When in doubt, blame Israel.

Dr. Abdallah Al-Naggar, a religious columnist for the Egyptian government daily Al-Gumhuriya, wrote an article (7/10/01) which claimed that the attack on the World Trade Centre was a plot organised by the Zionists: The Jews were behind these ugly acts, while we, the Arabs, were innocent. Although the Americans suspect that the Zionists are behind the act, none has the courage to talk about it in public. … The Zionists control everything, political decision-making, the big media organizations, and the financial and economic institutions. Anyone daring to say a word is considered an anti-Semite.

Sheikh Muhammad Al-Gameia, Al-Azhar University Representative in the U.S. and Imam of New Yorks Islamic Centre, was interviewed for the website www.lilatalqadr.com, on October 4, 2001 (Al-Azhar University in Cairo is one of the main intellectual centres of Islam). He said, The American attack against Afghanistan is terrorism... This war will be the end of America... If the Americans knew that the Jews carried out the September 11 attacks they would do to them what Hitler did.

This version of events, which in effect is inciting a second holocaust against the Jewish people, is widely believed throughout the Islamic world. For those who accept this incredible lie there is no problem in justifying terrorism in the cause of Islam. Add to this the promise that the martyr will have 70 black-eyed virgins in Paradise and you have a potent cocktail for terror.

Jack Kelley of USA Today visited Hamas schools in Gaza City, where he saw an 11-year-old boy speak to his class: I will make my body a bomb that will blast the flesh of Zionists, the sons of pigs and monkeys... I will tear their bodies into little pieces and will cause them more pain than they will ever know. His classmates shouted in response, Allah Akhbar, and his teacher shouted, May the virgins give you pleasure. A 16-year-old Hamas youth leader in a Gaza refugee camp told Kelley, Most boys cant stop thinking about the virgins. (USA Today, 26/6/01)

Islamic fundamentalists never see faults within their own society but are constant in their vindictive hatred of the west and Israel. They put the blame for everything that goes wrong onto others and so become incapable of any kind of examination of their own sins. Corrupt rulers use this hatred of non-Muslims to deflect peoples anger from themselves. Iraqi dissident Kanan Makiya, wrote in The Observer (7/10/01): Attribution of all the ills of ones own world to either the great Satan, America, or the little Satan, Israel, has been the driving force of Arab politics since 1967. As a powerful undercurrent of Arab culture and politics, it has been around much longer than that. After 1967, however it became the legitimising cement upon which such murderous regimes as Saddam Husseins Iraq were built.

The pro government Iraqi press spews out the kind of nonsense, which Stalinist and Maoist Communism used to produce. Here is an example of a meeting of Saddam Hussein with the heads of the Iraqi nuclear and defence establishment: At the outset, Dr. Fadhl al-Janabi, submitted to his excellency (i.e. Saddam), may Allah preserve him, greetings bounded by love and loyalty from the NEAs warriors and their commitment to remain forever loyal to the source of their inspiration, the light of their brains and the guide of their innovations, the great leader, Saddam Hussein, may Allah render him victorious. They expressed their willingness to continue giving with great energy, solid faith, and steadfastness to resist aggression and the forces of evil and vice, and consecrate themselves and the fruit of their brains to Iraq, its leader and the proud Iraqi people. (Babil 7/11/01)

Challenging the lies

However there are voices, which seek to move the Islamic and Arab world away from dictatorship and controlled thinking and are willing to do some self-examination. Municipal elections have been held in the Gulf state of Qatar in which women could both vote and stand. Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait have made similar moves including introducing an element of free speech. The Arab states, which are on the democratic path, all have one feature in common. They are all members of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Arab observers see a clear connection between the WTO, and the kind of open and trading economy it requires, and democratic practices. Democratic governments tend to have a free economy and dictatorships in the world have restricted economies, notes Jordanian economist Fahd Faneq. Free trade and democracy normally go together.

Fareed Zakaria wrote an article in Newsweek, reproduced in the Sunday Times (14/10/01) in which he shows how Islamic fundamentalism has come out of the failure of the Arab world to produce a free and creative society: If there is one great cause of the rise of Islamic fundamentalism it is the total failure of political institutions in the Arab world. Muslim elites have averted their eyes from this reality. As the moderate majority looks the other way, Islam is being taken over by a small poisonous element, people who advocate cruel attitudes towards women, education, the economy and modern life in general. If the Muslims do not take it upon themselves to stop their religion from falling prey to medievalists, nothing any outsider can do will save them.

Kuwaiti university professor Ahmad Al-Baghdadi wrote an article titled Sharon is a Terrorist - And You? which appeared in Akhbar Al-Youm (Egypt), (3/11/01). The article attacked the Arab press for focusing on Israels actions but disregarding what was being done by Arab rulers to their own people. Persecuting intellectuals in the courtrooms of Arab countries, trials of intellectuals for heresy, destruction of families, rulings that marriages must be broken up because one spouse is charged with apostasy - all exist only in the Islamic world. Is this not terrorism? The Arab intelligence apparatuses killed hundreds of intellectuals and politicians from the religious stream itself. The Zionist entity (i.e. Israel) has never done such things against its citizens. Isnt this terrorism?! The capability of the intelligence apparatus in every Arab and Islamic country to arrest someone and make him disappear does not exist in Israel and in the West. Isnt this terrorism?! Iraq alone is a never-ending story of terrorism of the state against its own citizens and neighbours. Isnt this terrorism?!

Hashem Hassan, from Sudan, sent a letter to the editor of the London Arabic-language daily, Al-Quds Al-Arabi (7/10/01). He wrote: Most of the articles published in the Arabic press about Operation New York-Washington are no more than symptoms of a mental illness from which we have suffered since we were defeated by Israel in 1948. This illness is manifested by blaming others for everything connected to our calamities and mistakes, great as they may be. … We, the Arabs, are a people of adults who came of age and gained independence from Britain, France, and America decades ago. See what we have done with our free will. We became lost in a labyrinth of corruption, economic backwardness, and civil wars on the day we lost our democracy and the right of the people to remain free.

The main reason for the lack of freedom in the Arab world is Islam itself. Whether it is monstrous tyrants like Saddam Hussein, hiding behind a façade of Islam, or the religious despotism that rules Saudi Arabia and has taken over Iran and Afghanistan or the murderous Islamic guerrillas of Algeria and Egypt, it can be shown that the more Islamic a country becomes, the less free it becomes. Even in the West Islamic groups seek the overthrow of democracy. Metin Kaplan, head of Caliphate State, a radical Muslim group, lives in Germany. He stated: Islam and democracy will never be compatible. When we come to power we will destroy and burn Parliament and cast its ashes into the sea. (Newsweek 5/11/01).

Jihad and Jesus

A major contribution to freedom in the Arab / Muslim world is to be found through those who are most persecuted within it - the Bible believing Christians. Sadly many Christian leaders in the West are now betraying the cause of Christianity and their own Christian brethren in Muslim countries by making totally untrue statements that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance and that the God of the Bible is the same as Allah of the Koran.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus said, If you abide in my word you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. (John 8.31-2) Personal freedom comes when we stop blaming others for our troubles and examine ourselves, recognising our own sins and repenting of them. Through faith in the once and for all sacrifice of the Lord Jesus we can receive forgiveness and a new start. When real Christianity influences a society it creates a greater degree of social freedom as well. Despite the decline in Christianity in the West, our Christian heritage has given us a respect for human rights and personal freedom, which is the main reason why thousands of asylum seekers from Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Afghanistan and other Muslim countries seek to come here.

Recently I was watching a programme on the BBC in which Muslim apologists stated that jihad in Islamic writings mainly means a personal struggle against evil habits and ways rather than a violent struggle against non-Muslims. That may be true, but the reality is that we cannot deal with the evil within ourselves, except by the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit bears witness to the truth, denied in the Koran, that Jesus is the Son of God, the one mediator between God and humanity. Therefore the Holy Spirit is not available to the person seeking to overcome the sinful nature through Islam.

The result is a sense of failure and condemnation. One way to avoid facing the implications of this failure is to concentrate on the violent jihad, hoping to gain entrance to Paradise through martyrdom in the cause of Islam. On this subject it was interesting to note that Mohammed Atta, the leader of the suicide team responsible for destroying the World Trade Centre, went to a lap dancing bar in Florida where he spent money on alcohol and girls, the week before the outrage. He could not get the victory over lust through Islam but deluded himself that God would give him a place in Paradise through committing mass murder of infidels. Such a horrible deception can only come from the Devil, whom Jesus describes in John 8.44: He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.

Paul wrote in Romans 8 of the freedom from condemnation, which is available in Jesus: There is therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. Let us pray that many in the Muslim world may know this freedom in the Messiah Jesus!