VZCZCXYZ0001
OO RUEHWEB

DE RUEHAM #6838/01 2480953
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 050953Z SEP 06
FM AMEMBASSY AMMAN
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 3823
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC IMMEDIATE
RHEHAAA/WHITE HOUSE WASHDC IMMEDIATE
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK IMMEDIATE 0427
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS IMMEDIATE 1355
RUEHXK/ARAB ISRAELI COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE
RUMICEA/USCINCCENT MACDILL AFB FL//CCPA// IMMEDIATE

UNCLAS AMMAN 006838 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR NEA/ARN, NEA/PA, NEA/AIA, INR/NESA, R/MR, I/GNEA, B/BXN, 
B/BRN, NEA/PPD, NEA/IPA FOR ALTERMAN 
USAID/ANE/MEA 
LONDON FOR TSOU 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
 
TAGS: KMDR JO
 
SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION ON TERRORISM 
 
 
Editorial Commentary 
 
-- "Suspicious terrorism" 
 
Columnist Ibrahim Gharaibeh writes on the op-ed page of centrist, 
independent Arabic daily Al-Ghad (09/05):  "The crime attack against 
the tourists yesterday added more justifications to the instability 
and the harassment that Arabs and Muslims are already being 
subjected to in their interests, travels, residency, and education 
in all countries of the world.  The attack also pulls the plug on 
all attempts towards political and democratic reform, openness and 
stability.  It is no longer sufficient to say that terrorist 
operations are due to extremism, Takfir, deprivation and tension, or 
that they are tense and extremist actions against American and 
Israeli attacks in Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon.  As true as they 
are, these statements do not provide a convincing explanation for 
the violence and the terrorism be that with regards to timing or 
location.  Accepting these statements simply means that there is a 
person or an extremist organization that believes that tourists are 
atheists and are enemies of Islam and the Muslim nation, and that by 
killing them, they are avenging the martyrs in Palestine, Iraq, 
Lebanon, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Burma and the 
Philippines....  This is a scenario that cannot be believed or 
accepted, and one must search for other more logical motives and 
interests.  Who benefits? Who wants Arabs and Muslim all over the 
world to be treated with contempt and hardline security?  Who wants 
a status of instability and chaos to be present in Jordan and the 
Arab and Muslim countries?  Who benefits from damage to economic 
interests and business in Jordan? There is a mysterious and 
suspicious situation that is leading societies and countries towards 
tension and extremism.  Every time societies and countries come 
close to stability, we are faced with surprise suspicious attacks 
that even children cannot believe they are in defense of holy sites 
and fighting the Kuffar.  We need a new though methodology and we 
need to look for a new vision, which I do not claim I have.  But 
condemning terrorism and putting murderers and terrorists on trial 
are not enough." 
 
-- "The Roman Amphitheater crime" 
 
Chief Editor Ayman Safadi writes on the back-page of centrist, 
independent Arabic daily Al-Ghad (09/05):  "Murder without purpose; 
killing innocent people; nihility that belittles life; deformation 
of the justice of Arab causes; damage to the interests of a country 
and to the image of a nation.  Nabil Ahmad Ja'oura did not end the 
injustice against Palestine nor did he stop the oppression against 
Lebanon with the crime that he committed which claimed the lives of 
innocent people.  On the contrary, this killer hurt the very causes 
that he claims he committed the crime to defend.  There is no 
information yet about the political identity or organizational links 
of the perpetrator of yesterday's criminal act ... but the way he 
committed his crime shows that he acted individually.  It does not a 
genius though to conclude that the killer is going to hide behind 
the justice of the Palestinian cause and the barbarism of the 
Israeli killing machine to justify his attack against innocent 
people....  Citizens have the right to be angry at the injustice 
that their brothers in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq are suffering 
from, and it is a human, constitutional and legal right for them to 
express this anger by legal peaceful means.  Killing innocent people 
is a crime that does not justify any anger, desperation or 
frustration." 
 
-- "Terrorism in the Roman Amphitheater" 
 
Columnist Fahd Khitan writes on the inside page of independent, 
mass-appeal Arabic daily Al-Arab Al-Yawm (09/05):  "We are facing a 
serious development that puts the state and the society before a new 
challenge for the following considerations: First, this is the first 
operation where its perpetrator succeeds to target tourists in a 
group ... which is similar to Luxor operation in Egypt in the 
nineties; Second, the seriousness of this operation is that it 
happened in a public and open place, and while it is possible to 
secure hotels and shopping malls, it difficult to provide similar 
protection in public places and the streets; Third, such an attack 
cannot be pre-empted with security and checking measures; Fourth, 
the most serious consideration is that the perpetrator of the 
terrorist action is a Jordanian citizen unlike the hotel bombings 
and the Aqaba attack....  I think we are going to hear talk that 
links it to the deteriorating situation in the region and the 
Israeli and American terrorism against the people and people's 
reaction to all that, but this justification in not permissible at 
all, not just in Jordan but anywhere else as well.  The honorable 
resistance in Lebanon has already provided the model for ethical 
confrontation with the enemy.  Targeting innocent people is nothing 
but cowardly and terrorist." 
HALE