Translations by MEMRI, October 1, 2001
Al-Akhbar daily columnist Ahmad Ragab compared the terror attacks on the
U.S. to the expected American military operation:
“The U.S. and terrorism suffuse a foul atmosphere throughout the world.
The smiles have disappeared from the faces of the peoples, who wait, across
the world, for the disaster that either terrorists or the U.S. will visit upon them.
The U.S. has become like the terrorists.”(1)
In an article in Akhbar Al-Youm, Ragab wrote mockingly:
“Even during World War II, American cities did not experience what the
cities of Europe did. Because the Americans have lived for decades with a
sense of security… they yearned for a sense of fear. So Hollywood made a film
in which New York is attacked with an atom bomb; after that, a
series of films about flying saucers and invaders from outer space.
The Americans did not settle for frightening themselves with nuclear
wars and star wars; they began to make films about dinosaurs and other extinct
creatures invading the streets of American cities… Now, the average American
has no need to fear spaceships; all he has to do is lift his head and see a
passenger plane in the sky to be deadly afraid.”(2)
Columnist Ali Al-Sayyed wrote in Al-Ahram Al-Arabi weekly:
“For many long years, America made many peoples in the world cry. It
was always that carried out the acts; now, acts are being carried out
it. A cook who concocts poison must one day also taste that poison!
The world has discovered that the strength of the oppressed is great
when the situation becomes unbearable… The city of globalization, with its
economic, political, and military symbols, has collapsed, and the theory of
globalization will be buried with the establishment of the false coalition!”(3)
Islamist journalist Fahmi Hueidi, writing in the leading government daily,
Al-Ahram, criticized President Bush’s policy:
“The catchphrase ‘Either you’re with us or you’re with terrorism’
expresses arrogance and conceit. sees the world according to
American interests; it sees itself as the leader of the free world, civilization, and
democracy. Anyone refusing to join it is expelled from its Paradise and has no
place except in Hell…
The Americans have no right to classify societies in this way. Every
group has the right to choose a third way, rejecting both terrorism and the
Americans…”(4)
Of particular interest was the report by the government daily Al-Gumhuriya’s
editor, Samir Ragab, who was in the U.S. when the attacks occurred. Ragab
reports his experience in the Huriyati weekly, of which he is also editor.
Although he was in New York at the time of the attacks, Ragab did not
go to the World Trade Center area, preferring to go to Washington to see the
Pentagon in flames.
“America appeared to me a ‘model’ of helplessness and incapacity, even
in dealing with the fire!” wrote Ragab, adding,
“With tears streaming from their eyes, the ‘Americans’ gathered at a
distance of several meters. Every one of them displayed the American flag on
his clothing, next to his heart. I approached one and asked,
‘How did this happen?’
‘That’s what we don’t understand. None of us thought it was possible to
penetrate the Pentagon, the symbol of our military might.'”(5)
Egypt’s privately owned “independent” press also celebrated the terrorist
attacks against the U.S:
“Millions across the world shouted in joy: America was hit!”
wrote Al-Maydan (an independent weekly) columnist Dr. Nabil Farouq.
“This call expressed the sentiments of millions across the world, whom
the American master had treated with tyranny, arrogance, bullying, conceit,
deceit, and bad taste … like every bully whom no one has yet put in his place.
True, thousands of innocents became victims… among them Egyptians
who had immigrated to the U.S. in search of opportunity and life; but
what can a person do when the neighborhood bully gets from behind
that shakes his very existence, insults his dignity, and humiliates him?
Obviously is glad, even if it is wrong to rejoice..”(6)
Al-Maydan editor ‘Issam Al-Ghazi added,
“President Dubya Bush will continue to struggle between threatening to
launch a crusader war and apologizing to the Muslims… Apparently, he doesn’t
want to understand that he is reaping the thorns sown by himself and all his
predecessors in Palestine, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, the Sudan, Afghanistan,
Vietnam, and Japan. Behind every act of destruction is a little American
demon…
America cannot see the fate that awaits it, despite everything that
happened on that bloody Tuesday; America is on its way to collapse, like all the
empires of oppression throughout history. If only our generation would have the
chance to witness that dramatic spectacle…”(7)
The independent Roz Al-Yussef weekly, which usually takes a hard line against
Islamic fundamentalism, also jeered at the U.S. Playwright Wahid Hamed wrote:
“ intelligence apparatus knew when the
rooster copulated with the hen; it was said that
knows what color underwear Iraqi President Saddam Hussein wears. It boggles
the mind that it did not know what color underwear Mr. Osama bin Laden
wears…
The Egyptian opposition press continued its open rejoicing at the American
disaster. Al-Ahrar (an Islamist opposition daily) columnist Salim Azzouz
compared Bush to Hitler:
“He declares that anyone who does not support him supports terror, and
woe betide anyone who supports terror. This kind of declaration can come only
from leaders of Hitler’s ilk…”(9)
The next day, Azzouz declared,
“If Osama bin Laden is proven to be involved in the attacks on the U.S.,
I will make a statue of him and set it in my home; I will also hang his picture in
my office. Because he has proven to us that the U.S., which we thought was
an undefeatable force, can be humiliated.”(10)
Said Sh’eib, columnist in the Nasserist weekly Al-Arabi, also became
enamoured of bin Laden after seeing him in an interview on Al-Jazeera
television. He wrote:
“I loved Osama bin Laden’s face, because it inspired confidence. I was
amazed by his total belief in what he says… I very much admired this man, who
chose … and I am not addressing the quality of the choices he makes … to
leave a life of luxury, to take up arms against who he considers to be the
enemy, and to go down in history as a man who shook the greatest empire in
history.”(11)
Retired general Sallah A-Din Salim, advisor at the National Center for Middle
East Studies, wrote in Al-Ahrar:
“Although some were sorry about the killing of innocent Americans in
Washington and New York, most of people derived satisfaction from the
insult to the American pride, and from the shaking of the faith that the
American cowboy, Little Bush, places in the intelligence apparatuses and their
agents throughout the world.
There was nearly an Egyptian consensus on the matter, except for a few
ministers who, in their hypocrisy, rushed to the American Embassy to
ostentatiously offer their condolences.”(12)
More demonstrations of jubilation appeared in the journal of the Muslim
Brotherhood, Afaq Arabiya. Dr. Ahmad Al-Magdoub wrote:
“As a lawyer, I say to Suspect No. 1, as the American government calls
him: Oh Osama… you are a hero in the full sense of the word. all
the manly virtues, those lacking in the half-men who control the
Muslim and Arab resources (i.e. Arab rulers). For this reason, you will continue
to live in our hearts and in our minds…
Allah’s peace, mercy, and blessings upon you; no peace, no mercy, and
no blessings on the traitors and cowards who have been blinded to the truth by
the pleasures of domination. May you eradicate America and its ‘infinite
justice’; victory to Islam and the Muslims.”(13)
Endnotes:
(1) Al-Akhbar (Egypt), September 25, 2001. Some of the
quotes are taken from the Egyptian media reports in the
London daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi.
(2) Akhbar Al-Youm (Egypt), September 23, 2001.
(3) Al-Ahram Al-Arabi (Egypt), September 22, 2001.
(4) Al-Ahram (Egypt), September 25, 2001.
(5) Huriyati (Egypt), September 23, 2001.
(6) Al-Maydan (Egypt), September 24, 2001.
(7) Al-Maydan (Egypt), September 24, ?2001.
(8) Roz Al-Yussef (Egypt), September 22, 2001.
(9) Al-Ahrar (Egypt), September 24, 2001.
(10) Al-Ahrar (Egypt) September 24, 2001.
(11) Al-Arabi (Egypt, September 23, 2001.
(12) Al-Akhrar (Egypt), September 25, 2001.
(13) Afaq Arabiya (Egypt), September 26, 2001.
Egyptian: crocodile tears
The Egyptian newspaper, Al-Sha’ab, the mouthpiece of the Egyptian Islamist
Al-Amal (Labor) party, was closed last year by Egyptian authorities following
severe student riots that were prompted by an article published in the paper.(1)
After a few months, Al-Sha’ab was permitted to resume publication, but only
on the Internet. In the cover story for the September 23, 2001 issue, which
was dedicated to the attacks on N.Y. and D.C., Dr. Muhammad Abbas, who
prompted last year’s riots, threatened the U.S. with chemical, biological, and
nuclear weapons, and with attacks against Americans working in the Middle
East. Following are excerpts from his article:
“I would have liked… to add to the flood of crocodile tears flowing from the
four corners of the earth, as an expression of sorrow for America’s victims…
but I have found that my reservoir of tears ran dry a hundred years ago…
Perhaps in another hundred years the time will come for me to cry
over five thousand or even fifty thousand slain Americans.”
“Did I say five thousand? Did I say fifty thousand? By Allah, this number is
minuscule…”
“The tyrants of the world and of history (i.e. the Americans) suddenly
discovered that their leader too could be attacked, and that the white Christian
man can scream, suffer pain, bleed, and die…”
“Do you want me to cry, right this minute, over two or three buildings? By
Allah, that’s ridiculous. How can someone who knows how you destroyed
countries and obliterated cities from the face of the earth be sorry about two
buildings…”
“Despite all this, I did not exult. Death has glory and majesty, even when it is a
dog that dies, let alone five thousand souls. I sat in front of the television and
tears filled my eyes. I admit, I did not cry out of sympathy ; out of fear of Allah the powerful, the precious, the victor, the avenger,
the just; how he takes the tyrants just when they think they rule the Earth and
are capable of confronting Him…”
“Islam is alive and well. The hero martyrs in Palestine are the ones who showed
the world the incredible potential of the martyr’s body. Whoever the
perpetrators of the act may be, Islam is their teacher and their
professor…”
“The genius of what happened is in its successful transformation from theory to
practice. If people are willing to sacrifice their lives, how can America defend
itself from these ambulatory human bombs who at any given moment,
anywhere, can… cause a truck and a train to collide, set a gas station alight,
and set off chemical, biological, and even atomic bombs?”
“When writing this article, I was surprised to discover an article I wrote years
ago, in which I warned America that going too far with its oppression would
lead to its destruction, and that within a few short years it would be taken by
surprise by atom bombs exploding in New York, Chicago, and California…
That is what I said , and behold, it has come to pass… Additional
operations are a certainty, and an inevitable response to American
repression and tyranny… The U.S. will collapse from within, as did the
U.S.S.R.”(2)
Other Al-Sha’ab columnists took a similarly bellicose tone. Dr. Muhammad
Sallah Al-Musaffir drew a distinction between the attack on New York, which
he condemned because of its many innocent victims, and the attack on the
Pentagon, whose victims, he claimed, were not innocent:
“What happened in Washington, at the Ministry of War (sic) – the Pentagon – is
something else. Sympathy for the victims varies from person to person; a
significant number of the Pentagon officials are on the military staff while
the rest serve this staff. This means that they can be regarded as military
personnel…”
“Anyone who wants to incite world public opinion against Arabs and Muslims,
and to blame them for what happened in New York and Washington… must
remember that the Middle East is full of military personnel and
American citizens working for the oil companies and in other fields… and they
may become targets of blood vengeance if any harm comes to the Arabs…”(3)
Another Al-Sha’ab columnist, Muhammad Abd Al-Latif Hijazi, wrote:
“I would be lying if I said that I felt any sympathy at all
after the two World Trade Center towers were toppled in New York and the
Pentagon was attacked, with a direct free kick. Thanks to Allah…
I am not like those rulers who must show fealty and obedience to
their Jewish and American masters by expressing sorrow and grief over the
terrible attack against the ‘American democracy’…”
“I sat in front of the television and watched the collapse of the two
buildings, like the collapse of a sand castle on the beach. My heart and mind
felt that this was a small blood vengeance against those who support
destruction and defend tyranny, on their own turf…
, the strike on the Pentagon building was a clear expression
of justice, that descended from the heavens upon the hangmen, the generals in
this American den. They fled like mice, finding a place to hide beneath the
building…”
“ does not constitute an attack on the American people or on
democracy in what they call the ‘free world.’ This was a ‘smart attack’ on the
bastions of evil.
Regarding those civilians who died, I borrow the terms of the American
generals: ‘Some civilian casualties were regrettable but unavoidable.’ With
regard to their famous expression ‘collateral damage,’ it struck them on their
own turf…”(4)
Columnist Khaled Al-Sharif added,
“Everyone was in a state of shock because of what happened, and all
were surprised to see America, which controls the world – collapse, and the
Satan that rules the world – burn. The patron of terrorism was burned by its
own fire…”
“It should be said, in all honesty: What happened to America was a divine
decree, in which humans are completely uninvolved… What happened to
America is the natural outgrowth of the terror and tyranny it employs, in broad
daylight, against our Islamic people…”(5)
Endnotes:
(1) The riots were prompted by an article that attacked the Egyptian
Ministry of Culture for publishing a book considered by Islamists as heresy. The
book, written by Syrian playwright Heider Heidar, was titled “Feast of the
Seaweeds.”
(2) Al-Sha’ab (Egypt), September 23, 2001.
(3) ibid
(4) ibid
(5) ibid
