http://www.bicom.org.uk/Islamic_Terrorism.html
Islamic terrorism
Brief arguments and rebuttal points
Since September 11, much UK media coverage has concentrated on linking the
terror attacks with US support for Israel. The implication has been that
without such strong American ties to Israel there would not be anti-US
sentiments in the Arab and Muslim world, that Islamists / Islamic
Fundamentalists would not have a problem with the US, and thus that the
attacks would not have occurred.
This is a total fallacy - Islamist / Islamic Fundamentalist theology and
ideology is the real context in which to view the attacks. Not only does
Israel hold a peripheral place in the reasoning behind such attacks and the
beliefs that spurned them, but Islamist terrorism is a global phenomenon
that most instances has nothing to do with Israel whatsoever. Indeed
fundamentalism poses an even greater threat to the pro-Western Arab regimes
in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan than it does to Israel or the United
States.
Facts - Examples of current Islamist terrorism with no connection whatsoever
to Israel.
KASHMIR (INDIA/PAKISTAN) - Numerous Islamic groups, operating out of
Pakistan, use terrorism and kidnapping to further the Islamic cause and
force India out of Kashmir. Part of a deeply anti-Hindu cause that dominates
much of the regional Islamism. Harakat ul-Ansar , with several thousand
armed supporters, has carried out numerous attacks against Indian troops and
civilian targets, and kidnapped six tourists in 1995 who were later executed
when India did not meet the group's demands.
AFGHANISTAN - bin Laden's Al Qa'eda network has now achieved global
prominence. Responsible for September 11 attacks as well as - first World
Trade Centre bombing ('93), assassination attempt on Egyptian president
Mubarak in Ethiopia ('95), Riyadh and Dhahran attacks ('95 and '96), Dar es
Sala'am and Nairobi embassy bombings ('98), USS Cole bombing in Aden Harbour
('00), and numerous others. Taleban regime have also orchestrated regional
terror and assassination attempts, most notable the attempt to assassinate
Uzbekistan leader Islam Karimov in February '99.
ALGERIA - Continued violence and mass killings by Islamic militants seeking
control of country. Death toll estimated to be over 100,000. Main terror
groups, Armed Islamic Group (GIA) , carries out civilian massacres,
sometimes wiping out entire villages, and has targeted foreign nationals and
journalists, killing over 100 expatriates and 80 journalists.
MALAYSIA / PHILIPPINES - A number of Islamic terror groups continue to fight
in Malaysia and the Philippines, intent on overthrowing the current regimes
and bringing about Islamic law in parts of the islands. The most prominent,
Abu Sayyaf , have concentrated on killing political and military targets,
and kidnappings, holding numerous foreign tourists and locals.
EGYPT - Home of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist umbrella organisation
that is the origin of most Islamic terror groups. Main group, Al-Gama'a
al-Islamiyya (IG), is dedicated to Israel's destruction, but is also
dedicated to the overthrow of all Arab and Muslim regimes not run under
Shari'a (traditional Islamic law). IG was responsible for the murder of 58
tourists at Luxor in November 1997, numerous killings of Coptic Christians,
and assassination attempts on Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak.
Islamist ideology and theology
The US is the target because it is seen as personifying everything that is
wrong with the modern world, and the Western secular domination of it that
America has such an influence in moulding.
The West is seen as inherently un-Islamic, immoral, secular, and worshipping
of money and limitless freedom instead of G-d. The US, through Hollywood,
TV, and junk food, and its perceived dominance of the UN, NATO etc, is
viewed as being the greatest of the world's moral and cultural pollutants -
the " great satan".
Democracy/freedoms outside Islamic boundaries is seen as a direct threat to
'true Islam', with pornography, promiscuity, money-worship, and the
acceptance of 'heretics and the immoral' (homosexuals, non-believers, etc)
seen as inevitable consequences.
The Crusades still loom large in the mind of the Islamist. They see conflict
with Christianity, today personified by the US-dominated West, as
inevitable, and the latest chapter in a historic struggle between the two
faiths. More recently the Ottoman defeat by 'Christian European armies' in
WW1, and subsequent abolition in 1924 of the Khalifa (the Islamic ruling
system established since 632) are viewed as a temporary setback for Islam
that has to be rectified as priority.
The Israel issue is actually part of the broader context related to the
Islamist view of Jews, based on the conviction that there is historic
conflict between Judaism and Islam similar to the one with Christianity. Bin
Laden' s umbrella network is more correctly called the 'International
Islamic Front for Jihad Against the Jews and Crusaders'. As Binyamin
Netanyahu pointed out in a speech to Congress on 20th September "The
soldiers of militant Islam do not hate the West because of Israel, they hate
Israel because of the West - because they see it is an island of Western
democratic values in a Muslim-Arab sea of despotism. That is why they call
Israel the Little Satan, to distinguish it clearly from the country that has
always been and will always be the Great Satan - the United States".
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