Israel Matzav

Most Muslims reject terrorism?

Many people believe that most Muslims reject terrorism. I suppose that if "most" means one more than 50% that might be the case. But as Jihad Watch's Robert Spencer points out, the minority that favors terrorism is far too large to be ignored:

[S]urvey after survey reveals that the attachment of these groups to the global jihad is generally stronger than most analysts assume it to be. In January 2007, columnist Michael Freund summed up some disquieting recent survey results: 25% of Muslims in Britain approved of the July 7, 2005 jihad terror bombings in London; 30% said they would rather live under Sharia than in a Western pluralistic society. 44% of Muslims in Nigeria thought suicide attacks were “often” or “sometimes” justified, with only 28% rejecting them in all cases. Roughly 14% of Muslims in France, Britain and Spain approved of suicide attacks against civilian targets, and only 45% of Muslims in Egypt considered terror never justified.

And in an Al-Jazeera survey on September 11, 2006, 49.9% of the respondents avowed that they did indeed support Osama bin Laden. Freund adds: “And the July 2006 global Pew survey found that among Muslims, a quarter of Jordanians, a third of Indonesians, 38% of Pakistanis and 61% of Nigerians all expressed confidence in the mass murderer who founded al-Qaida.”

Freund also notes that “in Israel, the percentages are even more alarming. After Cpl. Gilad Shalit was abducted by Hamas terrorists last summer, a poll conducted by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center revealed that 77.2% of Palestinians supported the kidnapping, while 66.8% said they would back additional such attacks. More than six out of 10 Palestinians also said they were in favor of firing Kassam rockets at Israeli towns and cities….” And in Lebanon in the summer of 2006, “the Beirut Center for Research and Information found that over 80% of the Lebanese population said they supported Hizbullah.”

My guess is that if you asked Muslims outside of Israel and Lebanon whether they approved of terrorism and suicide bombings in Israel, the percentages would be much higher than the surveys above revealed.

But the left continues to delude itself that if Israel creates a 'Palestinian' state reichlet there will be no more Muslim terror. In fact, most of the center and much of the right share that same delusion.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:45 AM