Into the
fray: It’s Islam, stupid!
Islam
is to terror as rainfall is to flooding.
By Martin Sherman
JPost.com
One out six people all over the world is a Muslim...
trying to say anything in general about this huge
community – 1.5 billion people – will be wrong...
The vast majority of these populations are not
involved with all what’s happening with violence and
terror all over the world.... I don’t think there is
anything essential that connects between this huge
and historically important religion and all the
terrorism that’s going on
– Sami Abu Shehadeh, secretary-general of Balad, Tel
Aviv-Jaffa
With these words, Sami Abu Shehadeh, of the
anti-Zionist Arab party Balad, commenced a debate
with me on “The rise of anti-Muslim sentiment in the
West,” which took place in the i24 News studios last
month.
Clearly, the events in Paris on Wednesday, in which
12 people were brutally gunned down, gave the topic
new and urgent relevance.
Islam is to terror as rainfall is to flooding
Of course, there is much truth in Abu Shehadeh claim
that most Muslims are not actively involved in
terrorism. While this claim is factually correct,
substantively it is meaningless.
For anyone with an iota of intellectual integrity
and reasonably informed of world affairs, the answer
to whether Islam and violence and terrorism are
causally connected should be unequivocally clear. To
ask whether Islam is associated with terrorism is a
little like asking if rainfall is associated with
flooding. Of course it is – as can be irrefutably
deduced from Abu Shehadeh’s attempt to exonerate it.
After all, if one in six people in the world is a
Muslim, it would mean that five out of six are not.
Right? So if there were no inordinate affinity of
Islam for violence/ terrorism, Muslim acts of
terrorism should be one-fifth of those of non-Muslim
terrorism – i.e. if Islam had no greater propensity
for terrorism, one would have to expect non-Muslim
acts of terrorism to be five times (!) those
perpetrated by Muslims.
This is clearly not the case, and terrorist attacks
committed by adherents of Islam far outweigh those
carried out by non-Muslims.
It would therefore seem that – in stark violation of
the protocols of political correctness – there is
little choice but to conclude what many in the West
sense instinctively: There is a disproportionate
causal connection between Islam on the one hand, and
acts of ideo-politically motivated violence against
civilian populations, i.e. terrorism on the other.
Writing on the wall?
Without wishing to appear callous, the carnage in
Paris could hardly be considered unexpected. In many
ways the writing has been on the wall for several
years.
After all, it comes in the wake of a string of
incidents of murderous Islamic-motivated violence
across the country.
In mid-March 2012, several off-duty soldiers were
gunned down in Montauban and Toulouse by a
French-born Muslim of Algerian origin.
A few days later, he slaughtered a rabbi and three
children, aged three to eight, in an attack on a
Jewish day school in Toulouse.
More recently, just before Christmas, France was
racked by a spate of “lone wolf” terrorist attacks,
in Dijon, Nantes and Tours, which prompted the
British Independent to report the incidents under
the ominous headline “France gripped by fear at
Christmas after third street attack in three days.”
(December 23, 2014) In both the Dijon and Tours
incidents, the attacker is reported to have shouted
“Allahu akbar,” dispelling any suspicion that the
assaults were perpetrated by Buddhist extremists.
Muslim violence has been simmering in France for
years, boiling over regularly around Christmas and
New Year, when hundreds of cars are torched in
Muslim-majority neighborhoods to usher in the start
of the Gregorian year.
Typically, reports in the mainstream media
studiously avoid mention of any connection between
this criminal arson on a massive scale and the
culprits’ ethnic origins.
Catalogue of carnage
The slaughter in Paris takes its place in a long
list of acts of butchery, all committed in the name
of Islam.
Consider the following (and decidedly partial)
catalogue of carnage, of the gory events that took
place across the globe over the past two decades and
shocked the world with their brutally.
New York – Cataclysmic destruction of the Twin
Towers Washington – Attempt to demolish the Pentagon
London – Coordinated attack on the public transport
system; the beheading of an off duty soldier in
broad daylight in full public view Madrid – Bombing
of crowded commuter trains at rush hour Nairobi –
Seizure of Westgate shopping mall and murder of
scores of innocents Burgas, Bulgaria – Bombing of a
tourist bus Mumbai – Murderous attack on the Taj
Mahal Hotel, Chabad House and other sites Boston –
Bombing of the city’s annual marathon Bali – Bombing
of crowded tourist locations Buenos Aires – Deadly
attacks on Jewish institutions and the Israeli
Embassy Ottawa – Assault on the Canadian Parliament
Sydney – Recent seizure of a downtown café and
murder of two customers In-Amenas, Algeria – Seizure
of a gas facility and murder of dozens of civilians
Chibock, Nigeria – Abduction of almost 300
schoolgirls, reportedly to serve as sex slaves This
bloodcurdling list is in no way complete, and
numerous other incidents could be added. It
certainly does not include all the attempted attacks
that were foiled by security services in various
countries, preventing the commission of even more
gruesome atrocities by adherents of Islam.
Horrors of intra-Muslim strife
Try as one may, there is no way that, in the modern
world, any other faith/creed can be associated with
such violence/ terror – in scope, size, frequency or
ubiquity of occurrence.
But as appalling as Muslim violence against
non-Muslims might be, it pales into insignificance
when compared to violence between Muslims
themselves.
It would be impossible to give a comprehensive
survey of the intra-Muslim carnage that has raged –
and still rages – across vast swathes of the globe,
from the shores of the Atlantic Ocean to the islands
of Asia-Pacific. A brutally condensed synopsis will
have to suffice.
Even before the unspeakable barbarism of al-Nusra
and Islamic State began to sweep across much of the
Levant, merciless massacres of Muslims at the hands
of Muslims abounded.
For example, in the almost 10-year Algerian civil
war, internecine frictions between rival Islamist
factions resulted in massive fratricide – with a
death toll reaching, by some estimates, 150,000.
Acts of unimaginable brutality were perpetrated with
entire villages wiped out and victims’ bodies
mutilated.
Likewise, regular bombings of markets and mosques
across countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan and
Pakistan have produced massive loss of Muslim life
at the hands of belligerent brethren – yet hardly
generate a footnote in the mainstream media. The
intra-Muslim conflict seems so intense and
complicated that even a reasonably informed layman
would find it almost impossible to figure out who is
killing whom, and why...
As a gauge of the scope of the slaughter, the
Pakistani site Dawn reported in a post titled “Islam
at war – with itself” that al-Qaida affiliates and
other extreme Islamist groups “have perpetrated
indiscriminate violence against
civilians...resulting in over 48,000 deaths...”
The majority of Muslims…
The pervasive violence in the Muslim world
inevitably raises the question of the general
character of Islam and the kind of behavioral
patterns it seems to generate.
It also raises the thorny question of minority
actions vs majority inaction.
Thus, while Abu Shehadeh is probably right when he
claims that only a minority of Muslims are engaged
in abhorrent acts of terrorism, it is highly
unlikely they would be able to sustain this activity
without the support – or at least the tacit approval
– of much larger segments of the population.
Even if the majority does not actively endorse the
conduct of a delinquent minority, there is little
evidence of effective disapproval, let alone active
opposition to it. (In this regard one can only hope
that the extraordinarily courageous speech by
Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, calling for
a “religious revolution,” will prove to be a
harbinger of some radical change in the course Islam
is currently set upon.) So, although, as Abu
Shehadeh contends, it is difficult to formulate
accurate generalizations for 1.6 billion people,
several edifying measures are available that paint a
daunting picture of the views held by much of the
Muslim world.
The reputable Pew Research Center has conducted
numerous in-depth surveys across much of the Muslim
world. Its findings show solid – at times,
overwhelming – majorities in many countries (and
significant minorities in others) in favor of harsh
corporal punishments (whipping/amputation) for
theft/robbery; death by stoning for adultery; and
death for apostasy.
With such a propensity for violence as a widely
accepted cultural norm, it is not implausible to
assume that wide sections of the Muslim population
would not find the use of violence and terrorism
totally incompatible with their core beliefs.
Attempts at apologetics: The ‘colonialism’ canard
Numerous attempts have been made to explain away
much of the prevalence of violence in the Muslim
world and conflict with the West.
Arguably the most prominent among such apologists
was none other than President Barack Obama. In his
2009 “outreach address” in Cairo, he offered the
following explanation for the sad state of affairs
between the West and Islam which, he alleged,
followed “centuries of coexistence and cooperation.”
(Really?) Obama suggested that “more recently,
tension has been fed by colonialism that denied
rights and opportunities to many Muslims.”
This of course holds no water.
For while it is true that much of the Middle East
was under imperial rule for centuries, this was
mostly Muslim imperialism – i.e. the Ottoman Empire.
After all, with perhaps the exception of North
Africa, Western colonialism was imposed for a
relatively short period after World War I, and ended
soon after World War II. This hardly seems
sufficient to engender the obdurate Islamic enmity
we see today.
So if complaints are to be lodged regarding
colonialist deprivation of Muslim rights and
opportunities, shouldn’t they be directed at the
Muslim imperialists? Strangely, the crucibles of
today’s most extreme anti-Western Islam were barely
touched by colonialism – the Arabian Peninsula and
Iran.
Although neither has endured any imperial –
including Western – rule of any consequence, the
former birthed the Sunni-derivative version of
Islamic radicalism and the latter the
Shia-derivative. This fact sits uneasily with the
diagnosis ascribing ongoing tensions between Muslims
and the West to colonialism.
No call to ‘Kill for Krishna’?
Moreover, one might well ask why the iniquities of
colonialism have not afflicted, say, the
Hindu-majority in India, whose people were certainly
“denied rights and opportunities” under the yoke of
British imperialism in the same way as the Muslims
of Pakistan.
Yet, somehow we hear no cries of “Kill for Krishna”
or “Ganesh is Great” from embittered Hindu
terrorists, blowing themselves up in crowded buses,
markets, cafes and mosques, as we do across the
Muslim world – including in neighboring Pakistan.
Nor do we see aggrieved followers of Shiva embarking
on a global holy war to subjugate all to the Hindu
creed.
Why has India been able to put its colonial past
behind it, and become a vibrant economic juggernaut?
Why has it not allowed itself to remain tethered to
the past and mired in homicidal frustration? Since
by far most victims of Muslim violence are other
Muslims, rights and opportunities allegedly denied
by foreign occupiers seven decades ago seem a poor
explanation for current conduct.
Modernity as culprit?
Some have tried to contend that the onset of
modernity and globalization has created a sense of
threat to Islamic values, which has precipitated the
tensions with the West.
Thus, in Cairo, Obama suggested that “the sweeping
change brought by modernity and globalization led
many Muslims to view the West as hostile to Islamic
traditions.”
This too is difficult to accept.
After all, Islam is the youngest of all major
religions, founded centuries – even in some cases,
millennia – after Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism and
Christianity. Why would the newest religion find
that the developments of modernity threaten its
traditions in a manner that, apparently, does not
threaten the traditions of faiths far more ancient?
Why do they not generate the same tensions with the
West that we find in the case of the Muslim faith?
Could it perhaps be that Islam is fundamentally
incompatible not only with modernity but with
anything that is not Islam, and that many cannot –
or worse, refuse to – recognize this?
A clarion call
Europe in general and France in particular are on
the cusp of a grim, probably gruesome, future.
European leaders would do well to heed the clarion
call from someone who has intimate knowledge of
Islam – the Somalian-born former Dutch MP Ayaan
Hirsi Ali, who was forced flee to the US because of
threats from Muslims who objected to her criticism
of Islam. She warned: “Islam is not a religion of
peace. It’s a political theory of conquest that
seeks domination by any means it can. Every
accommodation of Muslim demands leads to a sense of
euphoria and a conviction that Allah is on their
side. They see every act of appeasement as an
invitation to make fresh demands.” (March 21, 2009)
Europe had best heed this dire caveat and tailor its
policies accordingly, for if not, the consequences
will be dire.
Martin Sherman (www.martinsherman.org)
is the founder and executive director of the Israel
Institute for Strategic Studies
www.strategicisrael.org.