Fearing the consequences of cooperation between al Qaeda and the various terrorist groups operated by the Palestinian Authority, the Father of Modern Terrorism Yasser Arafat, made a startling announcement recently. Osama bin Ladin's group, according to Arafat, has been exploiting the Palestinian cause, not out of genuine camaraderie, but as an attempt to use the Palestinian cause as a tool to galvanize pan-Arab support for al Qaeda's Jihad against the West. While Arafat has never been known for truthfulness, his public condemnation of al Qaeda's connection to the Palestinians is an important one, because it exposes one of the most recent 'Big Lies' of the Islamic world.
The principle of the "Big Lie" is that any falsehood -- even a patently outrageous one -- if repeated often enough, will eventually be believed by a fair number of people. Under this theory, the Islamic terrorists and their anti-Semitic co-conspirators have spread the Big Lie that al Qaeda's 9/11 attack on America was somehow connected to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Therefore, al Qaeda and its Saudi financiers, urged Westerners to turn their backs on Israel to avoid further Islamic attacks on Western targets. In truth, however, the Islamic war of Jihad against the West had nothing at all to do with Israel, nor with the Palestinians. This fact precisely was the crux of Arafat's surprising confession.

The forces of radical Islam, lead by mass murderer Osama bin Ladin, were motivated by a few guiding principles. Most experts agree that the first basis of Islamic terrorism against the West is an extremist interpretation of the Q'uran, which explicitly calls for a war of Jihad against non-Muslims who reject the Prophet Muhammad. The second basis for al Qaeda's war of terrorism is their goal of imposing the Taliban-style Islamic set of laws, known as Shari'a, on the world. And, the third and most immediate cause of bin Ladin's 9/11 attack on the U.S. was the presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia. Al Qaeda viewed the mere presence of non-Muslims in Saudi Arabia, the cradle of Islam, as an offense punishable by death. Guided by these factors, prior 1999, al Qaeda never even mentioned the Arab-Israeli conflict.

However, by 1999, it became apparent to al Qaeda that the lowest common denominator among Muslims worldwide is a widespread hatred of the American-Israeli friendship, rather than the other goals of al Qaeda. Therefore, to garner support among their Islamic brethren and to expand the scope of monetary donations to the group, al Qaeda decided to take advantage of the Arab-Israeli conflict by jumping on the anti-Israel/anti-American bandwagon. Suddenly, bin Ladin was seen as a pan-Islamic hero, rather than a just another radical Islamic underground terrorist. Cash to fund terrorist attacks against the West flowed like a gusher out of an Arabian oil field. With its sudden support for the Palestinian cause, al Qaeda's popularity soared, reaching its peak after the 9/11 attack on America.

Upon learning of the damage caused to America and to the global economy, all over the Arab world crowds gathered to celebrate al Qaeda's Jihad "success." In the Palestinian territories, people handed out candy, danced, and sang their praise to Allah and to bin Ladin. The name "Osama" became one of the most popular to be awarded to newborn Palestinian babies. But Arafat quickly realized that he had a public relations problem on his blood-stained hands. In fact, to hide the connection between the Palestinians and al Qaeda, journalists who documented the Palestinian celebrations of the attack on America, were severely beaten, their photos confiscated and their lives were threatened by the Palestinian Authority if they published the evidence.

More than a public relations disaster, however, Arafat quickly realized that any association with al Qaeda could cause the Palestinians to incur the wrath of the United States. Arafat knew that he had to act dramatically to combat the increasingly accurate perception that Palestinian terrorism is, as Israel has always contended, no different than al Qaeda terrorism.

And so, in December 2002, when Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon revealed that al Qaeda troops were operating both in Lebanon and in Gaza, Arafat realized that he must act promptly to dissociate from al Qaeda. The Palestinians' fear grew as the U.S. poured tens of thousands of troops into the Middle East, and American talk of combating Hamas and Hizbullah increased in frequency. Arafat surmised -- quite correctly -- that if the U.S. turned its war on terrorism to Palestinian groups, then the Palestinian Authority's days, too, might be numbered.

Yet, Arafat's terrorist patrons Saudi Arabia and Syria were in the midst of conducting a feverish campaign of disinformation to shift the blame for Islamic terrorism away from the Arab enemies of the West, to the Palestinian-Israel conflict. Arafat found himself caught between a rock and a hard place.

One the one hand, Arafat thrived on the Saudi-Syrian lies that suggested to the West that awarding the Palestinians their own state would eliminate global Islamic terrorism. On the other hand, the Father of Modern Terrorism knew that the increasingly clear connection between the Palestinians and al Qaeda would eventually lead to the Palestinians losing the sympathy of the West, and perhaps even become a target of the American war on terrorism.

Faced with a difficult choice, Arafat realized that he had more to fear from the U.S. than from his Arab culprits. He, therefore, decided to come clean by exposing the Arab Big Lie, by publicly denying that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was at the root of al Qaeda's terrorism. Contrary to the Big Lie, Arafat revealed that al Qaeda's 9/11 attack on America had nothing at all to do with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In fact, according to Arafat, the Palestinian cause was actually exploited by bin Ladin as a ruse to consolidate pan-Arab support and financing for their Islamic Jihad against America.

It is indeed surprising, and perhaps ironic, that the Arab lies spread across the global media were finally exposed by no other than arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat himself. Nonetheless, Arafat's admission that Saudi Arabia, Syria, and the thousands of Arab apologists were shamelessly lying to the world all along, does not mean that the Palestinians are not collaborating with al Qaeda. On the contrary.

There is, of course, collaboration between the Palestinians terror groups and al Qaeda. Both deeply hate the U.S. Both are instruments of Saudi state-sponsored terrorism and should be targeted for elimination in America's war on terrorism. The presence of al Qaeda troops in Gaza and Lebanon has been documented.

Still, it is always gratifying to see one Arab terrorist expose the lies of another.