CAIRO, April 23, 2006 (IslamOnline.net) – Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden charged on Sunday, April 23, that attempts to isolate the Hamas-led Palestinian government was proof of a crusade war against Islam.

"Their (the West's) rejection of Hamas after it had won the election ...confirms that there is a crusader-Zionist war against Muslims," he said in an audiotape aired by the Doha-based Al-Jazeera news channel.

The tape, whose authenticity was set to be confirmed, is the first by bin Laden in three months.

The US and the EU have cut off funding to the new cash-strapped Palestinian government.

Hamas formed the new cabinet after sweeping the January legislative elections and securing the parliamentary majority.

Alain Gresh, the editor-in-chief of France’s Le Monde Diplomatique magazine, has said that the West's rejection of Hamas after its democratic landslide election victory makes its democracy and political reform calls in the region rather insignificant and useless.

"This stance gives an excuse for Arab regimes to drag their feet on the much-hoped reforms since the West does not respect the results of the democratic process in the Palestinian territories," he said in a recent interview with IslamOnline.net.

In the brief excerpts of the tape that Al Jazeera broadcast, bin Laden charged that people in the West share responsibility for their countries' war against Islam.

"The war is a responsibility shared between the people and the governments. The war goes on and the people are renewing their allegiance to rulers and masters," he said.

"They send their sons to armies to fight us and they continue their financial and moral support while our countries are burned and our houses are bombed and our people are killed."

On the third anniversary of the US-led invasion-turned-occupation of Iraq, millions of people took to the streets across Europe and the US demanding the withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq.

The scale and frequency of anti-war campaigns and rallies in the West by far outweigh in similar efforts in Arab or Muslim countries.

US President George Bush and war ally British Prime Minister have seen their public ratings plummet over their Iraq invasion.

Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq and has become an anti-war icon, unveiled in November an anti-war monument in Bush's Texas hometown.

Grieving families of British soldiers killed in Iraq are also championing a campaign against Blair to step down.

Bin Laden also charged that the Darfur crisis in western Sudan was part of the crusade campaign against Islam.

"I call on mujahideen and their supporters, especially in Sudan and the Arab peninsula, to prepare for long war again the crusader plunderers in Western Sudan," he said, accusing the West of seeking to divide Sudan.

"Our goal is not defending the Khartoum government but to defend Islam, its land and its people."

The United States is pressing for UN sanctions against the Sudanese government for its part in the conflict which erupted in 2003.

The fighting began when rebels from black African tribes took up arms, complaining of discrimination and oppression by the government.

The government is accused of unleashing Arab tribal militia known as the Janjaweed against civilians in a campaign of murder, rape and arson.

Bin Laden was based in Sudan during the 1990s before it expelled him under threats from the United States.

He then moved to Afghanistan and is believed hiding out in the rugged mountains on the Pakistani side of their common border.

The Qaeda leader, on the run since the US war to oust Afghanistan's Taliban government in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks, was last heard of in January.

He had offered the American people a truce in swap for withdrawing troops from Arab and Muslim countries.

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