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Информация о материале
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Автор: Caroline Glick
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Категория: english
Because of the defiant, irrational and immoral refusal of Western political,
cultural and media elites to acknowledge the threat that internal and external
jihadist forces manifest to the very notion of human freedom, they make
it impossible for their societies to take measures to protect themselves
Jewish World Review June
6, 2006 / 10 Sivan, 5766
Allegedly spurred on by images of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan,
and angered by what they saw as the mistreatment of Muslims at home, they
became increasingly aggressive in their beliefs, according to media reports.
This is how London's Sunday Telegraph explained the decision of 17
Canadian Muslims to stockpile three tons of ammonium nitrate and plot acts
of war against their country.
These men — all Muslims — who reportedly planned to blow up the headquarters
of Canada's Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) in Toronto, are what Canadian
officials refer to as "home-grown terrorists," and products of the "jihad
generation." Before their arrests on Friday, they had never visited Afghanistan,
Pakistan, Iraq or the Palestinian Authority. They chose the path of jihad
in the streets and mosques of Toronto. They learned how to build bombs
from the Internet. They trained for their mission in a training camp in
Ontario.
Like the Telegraph, most media reports claim that these men were prompted
to wage a war against their country because they believe that their fellow
Canadians are launching war against Islam. But why would they think this?
Canadians are outspoken in their anti-Americanism. They have contributed
generously to the Palestinians. It only took the Canadian government a
few weeks after the Palestinian elections to announce it would fund a Hamas-led
PA. Canadians overwhelmingly oppose the US-led war in Iraq and President
George W. Bush.
A Canadian Muslim friend who lives in Ontario told me recently that
he has been unwelcome in his local mosque since the September 11 attacks
on Washington and New York. His fellow Muslims have blackballed him because
he made public statements critical of the hijackers and of al Qaida and
the Palestinians and supportive of the US and Israel. He informed me that
while in absolute numbers, mosque attendance in Canada has dropped since
Sept. 11, those who continue to attend are fervent in their devotion to
jihad against the Western world.
That is, the Muslims who have been forced from the organized Canadian
Muslim community are those who believe in Muslim integration in the West
while those who remain within that community are radical separatists who
cannot abide their pro-Western Muslim brethren.
My friend and his fellow pro-Western Muslims are doubly ostracized.
Not only are they rejected by their fellow Muslims who decry their denunciations
of jihad, they are also rejected by the intellectual and cultural elites
in their countries who insist on apologizing for jihadists in the name
of multiculturalism and anti-racism.
The depth of my friend's isolation was made clear this weekend when,
in the wake of the arrests of the Canadian jihad cell, Luc Portelance,
the CSIS assistant director of operations told his countrymen, "It is important
to know that this operation in no way reflects negatively on any specific
community, or ethno-cultural group in Canada."
FOR ITS part, the Canadian Islamic Congress (whose leader, Mohamed
Elmasry has openly stated his view that all Israeli citizens are legitimate
targets for terrorist murder), attacked Canada's Prime Minister Stephen
Harper for what it referred to as his decision to "paint today's arrests
as a battle between 'us' and 'them.'" The CIC alleged that "Such statements
put all Canadian Muslims in great danger," and demanded that the Canadian
government fund "legitimate academic research to diagnose this serious
social problem [of Canadian Muslims waging war against their country] and
provide scientific solutions to it."
Justifications for the actions of Western born and raised jihadists
— and indeed for all jihadists from Osama bin Laden down - like that published
by the Telegraph are of course par for the course. As author Bruce Bower
exhaustively demonstrates in his book While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam
is Destroying the West from Within, there exists a unity of purpose between
Islamic extremists and Western elites in Europe and throughout the world.
Both sides wish to hide the fact that Islamists seek to dominate the Western
world while painting the US and Israel as the greatest threats to international
security.
There seems to be no limit to the willingness of Western elites to
justify jihadist acts of war against their societies. The Telegraph's apology
for the Canadian jihadist terror group came at the same time as Britain's
counter-terror forces were conducting a desperate search for a chemical
bomb they fear was built by two British born terrorists who were also arrested
on Friday in London. The fact that Britain's own jihadists were planning
to attack Londoners with sarin gas made no dent in the Telegraph's willingness
to make excuses for radical Islamic warriors.
THIS PATTERN of collaborative dissimulation between leftist Western
elites and jihadists manifested itself last week in Winnipeg, Canada. There,
as the Ontario 17 steadily advanced their plans of war, Muslims in Manitoba
launched an attack against a film that exposes the nature of the global
jihad against the West. Last Monday and Tuesday the documentary film Obsession:
Radical Islam's War Against the West launched its Canadian premiere in
the city.
Obsession, was produced by the media watch group Honest Reporting.
It effectively shows the depth of the hatred and indoctrination to jihad
that is taking place worldwide. Interweaving clips from Arab television,
recordings of mosque incitement, interviews with extraordinarily brave
Muslim heroes like The Jerusalem Post's Khaled Abu Toameh and renowned
historians such as Sir Martin Gilbert, Professor Robert Wistrich, and Daniel
Pipes, the film seeks to fill the void left by the Western media and academia
to alert regular citizens to the reality of the threat that jihadist ideology
presents to their freedom.
In light of the film's purpose, (and having participated in the project
and viewed the film several times, I can attest to its success), it is
not surprising that the Muslim community in Winnipeg sought to have it
banned. It is also not surprising that in reporting the protest, the Winnipeg
Sun used the misleading headline, "Aspers sponsor hate film, say critics."
Ahead of last week's screenings, members of the Winnipeg Muslim community
filed a complaint about it with the city police's hate crimes unit. Shahina
Siddiqui, the president of the Islamic Social Services Associations told
the press, "I want the police to identify this as hate propaganda. I want
them to be aware who the sponsors are and what they are doing."
SO FOUR days before Friday's arrests, the Canadian Muslim community
attempted to prevent Canadians from watching a film that explains why it
is that Canadian born Muslims are trying to destroy their country. And
four days before the arrests were made, the Winnipeg Sun maintained faith
with its colleagues throughout the Western world by running a headline
that gave its readers the sense that there was some legitimacy to the Muslims'
complaint.
And even though the apparent ringleader of the terror cell served as
a prayer leader and a member of the board of directors of his local mosque,
in the wake of Friday's arrests, Canadian and other Western commentators
and editors continued to argue that the arrested terrorists bore no relationship
to the larger Canadian Muslim community.
It is against the backdrop of the refusal of Western elites to acknowledge
the fact that there is a global jihad that the true danger of radical Islam
becomes clear. Many argue that the forces of global jihad are no match
for their enemies because they lack regular armies.
Yet because of the defiant, irrational and immoral refusal of Western
political, cultural and media elites to acknowledge the threat that internal
and external jihadist forces manifest to the very notion of human freedom,
they make it impossible for their societies to take measures to protect
themselves.
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