Bin Laden: It's about Palestine, stupid.

Bush's outrageous speech to the Israeli Knesset has been attacked by the Democrats as an outrageous slur against Barack Obama. It has now also been condemned by Osama bin Laden as a typical example of the way that US foreign policy is skewered towards Israel.

"We will continue, God willing, the fight against the Israelis and their allies ... and will not give up a single inch of Palestine as long as there is one true Muslim on Earth," he declared in a 10-minute audio message posted on an Islamist website. The tape's authenticity could not be verified but it bore the hallmarks of al-Sahab, al-Qaida's media arm.

"The participation of western leaders with the Jews in this celebration confirms that the west backs this Jewish occupation of our land, and that they stand in the Israeli trench against us," he said, claiming that the Palestinian issue had motivated the 9/11 attacks on the US.

I said at the time that I would be interested to see if Bush, whilst celebrating Israel's 60th birthday, made any mention of the Nakba, the expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians which also occurred at this time 60 years ago. Of course, Bush did no such thing.

He was too busy making his outrageous smears against Barack Obama - and comparing him to the appeasers of Nazi Germany - to even consider mentioning a day which is infamous in the Palestinian calendar.

There was a day when the US used to pretend that it was in the role of "honest broker" in the Israel-Palestine dispute but that pretense has long stopped, and under Bush it has actually gone so far pro-Israeli as to make a mockery of US involvement in the dispute at all. The US are no longer there to act as referee, they are there to make sure Israel can do what she wants and that the rest of the international community don't interfere.

It's simply scandalous and it's astonishingly dangerous, fueling Muslim anger and resentment towards the US as well as Israel.

"Peace talks that started 60 years ago are just meant to deceive the idiots," he [bin Laden] said. "After all the destruction and the killings ... your leaders talk about principles. This is unbearable. You describe Palestinian organisations as terrorists and you boycott them and punish them while Israelis are killing civilians, women and children."

The fact that Israel has been unable in sixty years to find a single "partner for peace" amongst the Palestinians, as she continues to build on and steal Palestinian land, makes many of us cynical about just how serious Israel is about finding this mythical "partner for peace" which she claims to be constantly searching for.

What's certain is that the Israel/Palestine dispute is the number one issue on the Arab street and a major recruiting tool for al Qaeda.

Bush's speech in the Knesset on Thursday lavished praise on Israel and excoriated its enemies - Hamas, Hizbullah in Lebanon, as well as Iran and Syria. But he barely mentioned the Palestinians, who were that same day marking the "nakba" (catastrophe) they suffered as the Jewish state won its independence in May 1948.

It will have confirmed many Arabs in their conviction that the US is irredeemably biased in favour of Israel.

The US is irredeemably biased towards the Israelis, that's simply a matter of fact. That's why the US is unfit to act as a referee in this dispute as they have long ago stopped pretending that they are an honest broker or even a fair participant. They are neither. They are there to ensure that Israel can break international law with impunity.

It's utterly disgraceful and it's incredibly dangerous. For Israel and for the US.

One day this dispute will be sorted and we all know what the end game will roughly look like. It will look like UN resolution 242. However, we will never get to that point as long as bad presidents, like president Bush, spend all their time telling the Israelis what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear.

The irony is that president Bush is actually a terrible friend of Israel, as a good friend would be giving them a very different message from the one being delivered by Bush.

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Tags: Bush, bin Laden, Israel, Palestine, 60th birthday

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