Friday, July 29, 2005

Dance of deception by James M. Wall " Among the messages of sympathy that poured into London following the July 7 bombings were condolences from the governments of Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Iran, Turkey—all nations with majority Muslim populations—and at least two Muslim nongovernmental groups: Hamas and Hezbollah.

But as Middle East scholar Juan Cole pointed out on his Web site "Informed Comment," only ArabicNews.com and a few Chinese sites mentioned this list. The Western media gave little attention to this strong Muslim expression of solidarity.Why this omission? Support from Muslim nations did not fit the dominant narrative in the U.S., which insists that "the reason we are attacked is that they hate us and our way of life, and we are not going to let that deter us from fighting terror." This narrative is not based on reality."
hattip Don over at agonist.org.