Because not all Palestinians and not all Muslims were responsible for the attack. And that doesn't even get into the question of whether the attack itself was legitimate or not. The Geneva convention states that armed resistance is justified in an occupied territory. Furthermore, don't forget that Bin Laden himself advocated the idea that a civilian population that elects an criminal government are themselves justified targets, which is the same thing I've heard you promote.
That is exactly what Orwell's essay describes.
By ‘nationalism’ I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled ‘good’ or ‘bad’.[1] But secondly – and this is much more important – I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than that of advancing its interests.
Indifference to Reality. All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage – torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians – which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side.
