Osama Bin Laden, the world\'s number-one enemy at present, has at least one Palestinian connection. AP reports that Nabil Oukal, a resident of Jabalya in Gaza, is believed to have been sent to Israel to carry out major terrorist attacks. Oukal is now in Israeli custody, according to an Israeli security source, after having been apprehended at the Rafiach Crossing in Gaza three months ago. Oukal underwent training in Afghanistan and was allegedly planning to establish a terror network in PA-controlled Gaza upon his return. Among the attacks he was planning were the abduction of soldiers, bombing attacks against residential structures, and the poisoning of the nation\'s water supply.
However, this does not mean that Israel is a major concern of Bin Laden. National Law Journal columnist Gideon Kanner, in an article for California Political Review, notes that Bin Laden\'s agenda is specifically not against Israel:
\"...The terrorist career of the No. 1 suspect, Osama Bin Laden, has had little to do with Israel. All through decades of Arab-Israeli strife in the Middle East, he was content to live in Saudi Arabia and enjoy his family wealth. It was only when American troops appeared on Saudi soil (ironically, to save the Saudi regime from Saddam Hussein\'s aggression) that Bin Laden decided that allowing infidels into prophet Muhammad\'s land was blasphemy against the Muslim religion. It was only after his entreaties to the Saudi royal family to expel the Americans failed, that he took his $250 million family fortune, and left Saudi Arabia to wage war on the Americans. Though he undoubtedly hates Israel, his terrorist achievements have been directed solely at Americans. The list is long and bloody: the bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia that killed hundreds of American airmen, the bombing of American embassies in Africa, the attack on the USS Cole in a Yemeni port, and now the attack on the World Trade Center... For a guy who... is motivated solely by his hatred of Israel, that would seem a strange choice of targets. The fact is that Bin Laden\'s jihad against America is only the latest manifestation of a fundamentalist ideological movement know as Islamism, not to be confused with Islam which is a religion....\"
However, this does not mean that Israel is a major concern of Bin Laden. National Law Journal columnist Gideon Kanner, in an article for California Political Review, notes that Bin Laden\'s agenda is specifically not against Israel:
\"...The terrorist career of the No. 1 suspect, Osama Bin Laden, has had little to do with Israel. All through decades of Arab-Israeli strife in the Middle East, he was content to live in Saudi Arabia and enjoy his family wealth. It was only when American troops appeared on Saudi soil (ironically, to save the Saudi regime from Saddam Hussein\'s aggression) that Bin Laden decided that allowing infidels into prophet Muhammad\'s land was blasphemy against the Muslim religion. It was only after his entreaties to the Saudi royal family to expel the Americans failed, that he took his $250 million family fortune, and left Saudi Arabia to wage war on the Americans. Though he undoubtedly hates Israel, his terrorist achievements have been directed solely at Americans. The list is long and bloody: the bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia that killed hundreds of American airmen, the bombing of American embassies in Africa, the attack on the USS Cole in a Yemeni port, and now the attack on the World Trade Center... For a guy who... is motivated solely by his hatred of Israel, that would seem a strange choice of targets. The fact is that Bin Laden\'s jihad against America is only the latest manifestation of a fundamentalist ideological movement know as Islamism, not to be confused with Islam which is a religion....\"