies by fanatics. We are on the right side in the Arab world, the side of moderation, and we should be proud of our policies.
Regarding Iraq, Abunimah alleges that as a result of our support for the UN embargo, we are responsible for the death of a half a million children. This vicious and preposterous libel has become a propaganda article of faith for the America hating left. Never mind that Iraq is developing biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction and has stopped all UN inspections. Never mind that Saddam Hussein lives in thirteen lavish palaces and devotes every spare nickel of the national revenue to building offensive weapons while his own people live in squalor. Never mind that the UN Security Council, not just the US, supports the embargo.
I broached the delicate question of where the terrorists, who have stated that they believe that by killing non-Muslims they are acting for God and fulfilling Jihad against the "infidel," derive their faith. I mentioned the Islamic concept that the world is divided into the "Dar es Salaam" or the House of Peace, which is Islamic, and the "Dar el-Harb" or the House of War, which is non-Islamic. The extremists believe that they have a religious obligation to establish a "Dar es Salaam," hence, they view attacks against non-Muslims to be moral. Clearly the vast majority of Muslims don't choose to interpret their scriptures in this manner, but we must not flinch in our attempt to understand the beliefs of those who are killing us.
His response was typical left-wing moral equivalence. He stated that Hitler, after all, was a Catholic, so, do we blame Catholicism for the Holocaust? While this was a diversionary attempt to change the subject, suffice it to say that Hitler was not deriving his terrorism from Catholicism, but from a mixture of a religion that goes by the euphemism "New Age" mixed with Marxist principles. In fact, an examination of Nazi rhetoric sounds a lot like the strange mix of Islam and Marxism emanating from the mouth of bin Laden and is syncopates today. I pointed out, in response to further comments, that I would have opposed British Colonialism, Communism and Nazism if I had been around at the time to comment on those world-conquering movements, but that the world conquering movement of today is extremist Islam. He has no comment.
Fireworks erupted from my guest when I made the point that Islamic extremists are committing terror in every nation where either Muslims make up a significant minority, where the nation borders an Islamic nation, or in a Muslim nation with a secular government. He went ballistic as I listed off these nations, which are dealing with Islamic terrorist aggression. These include Muslim Kossovar incursions into Serbia and Macedonia with threats to Greece, Muslim Chechens and Muslim minorities terrorizing the southern frontier of Russia, Muslims terrorizing the Chinese providence of Sinkiang, Muslims terrorizing the Philippine Island of Mindanao, Muslim extremists attacking non Muslims in secular Indonesia and Timor and Hindu India, the radical Muslim government of Sudan butchering and enslaving Christians and animists in their southern region, and Muslims committing atrocities in Nigeria and other African countries.
He ended the interview on an ugly note. I've noticed that leftists I've
interviewed over the years often use this tactic, saving bombshell for
the last minute of the broadcast. He stated that my concerns over international
Islamic terrorism were "paranoid." With 7,000 dead Americans
and 15,000 American children who will grow up without parents as a result
of the actions of Islamic terrorists, I would contend that we Americans
have pretty good reason to feel "paranoid." 
Chuck Morse is a radio
talk show host out of Boston.
Other related stories: (open in a new window)
- Where
trouble lives and is exported by Alan Caruba (April 23, 2001)
Since everyone is fixated on China and the west's relations with that country, Alan Caruba would like to remind you that the Middle East is still a trouble spot - America's
Middle East linchpin under siege - A Portrait of Egypt: A Journey
Through the World of Militant Islam reviewed by Steven Martinovich (September
18, 2000)
Think the Shah of Iran's fall created problems for the West? Steve Martinovich reviews A Portrait of Egypt: A Journey Through the World of Militant Islam and comes away real worried
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