While I find Juan Cole more believable than the people in the Bush administration, I have to agree with Martin Kramer that the attempt to bring it all back to Israel is rather ludicrous. As I understand it, Osama bin Laden's main concern is Saudi Arabia, not the Palestinians. To the extent that he decries Israel and sets them up as a motivation for his attacks, it is mainly boilerplate for the Arabs who really do care about mainly about Israel.
I think that there is a danger here that Mr. Cole is trying to interpret everything through the lens of his beliefs about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is unwise and unhelpful.
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to Noah Millman.
That is all.
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