Following the terror attacks on New York and Washington, the Hamas Movement mouthpiece Al-Risala, published in Gaza, printed an open letter, "To America," by Dr. 'Atallah Abu Al-Subh:
"I am certain that you [America] will face the mirror of your history for a long time to come! Thus you will be able to see exactly how much you have oppressed, how corrupt you are, how you have sinned – how many entities you have destroyed; how many kingdoms you have demolished! Do you remember what you did in Vietnam and Korea? Do you remember how you turned Hiroshima and Nagasaki into piles of radioactive coals that hold death, present and future, for the two destroyed cities? Not a person in these cities remains who was not distorted by your fire; not an infant or youth remains who was not torn to shreds; not a bird remains who was not drowned in a sea of flame!!"
"America, Oh sword of oppression, arrogance and sin; do you remember how you crushed the humanity of man? Do you remember how the blacks lived under your wing? Can you describe to us how much humiliation, loathing, and contempt you caused those poor creatures? Their only sin was to be born to two black parents. Your 'white' son bound their necks with the fetters of slavery, after hunting them in the jungles and on the coasts of Africa. They were born free, but were transported to the slave markets that inundated your virgin soil. And later, how terrible were the deeds you did to them?" "Have you asked yourself about your actions against your 'original' inhabitants, the Indians, the Apaches? Your white feet crushed them, and then used their name, Apache, for a helicopter bearing death, demolition, and destruction for anyone with rights, who dared to whisper in his own ear that he has those rights? This is loathsome and malignant behavior, because it made us hate the Apache Indians, without realizing that they actually were victims like us." "America, have you ever asked yourself why you killed Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X? What crime could possibly be worse than these crimes, and why?"
"America, have you ever asked yourself how the children in the Al-'Amariya [shelter in Iraq], or at Kana [in Lebanon], sinned? Why do you pour this continuing oppression on the head of Baghdad, as you do on the head of Jerusalem, on the head of Jenin, and on every head with two eyes that do not see what you see and do not walk the path of justice that your sinning hands paved for every idiotic eunuch [a reference to the rulers of Arab states] that you crown His Eminence or His Royal Highness? America, have you ever asked yourself why you manufacture cluster bombs, atomic bombs, hydrogen bombs, biological weapons of mass destruction, and the F-16? Even if we accept the claim of 'be prepared,' why do you give these weapons to any murderer, war criminal, and enemy of humanity, like Karadzic, Shamir, and Sharon? Why?"
"America, have you ever tasted the taste of horror, sorrow, and pain? This is the taste that has been our lot for so long. This is the taste that has filled our stomachs, torn our guts, and burned our skin. This is routine for us, and is carried out by those you love, with a high degree of 'professionalism.' They destroy our shacks. What happened tonight in Jenin is not very different than what happened to you."
"Every time Dick Cheney and his girlfriend Condoleezza Rice… admonish us, [and] gloat at our misfortune, they incite to more [violence against us]!! We stand in line and beg Allah to give you to drink from the cup of humiliation – and behold, heaven has answered. You must think, America, whether you are capable of silencing your extremism, your impudence, and your arrogance!"
"America, what have we sinned? What have we done to you?"
"Do you remember that we made it possible for you to lead us in the ways of peace!! We agreed that you would host this peace! You wasted time, and neglected the matter – which seems to us an absolute bias in favor of the Jews, when our only crime was to agree to accept you as judge and as host! Hosts do not behave this way, Oh America, unless they are cowboys [a pun in Arabic]! If only it stopped at this bias; but it has reached the point where you tightened the rope around our entity and opened the gates of the Pentagon so that every Jew could equip himself with a knife in order to slaughter us! Why?"
"America, you planted in the hearts of all men and animals the seedling of hatred of you! You never considered that the day would come when the saplings would grow and put out your eyes, even if those eyes were placed at the top of the World Trade Center, among the clouds. Those saplings grew and spread and struck at the liver of the Pentagon, the biggest and most secure site on the planet. Don't you see that the thorns have reached the eyes of your strong Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, who thought that he was too strong to be hurt by the thorns of vengeance for what he did with his own hands? Perhaps you realize, after Rumsfeld fled, that he is only an ordinary man, who cannot seize the land and is not as tall as the mountains!!"
"America, why did you evacuate the biggest building in the world, and I refer to the Sears Tower, as we, the weak, do every night in order to protect ourselves from your laser-eyed missiles? Are you as frightened as we are, Oh America? Do the giants fear and flee, as the oppressed do, Oh America?"
"America, it transpires that that you are weaker than the weak, and that you are as wretched as any refugee that you forced to flee with his children, his wife, and the clothes on his back from a village that was once on the coast of Palestine. America, where are your eyes that see ants on rocks – I refer to the CIA? Did you not see what the soul of the one who struck at you whispered – although you always claimed to be able to see what others could not? It becomes apparent that a blind eye sees only through the eyes of traitors and spies; yet men of honor have caps of invisibility and when they don them, they dress you in garments of horror and humiliation."
"America, where is your second eye, the Mossad? You always gave us the illusion that it was alert enough to see what a man sees before he falls asleep. How did the 'perpetrator' take this eye?"
"Have you asked yourself who the real perpetrator is? Allow me to answer you: Yes, it is you, America!… You closed on yourself the door of injustice, so that none could pass through it but your destroyers. Afterwards, you decided to light the fire of destiny behind the door, until the fire consumed you, Oh America! I told you once that the mosquito sucks the blood of the lion. Have you realized that I was right? If not, look at your eye and see what happened to you in three spheres: the economic sphere (the World Trade Center building); the power sphere (the Pentagon); and the political sphere (the White House). Could you have imagined that what happened could have happened?"
"Is it conceivable that you would think twice and choose not to attack the pharmaceuticals plant in Khartoum again, or Libya? Or will the appetite for vengeance take you over and blind you to the truth, and will you pour out your wrath on the Al-'Amariya [shelter in Iraq] or on Beit Hanoun [in Gaza]? With what remains of your eyes, will you see the truth and retreat? I advise you, Oh America, to see the truth, and not to act thoughtlessly. You need to reexamine."
"What use was your navy to you? What use were your intercontinental missiles and your nuclear power plants? What use was the fact that you had almost completely conquered space with satellites and AWCS planes. What use was NATO, and the world leadership that you hold in your hands?"
"Or did all these become paralyzed when the sword of vengeance reached the neck of your honor and shamed you? There is no doubt that this is a deed unprecedented in ancient and modern history. You cannot but realize that the perpetrator will strike again and again if you continue with your corruption..."[1] A similar approach was adopted by Al-Risala editor Dr. Ghazi Hamad's weekly column, in which he wrote: "I will not discuss the issue from the emotional point of view, but on the basis of the rule that determines that "the punishment fits the crime."
"The United States, which, since the turn of the last century, has believed that it is the strongest, used that strength and power not to actualize justice and equality for the oppressed, but to besiege the[se] peoples, murder them, and spill their blood. It did not follow any law, unless the law was passed to strengthen its hegemony and its power. The US, which supports the Zionist entity, supplying it with all types of lethal weapons, such as the Apache, napalm bombs, and the F-16, that have taken the lives of thousands of Palestinians; the US, which encouraged the Iranian Shah to massacre his people; the US, which stood by the blood-letter Haile Sellassie, the despot Idi Amin, and dozens of dictators and tyrants in South America, in Africa, and in Southeast Asia; the US, which sowed death at Hiroshima, anguish in Vietnam, bitterness in Iraq, famine and siege in the Sudan and in Libya – what did this US, with the ugly face, expect the repressed and the oppressed peoples to do?"
"How much hatred has it stockpiled, and how many enemies has it gained? How many tortured people have burned American flags at every opportunity to express their rage? The US, with its think tanks and mighty research institutes, should have been ashamed of its hostility towards the nations and the peoples. Were the eradication of its Marines in Lebanon, the destruction of its military headquarters at Khobar in Saudi Arabia, the destruction of the USS Cole in Yemen, the bombing of its embassies in Zambia [sic] and in Kenya, and the attacks on its soldiers in the Gulf and in Japan not sufficient? The US should have learned the lessons of history; but, unfortunately, the US listens only to itself – and behold, today it hears itself all too well…"
"Today, the US has tasted the bitter harvest it sowed in the hearts of millions. Today, we ask: After this, will the US [continue to] think that it is above the law? Will it continue to act with repression and tyranny, or will it reexamine what it has done, and what it will do?"[2]
