Usama bin Laden once claimed that the seeds of 9/11 were planted in 1982 as he watched the scenes of mass slaughter emerging out of Beirut's Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps, the bloody conclusion of that summer's US-supported Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
Either Bin Laden's statement was accurate, or he recognized that appealing to the widespread outrage generated by Western support for Israel's serial atrocities was the most effective way to generate popular and organizational support for his extremist project.
Bin Laden's successors are no doubt doing everything they can to capture similar outrage throughout the region about Israel's genocidal onslaught against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. But they will encounter significantly greater challenges deploying it for their own purposes.
The difference between 2024 and 1982 is the overwhelming evidence of popular Western rejection of the policies of their governments. In public opinion polls, in mass demonstrations easily rivalling those organised against the illegal 2003 Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, in the numerous campus encampments, and, as the recent Letter of Dissent shows, extending even to government bureaucracies and political appointees....