No, Islam is not the problem – Israel, Endless Wars & Injustice Are the Problem

by Laura Stuart
Saturday, March 24th, 2012

 

This week a friend said to me, “Their blood is so precious”. Of course she meant the biggest news story of the week, the shooting of the Jewish children and a Rabbi in France. Whilst I absolutely condemn the murder of innocent civilians and especially children, I and my fellow Muslims would like to know why the continuous murder of children in Palestine, Afghanistan Pakistan or Yemen goes on with hardly a mention in the international media? It seems clear to us that the blood of Jewish children is just more precious to the world.

The children of Muslims are just statistics, barely worth a mention as just victims of yet another drone attack, or as victims of Israel’s continous attacks on the beleagured citizens of Gaza. The pro-Israel lobbies and media have dehumanised Muslims, their deaths are mere statistics – and always without names.

But the big question everyone is asking is WHY? Why did a French citizen kill 3 soldiers and 4 civilians at point blank range? The answer in my opinion is because he was a criminal and a murderer and a very misguided human being. Mohammed Merah had a criminal record. He had already demonstrated that he had little sense of right or wrong. Allegedly, he raised thousands of Euros by hold-ups and break-ins, using the money to buy guns. Mohammed Merah clearly had a very chequered past and was certainly very far from practising any of the morals or principles of Islam or indeed of any religion. Mohammed Merah clearly had a very disturbed mind and wrongly thought that the only way that he could avenge the deaths of fellow Muslims was to take matters into his own hands. Why was that? The Israelis have some suggestions.

Today the Jerusalem Post ran an op-ed entitled “Western World is Blind”

Despite Muslim murderousness, West refrains from admitting Islam is the problem

There are many things wrong with this statement but let’s start with the fact that almost a quarter of the world’s population are Muslim, so if Islam is an evil ideology as is claimed, why are the majority of Muslims law-abiding citizens? The article goes on to talk about the Islamic terror industry, whatever that is, and who is making money from it? Unlike the giants of the arms trade industry who make millions on the weapons used to kill children in Muslim lands and who happily sell weapons to oppressive regimes to use against their own populations, there is no such thing as an Islamic terror industry.

At this time, almost any terror group on earth originates from the Muslim world

Yes of course, and who does the labelling? You only have to look to Israel, the U.K. the U.S.A. the E.U. or N.A.T.O. - the biggest exporters of terror at state level and the ones who are always interferring in other nations politics by sponsoring and arming opposition groups or putting puppet leaders in place whilst labelling any locals who show resistance to their policies as terrorists.

Islam is not to blame

Islam as a religion is not to blame. Indeed, the words of the murderer himself need to be taken seriously as he told police about his motivation. Merah stated clearly his reasons for killing - to avenge the deaths of Muslims in Afghanistan, children in Palestine and for the niqab ban in France. Merah had legitimate grievances -we’re all angry and frustrated, not only at the deaths of so many Muslim civilians including children, but also at western governments’ lack of morality on such issues as Palestine, the so called War on Terror, torture and extra ordinary rendition, imprisonment and in France, using changes in the law such as the niqab ban and outlawing praying outside as cheap gimmicks, to gain far right votes.

How should Muslims respond to what is perceived as the global war on Islam? This is a good question and one that Muslim and mosque leaders fail to answer or provide managed solutions to.

Governments have looked at how to prevent violent extremism and have policies such as “Prevent” in the U.K. but one needs to know exactly who advises the government on how to deal with terror and what their motivation might be. The report into some of the funders of such lobby groups were revealed in a report by Spinwatch (read about it here). The government’s strategies include surveillance of Muslims in universities and mosques with the government asking teachers to spy on Muslim pupils and even Muslims to spy on each other and Mosque leaders and Muslim leaders have been worse than hopeless in representing or addressing the legitimate grievances of their followers and congregations. Do not talk of anything political is the policy of many Imams, but what is happening to our brothers and sisters in the Ummah is part of our religion, we cannot separate ourselves from it. We attend sermons every Friday knowing full well that our brothers and sisters are being murdered and oppressed in so many lands, yet the sermon never even alludes to these issues, never mind Imams giving leadership and direction to the congregations.

I speak as one of perhaps 2 million Muslims in the U.K. and I have no reason to believe that France is any better. I know that Muslims feel there is no justice, not only here in the U.K. but for our brothers and sisters in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan who are being killed by Zionist and Neo Conservative policies of endless war. We are alarmed by Israel pushing for war in Iran and we are upset by the number of Syrians being killed every day in Syria, and we have little doubt that there is a lot of outside meddling in the Syrian state of affairs. Our so called leaders refuse to direct us in any coherent course of action that would allow us to feel that at least we were doing something, however little. Raising money in the mosques is not a solution we want an end to the killing and oppression and it is high time that our leaders stood up for Muslim interests in any and every legal way possible.

Childs drawing of Gaza

We are two million at least in the U.K. how come we have no voice? As long as we have no leadership and no direction we can do nothing and young frustrated men will continue to believe the only solution is to take matters into their own hands.

Finally, the fact that Mohammed Merah was well known to the French Intelligence services is an interesting revelation which certainly opens up the possibility of him being manipulated and used for political reasons. Who knows who might have recruited him whilst he was in prison. The big question is who has the most to gain from his actions?

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian  
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