Not On Our Side The Right Blames God and Bush for 9/11?

By David Corn, AlterNet. Posted April 19, 2002.

When Representative Cynthia McKinney, a Georgia Democrat and prominent member of the Congressional Black Caucus, recently told a radio interviewer that the Bush Administration had advance notice of the Sept. 11 attacks and did not "warn the innocent people of New York who were needlessly murdered," she was roundly -- and not undeservedly -- criticized in the political-media world for peddling unproven conspiracy theories. But when a senator took to the Senate floor and said the Sept. 11 attacks were retribution from God in response to U.S. policy toward Israel, a similar firestorm did not ensue.

Last month, Sen. James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, gave a speech in the Senate and asserted that Israel is "entitled" to the West Bank. He also chastised those within the United States who have urged Israeli restraint, blaming them for Sept. 11.

"One of the reason I believe the spiritual door was opened for an attack against the United States of America," Inhofe huffed, "is that the policy of our government has been to ask the Israelis, and demand it with pressure, not to retaliate in a significant way against the terrorist strikes that have been launched against them."

In other words, on Sept. 11, God allowed airliners to be piloted into the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon because U.S. actions related to Israel were not to His/Her liking. How else to interpret Inhofe's words? A "spiritual door opened" for the attack? Well, who's in charge of spiritual doors -- and opening and closing them?

Inhofe is clearly suggesting the United States was punished because the Bush Administration and, I suppose, previous administrations had not been more supportive of Israel. Three billion dollars a year in economic and military aid apparently is not sufficient in the eyes of the Almighty. So, like McKinney, Inhofe holds the Bush gang accountable for the deaths of thousands, though he is less explicit. McKinney called for an investigation, but, alas, Inhofe did not. Otherwise, CSPAN viewers could be treated to hearings where religious experts would testify to the workings of "spiritual doors" and how one determines what secular actions most influence the doorkeeper upstairs.

Inhofe's remarks are reminiscent of the ravings uttered by Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson days after the awful attacks. The pair accused the ACLU, abortion rights advocates, feminists, gays and lesbians, and People for the American Way (a liberal interest group) of degrading the nation and thus pissing off God. As Falwell said, "God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve." ("That's my feeling," Robertson piped up.) After the two were criticized across the political spectrum, Falwell and Robertson issued phony apologies. But long-term damage had (thank God!) been done to their reputations.

Inhofe's case is a bit different.

He's no TV preacher; he's a lawmaker. And his remarks did not come in the emotionally chaotic days following the attacks; his comments were made after he had months to reflect. He has, as far as I can tell, received no flak for his we-deserved-Sept. 11 statement. But 200 or so Tulsa Muslims did march on his office a month later to protest another portion of his speech: Inhofe's insistence that God handed the West Bank to the Jewish people. How does Inhofe know that? It's in the Bible. In that same floor speech, Inhofe offered seven reasons why Washington ought to back Israeli claims in the West Bank.

His reason number seven -- "the most important reasons" -- was this: "Because God said so ... Look it up in the book of Genesis ... In Genesis 13:14-17, the Bible says: the Lord said to Abram [later known as Abraham], 'Lift up now your eyes, and look from the place where you are northward, and southward, and eastward and westward: for all the land which you see, to you I will give it, and to your seed forever ... Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it to thee.'" Abram was in Hebron at the time, and Hebron is in the West Bank. So this must mean God granted the Jews all that territory forever.

In Inhofe's mind, these few sentences in the Bible decide the matter, end of story. This is fundamentalism. And not too far a throw from the Islamic fundamentalism used by terrorists who point to the Koran to justify their actions.

When the anti-Inhofe protesters in Tulsa noted that the Bible and the Koran say Jews and Muslims are both descendants of Abraham, Inhofe responded, "I am not wavering from my view." He argued that, according to Genesis, the Jewish line has a special covenant with God. If Inhofe is going to take his Middle East policy guidance directly from Genesis, he has a problem, for in Genesis 15, God makes another real-estate promise to Abram. One night, as Abram is offering an animal sacrifice to God (a three-year old cow, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a dove and a young pigeon, per God's instructions), the All-knowing One says, "I will give your descendants the land east of the Shihor River on the border of Egypt as far as the Euphrates River."

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