Palestinian intellectuals have expressed their unequivocal condemnation of Tuesday's terrorist attacks against various cities in the United States. To assert their solidarity with the American People, they have signed a memorandum condemning the 11 September terrorist attack. Below is a transcript of the memorandum:

There can be no name to the catastrophe that has hit Washington and New York City, except that of the madness of terrorism. This terrorism is neither a black science fiction movie nor is it the Day of Reckoning. It is terrorism that is country-less, colorless, and creed-less, no matter how much it might have enlisted the names of gods and deities and the agonies of man in order to justify the crime.

There is no cause, not even a just cause that can make the killing of innocent civilians a legitimate act, no matter how long the list of accusations and the register of grievances. Terror does not pave the way for justice, but it is the shortest path to hell. We deplore this horrendous crime and condemn its planners and perpetrators with all the terms of denunciation and condemnation in the lexicon. Not only because this is a moral duty but as an expression of our commitment to our humanity and our faith that human values do not differentiate between one man and another.

Our sympathy with the victims and their families and with the American people in these trying times is but an expression of our deep commitment to the oneness of human destiny. For a victim is a victim, and terrorism is terrorism, here and there, it knows no boundaries nor nationalities and does not lack the eloquence of crime.

Nothing, nothing can justify this terrorism that kneads human flesh with iron cement and dust, and nothing can justify dividing the world into two camps that can never meet: one of absolute good and another of absolute evil; for civilization is the end result of what world societies have contributed towards the cultural heritage of the globe accumulating and interacting to reach the elevation and nobility of man. From this premise, the insistence of modern-day orientalism on indicating that terrorism resides in the very nature of Arab and Islamic cultures, does not contribute to the diagnosis of the enigma and thus solving it, in as much as it increases its complexity and puts it on the edge of a racist stance.

Therefore, the American search to find reasons for the animosity shown to their politics (and not to the American people and its popular culture) should move away from the concept of the "conflict of cultures", and from the need to identify an ever-present enemy, to test "western supremacy". It should move away to a political arena, where the United States can meditate on the sincerity of its foreign policy and its success in the Middle East, where the great American values of freedom, democracy and human rights, have stopped their function in the Palestinians context, while at the same time freeing the Israeli occupation from answering to international law, and providing the Israeli behavior, which often reaches the scope of "state terrorism", with what it needs of justifications and rationalization.

We know that the American wound is deep and we know that this tragic moment is a moment for solidarity and the sharing of pain, we also know that the horizons of the intellect can traverse the landscape of devastation. Terrorism has no location or boundaries, it does not reside in geography of its own, its homeland is disillusionment and despair.

The best weapon to eradicate terrorism from the soul lies in the solidarity of the international world, in respecting the right of the people of the globe, or the global village, to live in harmony and in reducing the ever increasing gap between north and south, and the best and most effective way to defend freedom is that of realizing fully the meaning of justice. Security measures alone are not enough, for terrorism carries within its folds a multiplicity of nationalities and does not recognize boundaries. The world cannot be divided into two societies, one for the rebels and the other for the officers of the law.

But then, nothing, nothing justifies Terrorism

Among the signatories:

1. Mahmoud Darwish
2. Hanan Ashrawi
3. Yasser Abed Rabbo
4. Akram Haniyeh
5. Mahmoud Shuqeir
6. Yehya Yakhlof
7. Abdel Latif Barghouthi
8. Husein Barghouthi
9. Izzat Ghazzawi
10. Hanna Nasser
11. Salim Tamari
12. Sari Nuseibeh
13. Zakarya Mohamed
14. Liyana Bader
15. Ali Al-Khalili
16. Said Zeidan
17. Fu'ad Mughrabi
18. Wasim Al-Kurdi
19. Islah Jad
20. Rima Hamami
21. Jamil Hilal
21. Faiha' Abdel Hadi
22. Hasan Khadher