The video tape released to the media by the US on Thursday did not convince many in the Arab world of Osama bin Laden's complicity in the events of September 11th.
The timing could not have been worse. The tape's airing on global satellite television channels coincided with major Israeli incursions into Palestinian towns and cities. Israeli tanks had taken up positions opposite the offices of the Palestine Authority in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
Arab governments and citizens were far more concerned about the survival of the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, and his cause than about the US campaign to nobble bin Laden in distant Afghanistan.
A Kuwaiti informant dismissed the "bin Laden tape" as a "ploy to win Arab and Muslim hearts and minds". She said: "The Americans went for bin Laden without solid proof of his guilt. They bomb Afghanistan against the advice and wishes of the Muslim world. What we think does not matter to them, so why bother to dig up this tape?"
While most Arab governments refrained from comment, Riyadh's initial reaction was given by its ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar bin Sultan. He said that the tape provides compelling evidence of bin Laden's involvement. "The tape displays the cruel and inhumane face of a murderous criminal who has no respect for the sanctity of human life or the principles of his faith," the prince stated.
An influential countryman, Mr Khaled Maeena, publisher of the English language daily Arab News, disagreed. He called the tape "a fabricated laugh" and observed: "It's been doctored." His remarks reflected widespread suspicion that the tape is either a complete fabrication or was altered. Washington held on to it for two-and-a-half weeks before releasing it.
"Of course it is fabricated," said Mr Dia'a Rashwan, an Egyptian specialist in Islamic movements who is connected with the Cairo daily al-Ahram's Strategic Studies Centre. "If this is the kind of evidence that America has, then the blood of thousands who died and were injured in Afghanistan is on \the US President, Mr Bush's head," he said. In Jordan, the political analyst, Mr Labib Kamhawi, said, at most the video shows bin Laden praising the attacks, but does not prove bin Laden was responsible for them.
Mr Mustafa Harmaneh, a mainstream Jordanian commentator, said that the tape would "have an effect on the educated elite but it won't convince anybody".
Some Arabs who watched the tape broadcast on CNN and Qatar's al-Jazeera station were dissatisfied with the translation from the original Arabic.
Mr Muhammed Salah, an Egyptian who writes for the London-based Arabic daily Al- Hayat, had an original conspiratorial slant on the tape. In his view, bin Laden may have made the tape and then left it behind in a house in the Afghan city of Jalalabad in order to mislead.
The transcript of the US translation of the videotape in which Osama Bin Laden speaks about the September 11th attack on New York is available on The Irish Times website: www.ireland.com
