TITLE: Palestinians Hope it's the Japanese

AUTHOR: Danny Rubinstein

PUB: Ha'aretz Daily

DATE: Sept. 12, 2001

A deep fear ran through the Palestinian leadership yesterday, namely that Islamic groups, or perhaps Arabs, could be behind the biggest ever act of terrorism in history, carried out yesterday on the United States. "Even if Palestinian groups are not directly linked to the attack, the Palestinian people will probably pay a terrible price for what happened," said one member of the Palestinian cabinet last night. Yasser Arafat yesterday intended to cancel his planned, historic visit to Damascus today, so as to keep as great a distance as possible from radical elements in the Arab world - such as the resistance fronts and Hezbollah, which are based in Lebanon and Syria, and operate under the auspices of the regime in Damascus. Arafat rushed to issue a statement condemning the attack in the afternoon, with the usual expressions of shock at an attack on innocent people. He added that Palestinian organizations could not possibly be connected with this horrible crime. The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine were both among the first to issue statements denying involvement in the attack. One of Arafat's aides explained that in order to prepare and carry out such a wide-scale operation, massive funding and organization are needed, which no Palestinian group is capable of mustering. He believes that some powerful organization in the U.S. is responsible, possibly even a coalition of terrorist organizations, including Islamic groups. During talks with public figures in East Jerusalem last night, some said they had heard few young Palestinians saying that the Americans had finally got what was coming to them. This was not gloating, they said, but rather satisfaction in seeing that all the power and strength America can muster will not suffice as long as it follows an unjust policy toward the Arabs on whole, and toward the Iraqis and Palestinians in particular. At least one case of people handing out sweets was caught on film by a foreign camera crew in Ramallah. This was preceded by dozens of expressions of anger and hostility toward the U.S. as carried by the Arab and Palestinian media over the last few days, practically every day. One caricature, for example, shows a huge American hamburger, with the meat pate inside representing the tortured Palestinian people. Or the caricature carried yesterday by the Palestinian Authority's mouthpiece, Al Hayat Al Jadida, which shows a fat, Zionist leader wearing a skullcap, pulling the beard of the American boss who drags behind him an unfortunate Palestinian. "America's racist policies must not be forgotten," said Hamas's spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin yesterday; he also expressed disapproval of the attack. Other Hamas spokesmen reminded the world that the organization's policy has always been to attack Israeli targets only - and Hamas has never targeted American interests. It was clear to the members of the Palestinian leadership last night that they have to defend themselves as far as possible from efforts to link them to the attack. One of their fears is that the U.S. and the entire Western world will be totally submerged in this heinous act, and the Israeli government will be able to use all its might to suppress the intifada. One of the Arabic television stations based in Amman yesterday broadcast a report that claimed that a Japanese organization had taken responsibility for the terror attack, saying that it was to avenge the dropping of the Atom bomb on Hiroshima by the Americans at the end of World War II. The report sparked hope, for one fleeting moment, that the affair had nothing to do with them. But the general view was that this was a false hope and that the Palestinians are now entering one of the darkest periods of their history. END top