Israel’s terrorism in Palestinian areas
In an interview reported in the Egyptian press, Mubarak said Palestinian-Israeli bloodshed is a cause of the attacks against the United States, and reproached Americans for rushing to blame Arabs and Muslims. In Amman, an official said that Jordan’s King Abdullah II urged President George W. Bush in a telephone call that the United States must ‘pursue its efforts to secure peace in the Middle East.’ In Abu Dhabi, the President of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, urged Bush ‘to take your time’ before taking revenge for the terror attacks on the United States.

‘I ask you to take your time and to be sure of the proof, so that the response to terrorism has the benefit of international legitimacy,’ he said in a telephone call. ‘The United States and the rest of the international community are also called upon to face up to the terrorism practised by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories, so there is no feeling of injustice,’ Sheikh Zayed said. Any US retaliation against the terrorists who carried out devastating attacks should be based on ‘concrete evidence’ and not hurt innocent people, China stressed. ‘The attack on terrorists should be based on concrete evidence and the act should have a clear orientation that should not hurt innocent people,’ it said.

UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Shaikh Hamdan bin Zayed Al Nahyan met in Abu Dhabi on September 16, ambassadors of member states of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the Russian Federation and China, to deliver a message from the President Shaikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, for leaders of their governments. Shaikh Hamdan said that President Shaikh Zayed told the leaders in the message that the UAE clearly and unequivocally condemned the criminal acts which had taken place in New York and Washington and caused deaths and injuries to thousands of people. The letter, Shaikh Hamdan said, was vivid and clear and quoted the President as saying that “there should be a direct move and a strong international alliance to eradicate terrorism and all those who provide assistance to it or harbour it.”

“The President said that the UAE condemned all acts of terrorism everywhere,” Shaikh Hamdan said, adding that Shaikh Zayed had also expressed the UAE’s “condemnation of the daily and continuous acts of terrorism being committed by Israeli forces in the occupied Palestinian territories against unarmed Palestinian people.” Shaikh Hamdan said the President believed that there should be a strong international alliance which should exert real and sincere efforts to bring about a just and lasting solution to the Middle East conflict. Shaikh Hamdan further said that the President had categorically stated that “Arabs and the Islamic world cannot accept what is happening in the occupied Palestinian territories – the daily killings, deportations and destructions. All of this is politically and morally unacceptable”.

In the message, Shaikh Hamdan said, the President also stated: “We can work closely together at this critical and dangerous time through which we are passing. We are confident that we can deal with the situation that we are facing. But we also require that your governments should work in a parallel and effective way to ensure a just and lasting peace in the Middle East. “We request all leaders to work in complete transparency and concurrently on the two tasks, achieving a just and lasting settlement of the Middle East conflict, based on the application of international legitimacy and enabling the Palestinian people to exercise their right to self-determination, to put an end to the occupation, and to establish their own independent state on their territory with Jerusalem as its capital.” President Shaikh Zayed noted in the message that there would be no permanent peace unless this was accomplished. “Because eradication of one or more individuals will not end the problems (of terrorism) in a permanent way when hundreds or thousands of others may step forward to replace them.”

President Shaikh Zayed in his message to US President George W. Bush expressed his feelings of compassion for the victims of criminal attacks in the United States and thanked him for his statement that these acts should not be used to incite hostility towards Arab-Americans or American Muslims. The UAE president expressed similar sentiments in his message to the British leader.

President George W. Bush called for an end to violence against US Muslims, which has flared up in the wake of terror attacks in New York and Washington. “Those who feel like they can intimidate our fellow citizens to take out their anger don’t represent the best of America. They represent the worst of humankind, and they should be ashamed of that kind of behaviour,” he said at the Islamic Centre in Washington. Earlier, FBI director Robert Mueller also sternly denounced such wrongdoing, saying: “”I want to make it very clear: vigilante attacks and threats against Arab-Americans will not be tolerated.”