Region | Palestinian Territories
Scepticism rages over 9/11 perpetrators
Opinion poll shows large numbers worldwide do not believe al qaida was behind attacks.
- By Jumana Al Tamimi, Associate Editor
- Published: 18:01 September 12, 2008
- Footage aired by Al Jazeera on September 9, 2002, claims to show one of the expected hijackers involved in the September 11 attacks on the US.
- Image Credit: AP
Dubai:
Question: Who do you think was behind the 9/11 attacks?
a) Al Qaida
b) The US government
c) Israel
d) Other
e) Don't know
This open-ended question was asked to thousands of people around the world, and they provided the above answers, including the Middle East, in July and August.
The poll was conducted by several research centres in various parts of the world as part of a joint effort organised by worldpublicopinion.org. The group is managed by a think-tank at the University of Maryland.
More than 16,000 people in 17 countries were asked the question and the answers were rather surprising. Given that the poll had a statistical margin of error of 3 to 4 per cent and a large sample size, the results are conclusive and cannot be discounted by spurious voting trends.
In other words, it's a wide poll which can't be skewed by a few answers.
Worldwide, nearly half of those polled answered Al Qaida, while the remaining 54% selected the other options.
The majority of people surveyed in Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Territories selected answers"b'' through"e''.
It is this level of belief in other perpetrators that feeds the conspiracy theory.
According to worldpublicopinion.org, a majority of respondents in only 9 of the 17 countries surveyed believe Al Qaida was behind the attacks.
Even in European countries, there isn't an overwhelming majority who says Al Qaida was behind 9/11, according to the researchers' press statement.
Fifty-six per cent of Britons and Italians, 63 per cent of French and 64 per cent of Germans cite Al Qaida, it noted. However, significant proportions of Britons (26 per cent), French (23 per cent) and Italians (21 per cent) say they do not know who was behind 9/11.
Remarkably, 23 per cent of Germans cite the US government, as do 15 per cent of Italians,
In Egypt, 43 per cent say that Israel was behind the attacks, as do 31 per cent in Jordan and 19 per cent in the Palestinian Territories.
The numbers who believe Al Qaida was behind the attacks range from 11 per cent in Jordan to 42 per cent in the Palestinian Territories.
Lack of trust
“Arabs feel sceptical in everything that is going on,'' Saudi Political Science Professor Waheed Hamzah Hashem explained to Gulf News."They, in general, lack trust in the interpretation of events they are given because they were subjected to deception throughout history either by their governments or the Western powers,'' Hashem, who teaches at Saudi King University in Jeddah, added.
Even after Osama Bin Laden himself was shown on TV, claiming responsibility for the attacks and giving the names of the hijackers 15 out of 19 were Saudis many Arabs still refuse to accept this as clear evidence.
Scepticism and suspicion are also rampant among the educated, intellectuals, professors, doctors and lawyers.
Mohammad Sayed Saeed, Deputy Head of the Cairo-based Al Ahram Studies Centre, said that doubting official interpretations for events is not limited only to Arabs, but is also a characteristic of popular culture around the world.
He also noted that anti-American sentiment is feeding the scepticism."There are several other factors,'' Saeed said."No comprehensive and full American report was issued, explaining all the discrepancies, giving answers to the many questions surrounding the attacks.''
Technical questions
One of the many technical questions, Saeed said, is related to the plane that hit the Pentagon. In the past seven years, there have been many TV and video documentaries, press reports and books — all of which cast doubts on the attack on the Pentagon:"The hole in the Pentagon is too small to be made by a jetliner. How come the plane didn't demolish it all? Or do more damage? Wasn't it done by a missile?'' At the same time, there were also many movies, documentaries, and other printed materials that showed the atrocities of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
Some of the Arabic newspapers came out the day after the attacks, describing what happened as"Judgment day in the US.'' Another headline read:"An earthquake hit the US''.
Analysts say the world is still suffering from the aftershocks of that earthquake.
The poll results show it.
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