London's Mayor Ken Livingstone, known for courting Moslem
clerics and criticizing Jewish guards, cannot be accused of
having been under undue Jewish influence in his views. Yet
his evaluation of the attacks last Thursday in his city seems
remarkably similar to our own. In a press conference held
soon after the event, he said, "It was aimed at ordinary,
working-class Londoners, black and white, Muslim and
Christian . . . young and old . . . that isn't an ideology,
it isn't even a perverted faith, it is an indiscriminate
attempt at mass murder."
Probably the most effective model for understanding Islamic
terror is as criminal activity. We do not worry about a drug
dealer's politics (even though in recent years a significant
number have been found with Middle East connections). We hunt
him down, catch him and put him behind bars. Criminals are
universally condemned. A criminal cannot get asylum in
another country, not the least reason being that one who has
committed crimes in one country is liable to commit them
anywhere else. The lust for money or other gratification is
the same wherever he goes; no country is willing to host a
criminal. Criminal activity is recognized as destructive
wherever it may be. The task of civilized society vis-a-vis
criminality may be stated very simply: stop it.
The Western media has a hard time describing Islamic
violence. It does not know whether to call attacks such as
those in London "terror" — which most news services
believe is a judgmental word since it implies usage of an
illegitimate means of achieving a political end — or
just to describe them as attacks, a neutral, purely
descriptive word. The problem stems from the political tinge
that attaches to the word "terror": since there are always at
least two sides in politics, you can always say, "One man's
terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."
Potential political terrorists are usually few and far-
between. Most people are not willing to risk the sacrifice
that such extreme action may require for abstract, political
issues. Criminality, on the other hand, depending on the
potential gains and the strength of one's lusts, can usually
tempt many more people.
Moreover, the danger from one who is motivated by politics is
entirely different from one who has criminal motives. A
political terrorist only targets those who stand in the way
of his particular goal. Place him in a neutral environment,
in a distant country for example, and he poses no threat to
the local community. An Irish Catholic terrorist, for
example, has no reason to target holiday-makers in Indonesia.
Solve his political issue and he will probably become a
peaceful, law-abiding citizen.
Islamic terror in these respects is much closer to
criminality than to political terror. All those who have
studied it say that there is no "typical" terrorist or
suicide bomber. Some are failures and have social problems,
but others are successful and educated. Although the number
actually involved in terror is small — as with crime
— there is a potential for almost anyone to set
bombs.
Moreover, they do not target specific populations whose
murder can advance specific goals. The goals themselves are
amorphous and global — Islamic world domination. They
murder soldiers, civilians, men, women, children, Christians,
Moslems, Jews — of all nationalities. They do not
discriminate at all.
Once they murdered a jogger in a Jewish neighborhood of
Jerusalem, who turned out to be an Arab whose father, a
lawyer, had defended terrorists in Israeli courts. No
problem. They did not even express remorse. They merely
declared their victim a shaheed — a martyr for
the cause — and that was the end of it.
There is no neutral environment. They want to murder
everyone. They claim to want a state in Palestine, but they
are not concerned with building the political apparatus to
run one. There is no way to solve their political issues.
Wanton murder like we saw in London — and we have seen
in Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan, Algeria, Spain, the US,
Indonesia, Russia and elsewhere — is not part of a
fight for anyone's freedom. It is plain murder, and
criminality of the worst and basest sort. The perpetrators
should be hunted down. The civilized world should have no
tolerance for acts of this kind, and it should not be
confused with ideological or political issues. It is
absolutely wrong and should be universally condemned
vigorously.
The task of civilized society vis-a-vis such criminality may
be stated very simply: stop it.
