Are the recent warnings of possible Al-Qaeda or Arab terrorist attacks against the United States mere exaggerations as some Arabs have been trying to explain? Or are they warnings against the possibility of real attacks?
To make the answer easier, let me ask another question. Before Sept. 11, if an American agency had suggested that some Arabs were planning to launch an attack in the US with the aim of killing thousands of people in less than two hours, would anyone at all have believed it?
We Arabs would have been the first to dismiss it as empty talk and propaganda, aimed at stirring up bad feeling against Arabs and Muslims. Still, precisely what we would have refused to believe in fact happened — and the label we abhorred more than any stuck on us. Let us now approach the issue from a practical point of view. A country’s leaders ought to take steps to protect its citizens when they are warned against possible strikes by inimical forces . Under such circumstances, US leaders will not bother about the sentiments of Arab and Muslim communities in the US. The issuing of warnings is part of the general precautions taken in such circumstances.
So there is no point in blaming the US, Kenya or Tanzania about their being prepared against attacks by some Arabs or Muslims because these countries were all deeply injured in past attacks. If the countries on Al-Qaeda’s hit list succeed in aborting likely attacks by taking precautionary measures, the action will also ultimately be in the best interests of the Arabs too.
Any terrorist operations by any party will be attributed to us Arabs, rightly or wrongly. We will no longer be able to defend our good reputation by singing the same old song — that it is another conspiracy against us.
It is in our best interests that no Arab be involved in any plane hijacking and crashing the plane into a building. It is also in our best interests for no Arab to throw a biological or chemical bomb in a subway. It will be always good for Arabs if no Arab attacks anyone at all. This is, however, wishful thinking as in the present war, one party is Arabs who make no secret of the fact that they intend to undertake massive terrorist operations against the US.
The Arabs should indeed be concerned about terrorist threats made by Arabs themselves rather than worrying about US warnings to its own citizens. The effects of these warnings will be mostly confined to within the US itself while the bad name attached to Arabs, in the event of another terrorist attack, will follow them to the remotest corners of the earth. This is what we have experienced in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. Let the US issue warnings to its citizens and let us share our fears with them.
