TEN Valuable Advices To Defeat Terror
14 December 2015By Khalid Amayreh
The West is engaging in a futile war of attrition against
radical Islamists who occasionally perpetrate manifestly criminal acts
contradicting the basic principles of Islam.
Some of these groups cite legitimate grievances that make honest observers
wonder if the West, including France, really occupies the moral high-ground.
However, without delving deep into the subject, I would like to make a few
suggestions which I hope will contribute to defeating and hopefully
eradicating terror from the face of earth:
1- The existence of Israel is the mother of all crimes against humanity. It
is the scandal of all scandals. The West is first and foremost responsible
for the creation and persistence of this huge crime. France, the purported
land of liberty, gave Israel a nuclear reactor in the mid-1950s, enabling the
criminal state to impose its hegemony over the entire region. Needless to
say, the adage "let bygones be bygones" doesn't apply to the Palestinian
problem because the crime is as relevant today as it was when Israel was
misbegotten by the West 67 years ago. Hence, if the West is truly serious
about eradicating terror, it will have to undo that colossal crime.
2- In the last century alone, the West murdered more than 100,000,000 people,
many of them Muslims. The West, therefore, must come to terms with its crimes
and sins. Claiming innocence, let alone civility, is therefore a prima fascia
mendacity that honest people won't digest. So, the West is in no position to
lecture the rest of the world on terror.
3- The West must stop embracing, backing and propping up manifestly criminal
and terrorist regimes in the Middle East such as those of Bashar el-Assad and
Abdul Fattah al-Sissi. The West itself keeps repeating rather ad nauseam that
it stands for human rights and civil liberties as well as democracy, whereas
we all know that embracing tyrants and mass murderers contradict all
pretensions about democracy and human rights. So if you are serious about
defeating terror, try first to defeat your own morbid propensity to side with
evil leaders and evil regimes that murder and torment their people.
4- You have to disavow your ignominious record toward Islam and Muslims,
which is based on ignorance, fear, hatred and fanaticism. Muslims are not
your enemies. Their quest for freedom, dignity, independence and prosperity
doesn't make them your enemy. Muslims are very much like you. Their concerns
and preoccupations are very much like yours. Yes, there are tiny groups that
behave in a sinister manner, but the vast majority of Muslims are normal
people. So if you are serious about defeating terror, don't alienate the vast
majority of Muslims who are moderate.
5- Don't blame Islam for the excesses of terrorists who have a Muslim
background. You have to learn to distinguish between what Islam says and what
some of its followers do. You see, we Muslims don't blame or incriminate
Christianity for the wars of aggression carried out by western nations
against Muslims. Nor do we ridicule or insult Jesus for the crimes of western
nations against Muslims. So why do you blame Islam for the actions of ISIS
and ridicule and insult our Prophet? Indeed, if you are serious about
defeating terror, don't ridicule or insult our religious symbols.
6- Don't murder the innocent under the pretext of fighting terror. We have
seen thousands; even hundreds of thousands of Muslims perish as a result of
your criminal wars and sanctions against Muslim countries. In the 1990s, the
American-led sanctions against Iraq killed as many as half a million Iraqi
children, that is more children than those who were killed in Hiroshima and
Nagasaki combined during WWII. And when Madeline Albright was asked to
comment on the genocide, she said rather tersely, it is worth it. So, if you
are serious about fighting terror, please don't kill our children. When you
murder our children even as revenge for the loss of yours, you stand on an
equal footing with Da'esh, pure and simple.
7- Don't protect corrupt criminals who steal and smuggle their people's
wealth. That helps impoverish the people and leads to a lot of indignation
against you.
8- Finally, terror is almost always the effect of a greater terror,
regardless of the appellation. So if you are serious about fighting terror,
search for the root cause.
9- There is no such a thing as "Children of a lesser God." So remember always
that, others, including Muslims, are entitled to the same rights and
liberties which you take for granted.
10- I know the victims of recent Paris bombings were innocent. I pray for the
speedy recovery of the injured. However, you are not more innocent than the
Muslim civilians, who are in the hundreds of thousands, who have been
murdered and maimed by regimes supported or tolerated by your countries. At
the very least, they didn't choose their regimes, but you did choose yours.
Khalid Amayreh is a veteran Palestinian journalist and political
commentator living in the West Bank.
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EsinIslam.Com
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