December 13, 2001

Bin Laden Tape, Lunch at Ramzi's

Tonight I was going to hear oud soloist Mustafa Al Kurd at the Bethlehem Peace Center. (The oud is sort of a Palestinian guitar.) I checked earlier in the day to make sure it was not canceled, and I was incredibly surprised to hear that it was still on. I was surprised considering all of the events in the West Bank during the last couple of days. It's been nasty everywhere except here in Bethlehem. This was the final "Ramadan Nights" performance, and I'm really glad some of these events continued.

But while having dinner before the show, I flipped my TV to CNN news. The TV was only on a few moments when it switched to live coverage of the Bin Laden tapes. Honestly, I had little interest in watching it. I would not have made much of an effort to see it, had it not been playing before me, but then I became very interested. I think the tape (assuming it is authentic) gave pretty convincing evidence that Osama Bin Laden was responsible for the terrible Sept 11 attacks. Not that I had any doubt.

I switched my TV to the Arabic Al Jazeera station and it was also showing live coverage of the tape. Two men were speaking in Arabic as the tape was being played. Unlike CNN, which carried a running English transcript running beneath the video, there was no Arabic transcript on Al Jazeera. I flipped through the rest of my channels and two others were also carrying the video. BBC and another station that appeared to be broadcast from the Middle East.

Bin Laden talked about his plan for plane fuel burning and melting the iron above the floors of the crash. He had already calculated the casualties, and the guy sitting beside him said something like "Allah (God) be praised". Believe me, all Muslims do not think like these villains. These guys have twisted their version of Islam into something that it is not intended to be. True followers of Islam might say that these guys are not Muslim.

Osama Bin Laden tried to say he was working for the Palestinian cause, but Yasser Arafat said in no uncertain terms that Bin Laden did not speak for the Palestinians. However, I'm quite curious to hear what my Palestinian friends will say about the tape. They condemned the attacks universally, but many felt that Bin Laden was not the man accountable.

I wrote up my account of what I witnessed here in Palestine following the Sept 11 attacks. It was picked up by the United Methodist news service and I received dozens of emails both supporting and outright denying my explanation.
The Palestinian Reaction

So tonight I did not see oud soloist Mustafa Al Kurd at the Bethlehem Peace Center. I probably missed a great show.

However, I did not miss a great lunch at the Salsa residence in Beit Sahour today. Ramzi is a good friend, and his mother makes darn good meals! Today we had rice and meat inside grapeleaves, inside tomatoes, and inside zucchini. Zaki! (Delicious).