By Brigitte L. Nacos
Nobody could have doubted that Al Qaeda would try to exploit the fight between Israel and Hezbollah and the on-going clashed between the IDF and Hamas. Although Ayman al-Zawahiri's videotaped call to arms was edited by the Arab satellite TV network Al-Jazeera, the short version made perfectly clear that Al Qaeda's second in command aimed at uniting Sunnis and Shi'ites against Israel and her supporters and to enlist new recruits into the cause.
Far more than Western television, Arab-run TV shows shocking and close-up images of Lebanese women, children and old people killed, maimed, or displaced during the last weeks. These images are central to Al Qaeda's recruitment and propaganda drive. We know that such pictures worked before. The London would-be suicide bombers, for example, were willing to become "martyrs," after a recruiter showed them DVDs with the images of Muslims killed in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Palestinian territories. After they saw what was done to our people, one of the would-be-bombers told Italian investigators, they knew that they had to act. Now, recruiters do not need to distribute and show DVDs--the images of innocent victims dominate the TV screens 24/7.
As the New York Times reported this morning, the angry mood in the Arab street changed the minds of those Arabs--governments included--that initially criticized Hezbollah for provoking a bloody confrontation with Israel. That turnaround seems increasingly the case among G-8 leaders who initially seemed united in their blame of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.
On the other hand, even decision-makers who believe that they are fighting a just war are not immune to the sentiments in their own countries and the rest of the world and the images that shape those sentiments. After he had left the White House, Lyndon B. Johnson thought about the protests against the Vietnam War and wondered whether earlier wars could have been fought and won, if television had been around.
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As for the latest Al Qaeda tape, it was--like earlier versions--also aimed at the enemies--especially the U.S. and its allies. British Prime Minister Tony Blair decided a while ago to refrain from reacting to and commenting on bin Laden's/Al Qaeda's communications. President Bush and the White House have not taken this page from Blair's playbook. Instead, both the President and his spokesman Tony Snow reacted publicly to al-Zawahiri's latest messages. It does not matter what they said--it matters that they commented at all.
Terrorist leaders want a degree of legitimacy. In the past, some of them managed to succeed. Think of Yassir Arafat who became known as terrrorist and eventually was received as a legitimate player in the White House. The bin Ladens and Al-Zawahiri's of this world should never get the attention they get from the media and, regrettably, from the President and his aides. That casts them into the roles of important players on the world stage. Precisely what they want.
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