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"We Told You So"
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Artwork from Newsday by Ned Levine. Copyright * 1989, Newsday. Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate.
Israelis hope the
World Trade
Center bombing
will convince
Americans that
Muslim
extremists
must be harshly
dealt with.
LARRY DERFNER
ISRAEL CORRESPONDENT
W
hen it was heard
that an Arab
Muslim extremist
had been arrested
in connection with the World
Trade Center bombing, you
could almost hear a single,
booming response from all of
Jewish Israel filling the air:
"Now do you believe us?
Now do you understand?"
Not that Israelis were
happy that the Trade Center
had been bombed and that
people had been killed and
wounded. But they did feel
vindicated. They are at war
with Arab Muslim terror-
ism, and they feel that
America and the West too
often sympathizes with the
killers, out of a misplaced
feeling for the underdog,
fueled by what most Israelis
see as a steady flow of unfair
media coverage of the in-
tifada.
Now that America had
gotten__,3 strong taste of what
Israel nas to live with, it was
hoped that people there
would understand that When
Israel strikes against these
sorts of terrorists, it is not
oppression, but self-defense.
This was a view held not
only by the right-wing, but
also by people who described
themselves as leftists or
moderates, as unprejudiced
against Arabs and Muslims,
and by people who are it-
ching to see Israel quit the
occupation of the West Bank
and Gaza.
It reflected a unanimous
fear and contempt for
Muslim extremists, and the
attitude that no matter what
Israel does, these forces —
the kind who blow up the
World Trade Center and who
scream "Allahu Akhbar"
and stab to death Israeli
civilians walking down the
street — will never be ready
for peace.
At Dizengoff Center, a
shopping mall in the middle
of Tel Aviv, one Israeli after
another voiced these views.
"After the bombing I didn't
suspect that it was Muslims,
but I wasn't surprised when
they were arrested. I have
nothing against Arabs or
Muslims in general, but as
for the kind of people who
supposedly did the bombing
— Americans, who are so
liberal and democratic,
should see who we're
`happy' over the attack. I
was happy that 20,000 peo-
ple weren't killed."
Yehuda Halfon, who owns
a butcher shop in the mall,
said, "I hope the American
citizens, not only the Jews
over there, will understand
better when Israel warns
about Muslim terrorism, and
will realize where it can
lead."
This was the view from the
Jewish population. From the
Arab Muslim population,
which makes up about 15
percent of Israel proper, the
attitude was quite different.
"This act played into the
hands of all those who are
targeting Islam in the West
and in Israel," said Kamel
Rayan, mayor of the Arab
town of Kafr Bara, and a
leader of Israel's Islamic
Brotherhood, which is a
strong force in local Israeli
Arab politics. "Whoever did
it caused misery for
Muslims. It only strengthens
the bad image we have, and
it will take many years to
erase," he added.
Mr. Rayan said the Islamic
Brotherhood, a non-violent,
spiritual/political move-
ment, condemned the bomb-
ing. He said he had heard of
the man suspected of in-
' citing the act, Sheikh Omar
Abd el-Rahman, head of the
Jersey City mosque at which
bombing suspect Mohamm-
ed A. Salameh prayed, ad-
ding that "most Islamic
organizations find his path
of wild, unfettered violence
unacceptable."
(Ehud Ya'ari, one of
Israel's preeminent Arab af-
fairs journalists, reported
that Sheikh Rahman had a
few hundred members and
that he has his roots in
,
Mohammed Salameh:
Arrested, charged.
fighting against," said
Moshe Ram, owner of an art
store.
"Certainly it was good for
Israel's international stan-
ding that Muslims were ar-
rested," said Naftali Ben-
Shimon, a retired
aeronautics engineer sitting
at a cafe. "But I wasn't
Egypt. Sheikh Rahman was
suspected of being behind
the assassinations of Anwar
Sadat, a number of other
Egyptian leaders, and Rabbi
Meir Kahane, Mr. Ya'ari
said, adding that Sheikh
Rahman and his followers in
the Jersey City mosque were
"rejected by even the most
extreme Islamic factions.")
Mr. Rayan, however, said
he "understood" how a
Muslim could be driven to
violence in the U.S. "I'm not
in favor of it, but I under-
stand it because the Ameri-
can policy in the Middle East
and in Israel is to repress
and destroy the Muslims."
Mr. Rayan, who is coor-
dinator of the Israeli Arab
committee on behalf of the
nearly 400 Hamas deportees
in south Lebanon, said the
arrests in New York had not
hurt the cause, and another
demonstration against the
expulsions was planned for
later this month.
The Rabin government
was silent about the bomb-
ing arrests. UN Ambassador
Gad Ya'acobi said in New
York that they were a
reminder of the threat of
Muslim terrorism, but that
was about all the govern-
ment had to say about the af-
fair.
The right-wing opposition
was a little more forthcom-
ing. Likud Knesset member
Binyamin Netanyahu, who
stands to become the Likud's
new leader in this month's
party primaries and who
made a name for himself ex-
posing Arab terror as UN
ambassador said America
and the West had actually
invited the attack by failing
to crack down on terrorism
in the past and by condemn-
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