Israel Matzav: Moderate Muslim found?

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Moderate Muslim found?

What's astounding about this article is not so much that it was written by a Saudi reporter living in Britain, but that it was published in the English-language version of the Saudi-owned Asharq Alawsat (which is not the same paper as the Lebanese one I cited in the previous post). He doesn't mention Israel although he does mention Hamas in a condemning tone and he mentions the Holocaust. Could it be? A moderate Muslim? Watch out for the Fatwa coming....

Hat Tip: Middle East Analysis

Since the alleged Muslim plotters; Arabs and Asians, have not yet been tried in a court of law, it would be inappropriate to examine their individual cases in this column; although two of them were caught red-handed driving a blazed jeep (an Iraq-style car bomb) into Glasgow airport. I will, instead, confine my comment to looking into their sick Islamism, or Islamist ideology. We must all call them ‘ Islamists’ – until someone comes up with better terminology to distinguish them from the large body of Muslims who state that they are law abiding citizens who reject terrorism. And since the violent extremists themselves have turned the Muslim faith into a political ideology, I cannot find any other term that would be more appropriate to refer to them. These Islamists only see the world through their ideological glasses and interpret world events through their narrow view, holding any other interpretation in contempt.

I, therefore, call upon all Muslims who believe their faith to be one of peace, to speak out, distancing their religion from the ideology that Islamists use to justify mass murder, kidnapping, and terror by citing Quranic verses that they argue call directly for terminating non-Muslims.

Many Muslims write to me objecting to the use of the term ‘Islamists’ to refer to terrorist-related atrocities such as 7/7. But to illustrate the problem that journalists face in selecting appropriate terminology, one can refer to many other examples of violent political movements, especially as some aspects of their conflict run along the religious divide. The Republican movement in the Irish conflict for example had always been deeply rooted in the Catholic faith and massed support among Catholics. On the contrary, the Unionists would tease the Irish nationalists with their Orange marches, which in turn were deeply rooted in the Protestant orange order of the 17th century. However, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) never called itself a "Catholic" movement, nor did it ever in any of its literature invoke Catholic references (furthermore, the IRA, with a few exceptions mainly related to poor communication, had always given warning to avoid human casualties, while Islamist terrorism is designed to maximise human casualties).

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By the 1970s, other terrorist groups followed the example of the MB [Muslim Brotherhood. CiJ] in selecting labels such as Muslim, or Islamic i.e. Islamic Jihad, al Gamaa al Islamiya (the Islamic Group), Ansar al Islam (Supporters of Islam) or adopting Islamic symbols or concepts in their names for instance, al Takfir wal Hijra (Atonement and Exodus), Mohammed's Army, Al Nagoon min al Nar (Redemption from Hell), Tawhid and Jihad (Monotheism and Jihad), Hisba (the Reckoning).

For example, the Dagmoush clan in Gaza that kidnapped and imprisoned the BBC reporter, Alan Johnston, for 114 days (and initially wanted a ransom to release him) called itself Jaish al Islam (The Army of Islam).

What do those who accuse British journalists of linking Islam with terrorism suggest we do? Since the terror groups themselves use Islamic labels and Islamic slogans, we have little choice but to refer to those groups by the very names that they choose for themselves.

Others, who are uncomfortable with publishing facts about terrorist and violent acts at the hands of Islamists groups like MB or Hamas, also accuse journalists and columnists of being unfair in criticising these groups because they are elected by the people.

This is granted. However, would the MB collecting approximately 20% of the votes in Egypt in the 2005 parliamentary elections rewrite history and change documented historic facts and exonerate the Muslim Brothers from acts of violence including murder especially when they claim with pride that ‘jihad’ is their chosen way of struggle?

Adolf Hitler’s election by the majority of Germans in 1933 will never alter the fact that he was perhaps the biggest war criminal and mass murderer in the history of mankind. If the German people had not redeemed themselves by rejecting the Nazi ideology and making an historic apology, they would have still been held responsible for his crimes.

Almost every revolutionary political group or movement I can think of renounces violence as soon as it achieves its political objectives or joins the negotiation process for a settlement. Only the Islamist Jihadist groups have no declared aims to achieve, which would lead them to desist from terrorism. It seems that Jihadists are on a road-map for continuous terrorism, a process of indefinite permanent Islamic revolution.

It is beyond the human imagination how the failed Glasgow Airport terror attack was carried out by two doctors who had taken their Hippocratic Oath, to protect and save the sacred human life in any form.

Is it some sort of a short-circuit that fused the light in their minds and distorted the equilibrium of their souls to allow them to strike with the aim of killing as many people as possible on the first day of the Scottish school holidays when the airport was packed with families and children? Or is it the same ideology of hatred and dehumanising ‘the other’ that prompted Nazi officers to drive millions to the gas chambers? The difference in Glasgow is that the attackers targeted those who choose to lead a way of life that is not approved by the Islamists.