A spike has recently occurred in Muslim-American terrorism in the
USA. For example, on January 9, 2012, a US-naturalized Kosovar Muslim
terrorist was arrested in Florida, while plotting to bomb night clubs in
Tampa - a hotbed of Muslim Brotherhood activities and organizations. In
December, 2011, the DEA arrested 30 Tampa used-car dealers involved in a
Hezbollah drug money laundering. Tampa is the home base of the US
Central Command, located at nearby MacDill Air Force Base. In November,
2011, an Al-Qaeda American sympathizer was arrested, in New York, for
conspiring to bomb police stations and post offices. This wave of
terrorism follows the June, 2010 arrest of eight Muslim terrorists in
North Carolina, the May, 2010 foiled Times Square car bombing, the
November, 2009 massacre of thirteen soldiers at Ft. Hood, etc.
It has been suggested that Islamic rage and terrorism is triggered by
US policies toward Muslim nations. However, The surge in anti-US
Islamic terrorism, and the proliferation of Islamic terrorist sleeper
cells and training camps in the US and Canada, occur in spite of the
US-led bombing of Serbia, which yielded independence to the
Muslim-dominated Bosnia and Kosovo, and despite the mega-billion dollar
US assistance to the Mujahideen, which ended Soviet occupation of
Afghanistan. Moreover, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who opposed
the war in Iraq and supported Palestinian demands, was inaugurated in
June 2007, and was greeted by three Muslim terrorists-engineered car
bombs in London and Glasgow. Notwithstanding the generous US foreign aid
to Arab countries and to the Palestinian Authority, and irrespective of
President Carter's betrayal of the Shah of Iran which facilitated the
rise to power of Khomeini, the US is increasingly referred to as "the
enemy of Allah" and "a modern day Crusader." According to the leading
historian of Islam, Prof. Bernard Lewis,
Islam stipulates that "the duty of God's soldiers is to dispatch God's
enemies as quickly as possible to the place where God will chastise
them--that is to say, the afterlife."
The most-frequently mentioned (supposed) cause of anti-US Islamic
terrorism is the US support of Israel and the US policy towards the
Palestinians. Nevertheless, 9/11 was planned while President Clinton and
Prime Minister Barak offered the Palestinians the entire store; the
October 12, 2000 murder of seventeen sailors on the USS Cole happened
when Israel and the US offered unprecedented concessions to the
Palestinians at Camp David; the August 27, 1998 blowing up of the US
embassies in Kenya and Tanzania took place (257 murdered and over 4,000
injured) while President Clinton was brutally pressuring Prime Minister
Netanyahu; the 1995/6 murder of 19 US soldiers in Riyadh and Khobar
Towers, were carried out while Prime Minister Peres implemented
unprecedented concessions; the February 1993 Twin Towers bombing (6
murdered and over 1,000 injured) transpired while Israel conducted the
pre-Oslo talks with the PLO; the December 21, 1988 PanAm-103 (270
murdered) terrorism took place a few months following the groundbreaking
recognition of the PLO by the US; the April/October 1983 murder of 300
Marines and 58 French soldiers, in the car-bombings of the US Embassy
and Marines and French military headquarters in Beirut, occurred while
the US military confronted Israeli tanks in Lebanon and the US
Administration blasted Israel for its war against the PLO.
Terrorists bite the hand that feeds them.
Irrespective of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Palestinian issue, the
US-Israel friendship, Israel's policies or existence, Islamic terrorism
has afflicted the Middle East and the entire globe - including North,
Central and South America - for fourteen centuries, long before the
eruption of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Islamic rogue regimes view the US as their key moral and strategic
adversary. US-style freedom of religion, expression, markets and
association constitutes a lethal threat to all Islamic regimes. Their
territorial imperialism has suffered a severe setback by the US
military, economic and diplomatic dominance. They abhor the dominance of
"the infidel" over the "true believer," which they consider morally
blasphemous and strategically wrong. They are determined to push the US
out of the Persian Gulf, the Mideast, the Indian Ocean and Africa, in
order to advance their megalomaniac aspirations. Humiliating a Super
Power - preferably on its own soil - would be critical to the
resurrection of Islamic grandeur. Therefore, no US pressure on Israel
would spare Washington the wrath of rogue Islamic regimes; it could,
however, transform Israel from a strategic asset to a strategic
liability.
While most Moslems are not terrorists, most terrorists are Muslims,
supported by Muslim states. Other than Turkey, all Islamic regimes
ascended to - and maintained - power through violence. They believe in
total submission to God and to them who rule, supposedly, by divine
prescription. They terrorize those whom they cannot integrate
domestically and externally.
The insistence on engaging - and not on confronting - rogue regimes;
denying the existence of global Islamic terrorism; contending that Jihad
is a process which purifies the soul; assuming that Islamic terrorists
represent a Muslim minority; and deluding oneself that the Palestinian
issue is a root cause of anti-US Islamic terrorism, undermines moral
clarity, and therefore impairs operational clarity. It yields headwind
to Western democracies and tailwind to terrorists.
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger
The Ettinger Report
"Second Thought: A US-Israel Initiative"
First published in "Israel Hayom" newsletter, January 11, 2012
