By David French
Monday, December 07, 2015
It is simply false to declare that jihadists represent
the “tiny few extremists” who sully the reputation of an otherwise peace-loving
and tolerant Muslim faith. In reality, the truth is far more troubling — that
jihadists represent the natural and inevitable outgrowth of a faith that is
given over to hate on a massive scale, with hundreds of millions of believers
holding views that Americans would rightly find revolting. Not all Muslims are
hateful, of course, but so many are that it’s not remotely surprising that the
world is wracked by wave after wave of jihadist violence.
To understand the Muslim edifice of hate, imagine it as a
pyramid — with broadly-shared bigotry at the bottom, followed by stair steps of
escalating radicalism — culminating in jihadist armies that in some instances
represent a greater share of their respective populations than does the
active-duty military in the United States.
The base of the pyramid, the most broadly held hatred in
the Islamic world, is anti-Semitism, with staggering numbers of Muslims
expressing anti-Jewish views. In 2014, the Anti-Defamation League released the
results of polling 53,100 people in 102 countries for evidence of anti-Semitic
attitudes and beliefs. The numbers from the majority-Muslim world are difficult
to believe for those steeped in politically correct rhetoric about Islam. A
full 74 percent of North African and Middle
Eastern residents registered anti-Semitic beliefs, including 92 percent of
Iraqis, a whopping 69 percent of relatively secular Turks, and 74 percent of
Saudis.
The trend toward Muslim anti-Semitism continues even when
Muslim nations are far removed from the Arab–Israeli conflict. A solid majority
— 61 percent — of majority-Muslim Malays harbor anti-Semitic attitudes, while
only 13 percent of neighboring majority-Buddhist Thais are anti-Jewish.
The next level of the pyramid is Muslim commitment to
deadly Islamic supremacy. In multiple Muslim nations, overwhelming
majorities of Muslims support the death penalty for apostasy or blasphemy.
Collectively, this means that hundreds of millions of men and women support
capital punishment for the exercise of the basic human rights of freedom of
expression and free exercise of religion:
Moving beyond Islamic supremacy to the next step of the
pyramid, enormous numbers of Muslims are terrorist sympathizers. It is still
stunning to see how popular Osama bin Laden was early last decade, and even as
his popularity plunged (as he grew weaker and more isolated), his public
approval remained disturbingly high:
But what about ISIS — the world’s most savage and deadly
terror organization? The latest polling data show that while a majority of
Muslims reject ISIS, extrapolating from the populations of polled countries
alone shows that roughly 50 million people express sympathy for a terrorist
army that burns prisoners alive, throws gay men from buildings, and beheads
political opponents. In Pakistan a horrifying 72 percent couldn’t bring
themselves to express an unfavorable view of ISIS:
But sympathy for terror is different from active support,
and here’s where the numbers are difficult to pin down. I know of no reliable
database that shows how many Muslims give to jihadist charities, spread
jihadist propaganda on social media, support radical preachers, or otherwise
take concrete actions to advance the terrorists’ cause. We do know, for
example, that anti-Israel terrorism is so popular in Saudi Arabia that a
telethon once raised $100 million to support the 2002 intifada. Shows of
support included this charming scene:
A 6-year-old boy, with a plastic gun slung over his shoulder and fake
explosives strapped around his waist, walked into a donation center and made a
symbolic donation of plastic explosives, according to Al Watan daily.
It is from this fertile soil that jihadists grow. And
here the numbers decisively belie the “few extremists” rhetoric. In Iran alone,
the Revolutionary Guard represents a proportionate share of the population
similar to the combined strength of the active-duty Army and Marines here in
the United States. Between Boko Haram, the Al-Nusra front, ISIS, Hezbollah,
Hamas, al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Yemeni militias, Libyan militias, and many
others, the number of active jihadists numbers in the hundreds of thousands;
some estimates indicate that 100,000 are fighting in Syria alone.
To give a sense of proportion, the United States is a
nation that honors military service, respects its veterans, and engages in a
massive military recruiting effort that includes offering soldiers generous
salaries, pensions, benefits, and the best military equipment in the world.
Even then, only about 0.4 percent of the American population engages in
active-duty military service at any given time.
Jihadists, by contrast, have low life expectancies,
second-rate gear, low salaries, and often have to break domestic laws and
journey across battlefields to join terrorist insurgencies, but still they
join. In Britain, for example, more Muslims join ISIS than join the British
army.
Simply put, America’s leaders actively deceive the
American people about the sheer scale of Muslim hatred and commitment to jihad.
Rather than tell us the truth, the Obama administration and the media
aristocracy constantly lecture Americans about discrimination, apparently
believing that only their scolding keeps the great redneck masses at bay.
Telling us the truth won’t send Americans on an
anti-Muslim killing spree. Instead, it will make us no more radical than
Egypt’s president, who briefly made headlines earlier this year after calling
for a “revolution” in Islam and decrying faith traditions that he admitted had
been “sacralized over the centuries.” Telling the truth can demonstrate the
scale of the problem and at least begin the process of convincing the American
people that there is no quick fix, that the defense of the nation will require
courage and resolve over the long term.
Islam has a problem. It is Muslims’ responsibility to
reform their own faith. It is America’s responsibility to defend itself and its
citizens. Neither goal is advanced by telling convenient, politically correct
lies. After 14 years of war, can we finally tell the truth?
No comments:
Post a Comment