'Free world must realize that Hamas and Qaradawi are part of problem rather than part of solution'
Photo: AP
Free world caught in misconceptions about Muslim world
Op-ed: In past few decades, West has been trying to appease Muslim Brotherhood, hoping it would develop a moderate Islam. The result is thousands of European and American recruits joining jihad.
The pullout of forces from both Iraq and Afghanistan was meant to disconnect the United States, as part of the free world, from the Muslim world. No more occupation, no more American and other military casualties, no more justifications for terror. This was a short-term illusion.
The jihad is not the paramount expression of the Muslim world, but it has become the greatest threat. The Islamic State
is only one characteristic.
The Muslim world has a presence in the free world. It challenges the most basic values the free world is built on. It threatens. It pays. It disrupts free thought. It defies. No escape will help: It's a bit difficult escaping something that is within you.
World of Terror
Yoram Schweitzer, Shani Avita
Analysis: As the Islamic State gains prominence through its achievements, international terror groups reconsider their allegiance to al-Qaeda.
An "Islamic state" has been established in Nigeria in recent weeks and is slaughtering hundreds of thousands of people. As we speak, there are reports that Maiduguri, the capital and the largest city of Borno State in northeastern Nigeria, is being encircled by Boko Haram members. We are talking about a city with more than one million residents, mostly Muslims.
That won't help them. The jihadists, and not only in Nigeria, kill mostly Muslims. The residents are scared to death. Why is the world protesting for the Yazidis but ignoring the Nigerians? Is there no need to save them too? Why they are the victims of the same jihad.
Well, in the Maiduguri area there is not a single foreign reporter. The foreign reporters are busy elsewhere. In Libya, the Islamic militias are taking over more and more chunks of the crumbling state. Similar processes are taking place in Afghanistan, the Pakistan, in Somalia and in Yemen, on one level or another.
John Kerry, the most prominent representative of the awakening West, clarified several days ago in the city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia that he sees the Arab media networks, Al-Arabiya and Al-Jazeera, as important partners in the battle against Islamic extremism. Is he serious?
Al-Jazeera is the main form of expression for spreading Islamic extremism. Why Yusuf Qaradawi, Sunni Islam's leading scholar in the current era, has a weekly one-hour program on the station. That same Qaradawi, who is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood movement, Hamas' clear supporter, clarified in the past that the Muslims should complete Hitler's job.
Qaradawi isn't settling for Jews. In the past, he permitted the killing of Americans in Iraq. The killers were the same jihad members who founded ISIS. So is Qaradawi part of the coalition? Has the American administration completely lost its wisdom?
One could claim of course that this is a difficult time for the free world, and that at such a time partners should not be scrutinized. This claim suffers from the exact same blindness which has been leading the West in the past few decades, and the results are known in advance.
In the past few decades, the West has been trying to appease the Muslim Brotherhood with the hopes that it would develop a moderate Islam. The result is thousands of recruits from Europe and the US joining the ranks of jihad.
In order to fight global jihad, the free world must free itself from the false consciousness. This is the same consciousness led by Obama when he ordered the removal of the phrase "Muslim terror" from the discourse. And he goes on.
Obama clarified recently that the Islamic State organization is not Muslim. Instead of waking up the hundreds of millions of Muslims, who are jihad's main victims, Obama continues telling them that there is no problem. It's not Islam at all. The Taliban is actually Buddhist, and Boko Haram is evangelical.
There is only one place where an attempt is being made, not always successfully, to combat that same radical Islam. But the free world is taking to the streets to turn Hamas into a liberation movement and Israel into an oppressing force.
As long as the free world refuses to understand that Hamas and Qaradawi are part of the problem rather than part of the solution, radical jihad will continue its victory campaign. We must pray that Obama and Kerry's coalition succeeds in doing something. The chances, we must admit, are very slim.
