Author: Joel Mowbray
Publication: townhall.com
Date: July 25, 2005
URL: http://www.townhall.com/columnists/joelmowbray/printjm20050725.shtml#
After the terrorist attacks in London,
the Sun Online in the UK published a special feature of Islamic terrorist
attacks that have occurred around the world since 1993.
The newspaper listed the 1993 World
Trade Center bombings, the explosion on a Philippines Air jet in 1994 that
killed one and injured 10, the Khobar Towers bombing that killed 26 U.S.
servicemen in 1996, the East Africa Embassy bombings in 1998, the USS Cole
in 2000, September 11, bombings in Bali and Jakarta, recent attacks in
Saudi Arabia, the 3/11 Madrid bombings, and several others.
The world map posted by the Sun
for this feature showed dots all over the atlas-except one area that is
notably dot-free.
If this feature is to be believed,
then practically the only place in the world to have been untouched by
Islamic terrorism in the past decade is Israel.
Obviously, this was no accidental
omission. Europeans, like much of the world, have long believed that
the terror faced by the Jewish state is a particularized domestic dispute,
or more specifically, a "resistance" to "occupation." Few have linked
Palestinian terrorism to the larger, global movement of Islamic terrorism
depicted in great detail by the Sun Online.
While the old PLO, led by secular
Communists under the banner of Arab nationalism, had no connection to the
older European terrorist groups like the Irish Republican Army or the Basque
separatists in Spain, brainwashed Palestinian youths blowing themselves
up are motivated by the same ideology shared by Islamic terrorists from
Indonesia to London.
With Wednesday's announcement by
British authorities that the terrorists behind the attacks were suicide
bombers, it is becoming increasingly difficult to argue that Israel faces
a different enemy than the rest of the West.
As even Tony Blair himself noted,
the perpetrators killed in the name of Islam-just as young Palestinian
suicide bombers do. It was only after Arafat turned to Islam as his
rallying cry that he was able to get young children to strap bombs onto
their chest.
Palestinian children are indoctrinated
to believe that violence is inherent in Islam, and those die in the course
of murdering Jews will be rewarded with eternal paradise. "Martyrdom"
is so glorified in Palestinian schools and society at large, in fact, that
kids barely into puberty clamor for the "privilege" and "honor" of becoming
a "shahid."
The exaltation of terrorism under
the guise of Islam helps explain why most of the suicide bombers come from
middle- and upper-middle-class families. Early reports indicate that
the four suicide bombers in the London attacks also were not from impoverished
backgrounds-and all were born and raised in Britain.
But even before the London attacks,
abundant evidence demonstrated that the Palestinian terrorist organizations
were fellow travelers with the likes of al Qaeda. The views and goals
of Hamas and Hezbollah, among other terrorist groups, are, if anything,
in sync with those of al Qaeda.
Hamas founder and former "spiritual"
leader Sheikh Yassin said repeatedly during his life that the entire world
should become Islamic, that there was no legitimate government without
Shari'a law-a position indistinguishable from that of Osama bin Laden.
Hezbollah's founding charter calls
for the destruction of the United States for its role in preventing the
spread of Islam. And long before the start of the current intifada,
Hezbollah had killed more Americans before 9/11 than any other terrorist
entity on earth.
It's not just the leadership of
Palestinian terrorist organizations, however, that are of like mind with
Osama bin Laden. Lest we forget the images of thousands of Palestinians
cheering and gleefully burning American flags on September 11.
Already, many have attempted to
claim that the "reason" for the London attacks was Britain's involvement
in the war in Iraq. What this ignores, however, is that adherents
of al Qaeda don't need a reason to attack other than the existence of freedom-a
concept that goes against the core belief in Shari'a law and the necessity
of Islamic states.
In the decade before 9/11, many
U.S. targets were hit: the World Trade Center in 1993, Khobar Towers in
1996, the East Africa embassies in 1998, and the U.S.S. Cole in 2000.
Each time, we did nothing. Yet al Qaeda struck anyway on September
11.
There is a "reason" why four young
British men took their own lives in order to murder more than 50.
But it's not Iraq. It's not Afghanistan. It's not Israel.
It's radical Islam.
