Who are these people? Why did they do this? They lived among us, some of them for years, some with their families. How could anyone hate America that much? Do Arab countries want to help the U.S. in battling terrorism?"

At this date, almost four weeks after the attacks in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, the interest of the media is focussed on impending war; still, questions like the above remain from early days and are still largely going unanswered. I will not attempt to answer them exhaustively here.

I do believe, however, that after 16 years living in the Mideast, six of them in the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel, I have some feel for the situation there. Perhaps, then, I can provide some hints at answers for those who find these events so hard to absorb and comprehend.

In order to understand, it is important to recognize that, although they overlap, Arabs and Muslims are not the same. Also, people are extremely proud to be both Arab and Muslim, and both groups feel much affinity to others in their group. There should be no doubt about this, in spite of the fact that, historically, there have been many battles and tensions among them.

One result of this was the idea of giving Jews and Arabs half each of what had been mostly Palestinian land. From the Arab point of view, there was nothing generous about giving half of Palestine to Jews because of what had happened in a completely different part of the world and for which Arabs were not responsible.

That was the beginning, and insult and injury followed time and again, fight to the present day almost without abating and usually without American media attention. No matter which individual or Israel party is in power, Palestinian lands are confiscated, Jewish colonies (called settlements'] in the Palestinian West Bank arc continually expanded. Israelis uproot ancient olive groves at the same time that they campaign internationally for people to pay to 'plant a tree in Israel'!

Arab youth innocently chatting on street corners can be arbitrarily picked tip and abused by arrogant soldiers who arc often of the same age. They can be placed in I administrative detention,' a euphemism for arrest without charge, for tip to six months, after which the arrest can be renewed indefinitely for six months at a time. During this period, they are probably tortured to extract information. [Until recently, Israel was the only country in the world where 'moderate physical pressure' (reed torture) was legal in cases labeled 'national security.']

Also, it might be months before anxious parents and families would be able to locate their sons and brothers, sometimes thwarted because, although they had found the prison where the men were, they were told the lie that no one there knew anything about them. Israeli military check points are placed on the main access roads to Jerusalem, the result being that Palestinians have been frequently prevented from going there for religious observance, medical care, shopping, visiting relatives, or anything else.

If a vote of condemnation of any of this should happen to reach the U.N., the world has become used to seeing votes in the Security Council of 14 in favor and only the U.S., exercising veto power, against; and in the General Assembly of all the world's nations, 100 or more in favor and two, Israel and the U.S., against. Many Arabs considered that the same type of favoritism was shown only shortly before 11 September when Israel and the U.S. walked out of a U.N. Conference on Racism which was considering saying that Zionism is a form of racism. And all of this has been mounting up and festering for what is now more than fifty years since the founding of the state of Israel!

On the one hand, bin Laden has been quoted as expressing intense hatred for the U.S. because of its bias towards Israel, its placing and maintaining of a large force of 'infidels' on the sacred soil of Arabia, and the corruptive influence that American culture has had on Islamic lands. Many moderate Arabs, who are the great majority, while agreeing with some of his ideas, do not at all agree with bin Laden's conclusions or methods.

On the other hand, Arab and Muslim solidarity is activated when we see the reluctance, in varying degrees, to support an American-led effort to go after terrorists on a large scale. Most Arabs would claim that the U.S. has consistently backed Israel in its continuing degradation and humiliation of their Palestinian brothers and sisters. One of bin Laden’s stated reasons for his terrorist activities is the biased U.S. support of Israel, and Arabs in general don't like that either!

It is most likely that whatever cheering was done by Palestinians or others on hearing news of the attacks in the U.S. was not because of the loss of thousands of civilian lives. Like similar exuberance when Saddam Hussein's missiles struck Israel in 1991, what the people felt again this time was because of what they perceived as damage done to the U.S. government, which for more than half a century has sided with an oppressive occupation that they hate. This, too, we do not have to applaud or condone, but I hope that consideration of what is above will make these realities at least somewhat more comprehensible.