...And the sun rises in the east once more

Osama bin Laden has a new message out today, but it’s no different than most of his other messages.   The original Islamist One-Note Osama urges jihad against Israel for the 437th time, and condemned Arab governments who recognize Israel for the 436th time:

Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden urged Muslims to launch a jihad against Israel and condemned Arab governments as allies of the Jewish state in a new message aimed at harnessing anger in the Mideast over the Gaza offensive.

Bin Laden spoke in an audiotape posted Wednesday on Islamic militant Web sites where al-Qaida usually issues its messages. It was his first tape since May and came nearly three weeks after Israel started its campaign against Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers.

“There is only one strong way to bring the return of Al-Aqsa and Palestine, and that is jihad in the path of God,” bin Laden said in the 22-minute audiotape, referring to the revered Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. “The duty is to urge people to jihad and to enlist the youth into jihad brigades.” …

The tape, entitled “Call for jihad to stop the aggression on Gaza,” was played over a still picture of bin Laden and the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City, one of Islam’s holiest sites. But there were no English subtitles and flashy production effects that usually accompany such messages.

The lack of English subtitles again calls into question the status of Adam Gadahn, also known as Azzam al-Amriki, or as we like to call him, Fat Bastard.  Gadahn used to supply the English subtitles on tapes from Osama and Ayman al-Zawahiri, but mysteriously stopped doing so a year ago.  Rumors swirled that Gadahn had been killed in an airstrike, and the same rumors began to arise in September when Gadahn missed his chance to gloat over the anniversary of 9/11.  However, he did turn up in October to gloat over the economic crisis in the West, and nothing much has been heard since then.  Maybe even AQ got fed up with its resident geek and put him to work doing something else, although Gadahn hasn’t ever had the guts to actually participate in an attack.

Otherwise, this is nothing more than a rerun, with its only significance being the confirmation of bin Laden’s existence.  We haven’t gotten him yet, but on the other hand, he hasn’t been an issue, either.