> Osama bin Laden literally cited the Israeli bombing of Lebanon as his reason for the 9/11 attacks

Bin Laden cited that as one of the reasons, there was a long list[1] that also included Western forces preventing genocide in East Timor (by the way, Christopher Hitchens gave an excoriating answer on this to some supine fool[2]), the partition of India/Pakistan, stoping "hope" in Somalia, the Russian "crusade" in Chechnya, another crusade in Bosnia (there's a lot of crusading going on), things in the Philippines, Sudan and Bangladesh, the UN for lots of things… there wasn't a cat fight in a Muslim's back garden that he couldn't turn into a reason to kill innocent people, but he also didn't hold back on his hatred for Israel and Jews, that is true.

I may have missed something as there are a lot of grievances about "Muslim lands" in his speech but to portray it as being about one attack or one place would be to misrepresent his views.

[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/monitoring/media_reports/16...

[2] https://youtube.com/watch?v=axHR8AOxxkc

The link points to a direct quote from Osama bin Laden. That's not "misrepresenting his views":

"God knows it did not cross our minds to attack the Towers, but after the situation became unbearable—and we witnessed the injustice and tyranny of the American-Israeli alliance against our people in Palestine and Lebanon—I thought about it. And the events that affected me directly were that of 1982 and the events that followed—when America allowed the Israelis to invade Lebanon, helped by the US Sixth Fleet. As I watched the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me punish the unjust the same way: to destroy towers in America so it could taste some of what we are tasting and to stop killing our children and women."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden#September_11_a...

So we have two quotes from the same person. The one I supplied points out that Israel’s behaviour is not the only justification Bin Laden gave, and the one you’ve given does not negate the first quote. Hence, to pretend it’s the only reason is to misrepresent his views. The first time may have been ignorance or a mistake but to continue to argue it after being shown the evidence to the contrary implies intention, or perhaps cognitive dissonance of some sort but it doesn’t correct the record in any way, shape, or form.

He clearly states in both the quote and the BBC article you posted that Israel's actions are motivation. You're arguing semantics when the point is that Israel is a liability to US citizens and nothing you posted contradicts that. The parent that I was responding to said that it's not debatable that Israel is of strategic value to US citizens and both of our posts show that it definitely is debatable.

Yes, the semantics between only and many. Somehow you wish to gloss over any difference and focus on Israel alone.