Author: Cal Thomas
Publication: The Washington Times
Date: July 13, 2005
URL: http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20050712-091449-9219r.htm
Politicians and much of the media
in Britain are engaged in a familiar Western practice after a terrorist
attack. They think they can explain it using Western standards.
Many Americans blamed U.S. race
riots in the 1960s on racism and unemployment, which contributed to hopelessness
they said only equality and prosperity could solve. That most unemployed
blacks did not riot escaped the mainly white sociologists and commentators
who desired a "nonjudgmental" explanation for lawless behavior. Having
abandoned a sense of personal responsibility for one's actions, the explainers
and excusers of evil and illegal acts in America 40 years ago have been
reincarnated in Britain.
Now unemployment and hopelessness
among Muslims are the root cause of terrorism. Finding jobs for them so
they can drive nice cars, live in upscale flats and attend West End theaters
supposedly will convert them to the British way of life.
Or maybe evil America caused the
terrorist attacks. If only the U.S. had not invaded Iraq and dragged Britain
along, perhaps Britain might have been spared the bus and tube bombings.
Sometimes it takes an outsider to
bring people to their senses. Former Israeli Prime Minister (and current
Cabinet minister) Benjamin Netanyahu told BBC's "Breakfast" program Sunday
that Iraq and other actions by Britain and America are the consequences
of terror attacks, not the cause.
He said to blame Britain and the
United States for causing terrorism is "reverse causality." Mr. Netanyahu
recalled the numerous terror attacks before the Iraq war and prior to the
attacks on America of September 11, 2001, noting there was Islamic terrorism
before 1948 when Israel became a modern state. If recent Israeli, American
and British policies cause terrorism, how does one explain earlier terrorism?
In the United Kingdom, the Sunday
Times carried a Page One story exploding the myth of a causal relationship
between terrorism and poverty among Muslims. The newspaper reported on
leaked Whitehall documents that show "Al Qaeda is secretly recruiting affluent,
middle-class Muslims in British universities and colleges to carry out
terrorist attacks" in Britain. The targets of the "extremist recruiters"
are students with "technical and professional qualifications."
These are not Muslims without a
future. These are bright and educated students who, if they wished, could
be productive and prosperous members of British society. But many embrace
a false theology and a god who requires them to kill "infidels."
No amount of aid from the G-8 industrial
nations to the "Palestinians," nor resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict,
will pacify these current and potential killers. Even if Israel was obliterated
(the goal of much of the Muslim world), the terror would continue until
the entire non-Islamic world is under their control.
This is not the belief of an "Islamophobic"
bigot. This is what they say in their sermons and media, teach in their
schools, and believe in their hearts. It matters little that "the overwhelming
majority of Muslims are not terrorists," to quote a familiar Western mantra.
It matters a great deal that most terrorists are Muslims. The sooner Western
leaders and Western media begin stating what is obvious to most people,
the quicker the real root cause can be dealt with.
The excuses given by Westerners
and many Muslim clerics for terrorism are just that: excuses.
If Britain and the West are guilty
of failing to adequately address the "oppression" of Muslims in Kashmir
and Chechnya, do they earn points for intervening in Bosnia to protect
Muslims and sending billions to the Palestinian Authority, money that went
down a rat hole of corruption?
Do America and Britain win friends
among Muslims for allowing them to practice their faith openly (no Muslim
country offers the religious tolerance Muslims enjoy in the U.S. and Britain)?
Why must America and Britain be held accountable for every perceived and
actual slight against Muslims, but beheadings of Westerners receive little
more than pro forma condemnation and are soon forgotten?
More than 25 years ago, then-British
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher famously noted we in the West are mistaken
when we transpose our morality on those who don't share it. Terrorists
do not share and cannot be made to share our morality.
There will be no detente, entente
or peace treaty between the forces of darkness and those of light. As much
as Western politicians may wish to avoid the true root cause of this war,
they do so at their citizens' peril. This is a religious war. The terrorists
understand it as such. Too many in the secular and wimpishly religious
West do not.
Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated
columnist.
