Fighting the Jihad of confusion

How 10 books and one DVD empowered the writer with a clearer understanding of Global Jihad.

1. Future Jihad (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) and
2. The War of Ideas: Jihadism Against Democracy by Walid Phares (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, 2008)
3. The Islamist by Ed Husain (Penguin, 2007)
4. Londonistan by Melanie Phillips (Gibson Square, 2006,2008)
5. Perfect Soldiers: 9/11 Hijackers: Who They Were and Why They Did It by Terry McDermott.
6. Terror and Liberalism by Paul Berman
7. Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America  and
   
8. They Must be Stopped by Brigitte Gabriel (St Martin's Press, 2008, 2009) 
9. Son of Hamas by Mosab Hassan Yousef (Tyndale House, 2010) 
   Infidel and Nomad  by Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Free Press, 2007, 2010).
10. DVD:  The Third Jihad: Radical Islam's Vision for America.  (Producer Raphael Shore, Director Wayne Kopping, Narrator moderate Muslim Dr Zuhdi Jasser, 2009)

A well-known expression states that "a week is a long time in politics".  Events in the Global Jihad, or war of the Islamists against the West and non-Islamist Muslim countries, are also moving with great speed.  There is no time to lose in understanding it, in order to combat it. Many of us read newspapers and the internet to see what's going on, but books may sometimes give us a deeper insight.

In the Grimm Brothers' story, Red Riding Hood comes face to face with the big bad wolf, disguised as her sick grandmother. By the time she notices the big teeth, it is already too late. The West is in a similar situation to this little girl: it too often treats Islamist groups as harmless grandmothers. The recent Sydney conference of the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir was allowed to go ahead, even though it is banned in many countries, and speakers at the conference openly threatened moderate Muslims in Australia and denounced democracy.  UK author Ed Husain's book The Islamist is enlightening, as he was a member of this group, and wrote his book to warn the West about it.

After the decision by the New York City council to allow the building of a mega-mosque named "Cordoba" next to Ground Zero, thousands protested. So why did the major New York TV news cameras not even show up to cover this event? The inability of Western leadership and much of the media to recognise or stop the wolf puts our democratic world in the greatest danger.  The US has been named as the world's superpower, but if it repeatedly capitulates to Muslim demands in the name of ‘tolerance' it will be steadily weakened and humiliated.  On September 11, Muslim extremists around the world, including the Palestinian territories, danced in the streets.  For them the icing on the cake is a mega-mosque right in the place of the ‘victory'. The name Cordoba invokes the site of the first large mosque built in Spain to celebrate the Moslem conquest in the year 715. 

From reading the above books and watching the above DVD, one can come to an understanding of the true nature of radical Islam. Thus it is clear that the identity of the group behind the building of the mosque is threatening. They are called the ‘American Society for Muslim Advancement'. This name sends chills down the back, as advancement can mean to advance in battle and conquest. They plan to build Cordoba mosques all over the United States. The statements of the Imam responsible for the mosque, Feisel Abdul Rauf, uses phrases that ring warning bells.  Although he claims he "wants to push back the extremists", he himself has been known to blame the West for radical Islam, saying "The West must acknowledge the harm they've done to Muslims before terror can end".  He claims that "jihad means internal struggle". He is connected with the benignly named "Council of American Islamic Relations" (CAIR), which has been proven to be a front for the terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah, even while it purports to speak for the moderate Muslim community, has had free access to the White House, advising New York police on how to be sensitive to Muslim needs (although recently banned by the FBI).

In our Western countries, proud of our freedom of religion, how does one distinguish between moderate and extremist Muslims? To use the wolf analogy, an extremist Muslim is one with a bomb in his hand, or strapped around his waist, or a hijacked plane's controls under his hands.  But who is telling these people to commit the terror acts? Aren't they terrorists also? To go one step further, perhaps the extremist is one who, while not himself promoting violence, works towards a "peaceful" takeover of the West.  He relies on others to do the intimidation. The chairman of CAIR once stated at a rally, "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran...should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth." This makes many Muslims without bombs part of the "stealth jihad" or "cultural jihad".  Their stated aim is the imposition of Sharia law in the West. So why is the leadership as naïve as Little Red Riding Hood?

One reason this writer is interested in Global Jihad is because extremist Islam promotes anti-Semitism. When Paul McGeough likened the Israeli boats intercepting the so-called ‘peace flotilla' to hyenas, he had clearly been under the influence of those who call Jews the ‘sons of apes and pigs'. As a third-generation Australian Jew, I have every reason to be afraid of a Fairfax media that allows a Hamas supporter to portray Israel as a perpetrator of evil when it is only defending itself.  I have reason to be shocked when the bashing and stabbing of the Israeli soldiers by passengers of the Mavi Marmara is edited out of the TV news footage in order to paint the Israeli response as unprovoked. I, and many others, have long wondered about the behind-the-scenes financial and other pressures on TV news programs.

As well as a love for Israel, I have a deep love for Australia and its freedom and safety.  Throughout history, totalitarian movements have first attacked the Jews: we are the ‘canary in the coalmine'. Then they target other people, first cynically using the anti-semites to do the work for them.  There is a well-known phrase in the Middle East, explaining the project of the jihadists: "First comes Saturday and then comes Sunday".  First we target the Jews and destroy the Jewish state, then we conquer the Christians, or Crusaders. 

But how do I know I am not just a paranoid Islamophobic, myself conned by an insidious conspiracy theory? By reading the 10 books on the above list, I began to put the jigsaw puzzle together.  If you read something once, you wonder if it's true, especially if it is contradicted by the mass media. But if the same thing is being described from many angles you get confidence in your perceptions.  If the extremism is explained by those who have experienced it up close, then it is the most convincing. Knowledge of Arabic or access to reliable translation (eg MEMRI) is essential to understand what the extremists say to their own followers when the West is not listening. If, as in the case of the Third Jihad DVD, the extremists threaten the West with their own mouths, it is very convincing.

Two of the above authors are Lebanese immigrants to America. They are motivated to defend the US because they have seen with their own eyes their country destroyed by Muslim extremism.  As journalist Brigitte Gabriel says, Beirut used to be the Paris of the Middle East. Now, if you visit that city, you are met by gigantic posters of the Iranian ayatollahs.

Lebanese-born Terrorism and Middle East expert Walid Phares says that after September 11, 2001, two main questions were asked: ‘Why do they hate us?' and ‘Why didn't we know?'  He explains the reasons behind the hatred through the theology, history and ideology of extremist Islam, teaching the reader essential Arabic terms, for instance, what is meant by Jihad (war of conquest), Fatah (opening up of new territory for Islam), Tahrir (liberation of old territory) Umma (Muslim nation), Kuffar (infidel), Dhimmi (that all non-Muslims are second-class citizens under Sharia law).  Most importantly, he describes the concepts of Takiya (deception) and Kitman (concealment), which command Muslims to deceive the enemy in order to conquer it.  Phares asks the question ‘Who obstructed our knowledge?'  For example, how was it that the general public did not know that in 1998 Osama bin Laden declared war on the US on Al Jazeera TV? His answer is that 40 years of Saudi endowments of Middle Eastern Studies departments have clouded the minds of generations of academics, journalists and diplomats.  Saudi money sponsors Wahabist extremism in text books, high schools, madrassas, and the takeover of mosques all over the Western world, including in Australia.

But isn't the main reason for Islamic hatred of the US the American support for Israel in the Arab-Israeli conflict? No. Hatred for the US or the "Big Satan" is part of the ideology, irrespective of anything the US does or doesn't do. Israel, the "Little Satan" is an important rallying cry for Muslims around the world, who must always be on standby for jihad. What about Palestinian hatred of Israel -- isn't that because of the way Israel oppresses and occupies the ‘poor Palestinians'? No. The Muslims want to destroy Israel as a Jewish state because it is an Infidel power ruling an area that was once Muslim.  It doesn't matter what Israel does.

Son of Hamas is the story of Hamas from the inside, and the author joins a number of Muslims who have converted to Christianity and escaped to the US.  According to Sharia law, leaving Islam is punishable by death.  Mossab Hassan Yousef became a spy for Israel when he became sickened by the torture by Hamas leaders of other Hamas members, and tired of the cult of death.  Terror and Liberalism explains the fascination of the Left with violent cults, compares Islamism with other Totalitarian movements, and explains the writings of Sayed Qutb, father of the ideology of the insidious Islamist movement the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is the military wing. Qutb's brother taught Osama bin Laden in Saudi Arabia. And yet we hear that Muslim Brotherhood members are welcomed in Australia as asylum seekers. Brigitte Gabriel's They Must Be Stopped includes a chilling summary of the Muslim Brotherhood Project, a 1982 document which outlines plans for the next 100 years of infiltration of the West to take it over and make it Muslim.

Melanie Phillips in Londonistan highlights the way the British government has capitulated to Muslim extremists masquerading as moderates. Her book is a very sober warning of what awaits Australia a few years from now. Infidel and Nomad tell the story of Ayaan Hirsi Ali and include detailed description of what it is like to live under Sharia law. Perfect Soldiers describes the important role of the Hamburg mosque in indoctrinating Muhammed Atta, the leader of the 9/11 bombers. Ed Husain in The Islamist explains how the British universities are breeding grounds of Muslim extremism, and describes how it happened to him. As I have learned from these books, "the factory of jihad is the ideology", "if you can't understand where the terror is coming from, you can't stop it", "Britain is sleepwalking into Islamisation", and "If you destroy the brain, you destroy the body." The cultural jihadists use Western tolerance, multiculturalism and its legal system to defeat the West.  Should we be afraid of encroaching Sharia law?  Absolutely. The end of democracy, the end of free speech, hands chopped off for stealing, stoning for adultery, hanging for homosexuality, compulsory body covering for women, honour killing for girls suspected of premarital sex, death to anyone who leaves Islam, harassment and second-class ‘dhimmi' status for non-Muslims.