Letter: Anti-Muslim sentiment stirred

Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2001 | 8:26 a.m.

People like William Safire, the well-known pro-Israel, pro-Zionist New York Times columnist are capitalizing on the tragedy and aftermath of Sept 11. They are inflaming and instigating anti-Arab, anti-Muslim sentiment amongst the American people to serve their Zionist/Israeli agenda here and overseas.

Arab and Muslim countries, even the "not U.S. friendly" ones, have explicitly condemned the terror attack against the U.S. Most, if not all, have supported the U.S. mission to extradite the criminals. However, they had justifiable concerns about expanding this war into other countries.

For example, if the U.S. went after Iraq, which it considers a terrorist or terror-harboring regime, the U.S. needs to look long and hard at Israel's terrorist regime against the Palestinian people. Otherwise, if the U.S. turned the other cheek to Israel, while attacking Iraq, it will look very biased and will inflame anti-American resentment in the Arab and Muslim world, which would defeat the purpose of the antiterrorism mission.

I think the Bush administration is very smart in approaching this issue very carefully and very diplomatically. Let's face it, not only Saudi Arabia had ties with bin Laden; the U.S. armed and trained people like bin Laden during the Afghan-Soviet Union war.

Who was to say things would turn out like this? So why criticize Saudi Arabia, Mr. Safire?

KHALIL AMRIKANI