[Editorial on the September 11 attacks published shortly afterwards] A — Peter Wilby

"When I watched the murderous attacks on New York and Washington, my first reactions were of incredulity horror and sympathy for the victims and their families But when I came to write my weekly editorial for The New Statesman the following day (knowing that most readers would not see it until that Friday), I thought I should raise wider issues. I suggested that billions of poor people throughout the world would support the attacks because they blamed America for their plight and saw no alternative but to strike out in rage."

"They [Jews] no longer routinely suffer gross or violent discrimination; indeed, in the US and Europe at least, Jews today are probably safer than most minorities."

"For our issue dated 14 January, the New Statesman published a cover showing the Star of David standing on a Union Jack, with the words: "A kosher conspiracy?"

"Is Johann Hari, the Independents twentysomething columnist, a twerp? Does he write twaddle? Since I brought Hari into journalism - I gave him his first job, on the NS - I rather hope not."

"My reactions to 9/11 were, from the start, different from everyone elses. As we watched on the office television, somebody said with horror, "I cant believe this is happening in Manhattan!" To which, I thought, why not? Many countries had, at some point in the previous 90 years, experienced the effects of aerial bombardment, sometimes from American forces. Why should we regard Americans as uniquely immune from such barbarity? The US, after all, had become the worlds sole great power and it revelled in this status."

"The death of the Soviet Union also deprived the global poor of something more intangible: not exactly hope, perhaps, but the sense of an alternative, of possibility."