The Arithmetic of Jihad

The media is always telling us that only a "tiny minority" of Muslims support violence and holy war against the West.

But just how true is that assertion?

In the column below, I bring a number of facts and figures that suggest otherwise.

Like it or not, the arithmetic of jihad is fairly straightforward, and it is time that we stopped pretending otherwise.

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The Arithmetic of Jihad

By Michael Freund

It's time we open our eyes and confront reality. Ever since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the media has sought to reassure us that only a tiny minority of Muslims actually support the use of violence against Israel and the West.

It's just a small fringe, a marginal few at best, they tell us, so don't worry about it all too much. One percent or three percent - who cares? Just sit back, enjoy your morning eggs and coffee and have a nice day.

But a look at the numbers tells a very different story. The extent of support for global jihad is frightening in its proportions, and the numbers are anything but insignificant.

Consider, for example, the following statistics regarding support for suicide bombings and other types of terror attacks.

In a poll conducted five months ago, and broadcast on Britain's Channel 4 TV, nearly 25% of British Muslims said the July 7, 2005, terror bombings in London, which killed 52 innocent commuters, were justified. Another 30% said they would prefer to live under strict Islamic Sharia law rather than England's democratic system.

Now, one in four justifying terror may not be a majority, but it certainly isn't a "small fringe" either.

In other countries, the figures are no less unsettling. A survey published in December found that 44% of Nigerian Muslims believe suicide bombing attacks are "often" or "sometimes" acceptable. Only 28% said they were never justified.

According to the annual Pew Global Attitudes Survey, released in July 2006, "roughly one-in-seven Muslims in France, Spain and Great Britain feel that suicide bombings against civilian targets can at least sometimes be justified to defend Islam." The report also found that less than half of Jordan's Muslims believe terror attacks are never justified. In Egypt, only 45% of Muslims say terror is never justified.

STILL THINK only a "tiny minority" are in favor of violence? In Israel, the percentages are even more alarming. After Cpl. Gilad Shalit was abducted by Hamas terrorists last summer, a poll conducted by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center revealed that 77.2% of Palestinians supported the kidnapping, while 66.8% said they would back additional such attacks.

More than six out of 10 Palestinians also said they were in favor of firing Kassam rockets at Israeli towns and cities.

And lest you think that war fever lay behind the results, consider this: four additional polls published in September, nearly a month after the Lebanese conflict had ended, all found large majorities of Palestinians backing terror attacks against the Jewish state.

Indeed, in various countries around the world, support for Muslim fundamentalist terror groups appears to be widespread.

On the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, a survey conducted by Al-Jazeera asked respondents, "Do you support Osama Bin-Laden?" A whopping 49.9% answered: yes.

And the July 2006 global Pew survey found that among Muslims, a quarter of Jordanians, a third of Indonesians, 38% of Pakistanis and 61% of Nigerians all expressed confidence in the mass murderer who founded al-Qaida.

In Lebanon six months ago, the Beirut Center for Research and Information found that over 80% of the Lebanese population said they supported Hizbullah.

And do I need also to mention that a majority of Palestinians backed Hamas in parliamentary elections last year? Sure, there are also places where support for violent jihad is not as high. As Reuters reported on October 15, just 10 percent of Indonesian Muslims said they backed jihad and supported bomb attacks on the island of Bali aimed at foreign tourists.

But Indonesia is home to more than 200 million Muslims, so while 10 percent may sound like a small number percentage-wise, it is actually quite large in absolute terms. It means there are some 20 million Muslims in Indonesia alone who are willing to say out loud that they support the use of violence and terror against innocent human beings.

Since when is that a "marginal few"? The question of whether a "tiny" or "sizable" minority backs the global jihad is far more than just one of semantics. It goes to the very nature of the struggle that Israel and the West now find ourselves in.

The figures above, taken from a variety of nations, continents and contexts, all point in one very ominous direction. They demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that the global jihadist movement enjoys a wide and broad base of support that extends far beyond just a minuscule number of supporters.

POLITICIANS and journalists might wish to believe, as we all do, that the backers of violent jihad are few and far between, and that they do not represent large numbers of people with like-minded extremist views. But that is simply not the case.

The arithmetic of jihad is quite straight-forward, and it is time we stopped looking the other way and pretending otherwise.

The threat posed by Islamic fundamentalism to Israel and the West can, and must, be met. With determination and a sense of purpose, victory is not out of reach.

But the longer we continue to underestimate the extent of the problem, the more difficult it will be to defeat it.

So let's put aside all that wishful thinking, and roll up our collective sleeves and get to work. Like it or not, the war on terror still faces a long road ahead.

--- from the January 31 Jerusalem Post

Comments

[M. D'Souza]

How many do we require for a jihad jig?

The media would like us to believe that it's just 1% or 0.1% of the Muslims that are radicalized. In a population of 1.2 billion Muslims around the world, the media's 'miniscule number' would amount to 12,000 (1%) or 1,200 (0.1%) jihadists. See what havoc 19 radicalized Muslims created on 9/11. So one can just imagine what the miniscule number of Islamists can do.

P.M.John Howard of Australia rightly said, that if anyone wants to live under Sharia Law, they better go to an Islamic nation, where it is practiced.

Why does anyone need to defend Islam?...from whom?...and from what? Realistically, Islam is its own enemy. Muslims need to defend themselves from their own mutated fundamentalists.

Where terrorism is concerned, Gaza is GROUND ZERO. It's a breeding ground for terrorists of all stripes. Israel has a terrible task of clearing that den. It's like trying to rid a dog of fleas. There is a steady supply of terrorists bred and trained for jihad from the time they are born. One wonders whether the fetus comes out of its mother's womb with a knife in its hand, and given a hand-grenade as a rattle to passify it!

So how do we get rid of this menace? Unless the imams and mullahs in the mosques stop their incendiary incitements, and reform their 7th century mindset, nothing is going to change.

[Luigi Frascati]

Right on the money, Mr. Freund. You couldn't have said it any better than this.

[Linda Rivera]

Flash Video - The ISLAMIC MEIN KAMPF
Israel surrendered Gaza - exchanging Land for War - for the first Global Islamic Terror State. Fully dedicated to the annihilation of the Jewish people, a second Global Islamic Terror State on the Jewish ancestral homeland of Judea and Samaria must NEVER come into being!

Flash Video
http://www.terrorismawareness.org/islamic-mein-kampf/

[Linda Rivera]

Islamists: EUROPE is the CANCER. ISLAM is the ANSWER.

World leaders DELIBERATELY DECEIVE when they INSIST that Islam is a peaceful religion. This deliberate deception on behalf of Islam, by world leaders, has ominous implications for the world's non-Muslims.

Islamists attack New York, London, Madrid, Beslan, Israel, India, Bali, Phillipines, Black Africans in the Sudan, and not a single Muslim street demonstration from the more than one billion Muslims to protest the barbaric attacks on our cities that murdered thousands.

The cruel, global Islamic war waged against innocent humanity threatens to destroy Western civilization and laws that protect the innocent.

Colonization of our nations by Muslims is massive. Large numbers of Muslim immigrants want Sharia law - Islam is intolerant of all other religons and political systems and will not tolerate other religions and political systems in Israel, Australia, the U.S. UK Europe, or anywhere else.

Alija Izetbegovic stated in the ISLAMIC DECLARATION that:
- "there can be neither peace nor coexistence between the Islamic faith and non-Islamic social and political institutions";
http://www.balkanpeace.org/cib/bos/bosi/bosi01.html

Signs that were held by the civilian Islamist army in Britain:

Kill those who insult Islam.
Be Prepared For the Real Holocaust!
Europe is the Cancer. Islam is the Answer.
Europe you will Pay. Your 9/11 is on its way!!

The military religion of Islam intends to conquer the world.

Council on American-Islamic Relations: "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faiths, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth." - Omar Ahmad (CAIR co-founder).

An authoritative Muslim stated: "Thanks to your democratic laws we will invade you; thanks to our religious laws we will dominate you." http://www.meforum.org/article/448

The extreme passivity of Western leaders to the immigration invasion may result in the world's innocents living under Islamic sharia law - a merciless world where freedom and human rights are utterly destroyed.

[M. D'Souza]

It's worth watching the video of Dr.Daniel Pipes' talk at the University of California-Irvine, Feb.1, 07 2007http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/725

"My talk last night at the University of California-Irvine, on the topic of 'The Threat to Israel's Existence,' was disrupted just over 15 minutes into my lecture by what appear to be goons of an Islamist persuasion. Three videos on the internet document my remarks, then their response:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7799137429880565337 (anonymous) covers all 53:29 minutes of my talk, from beginning to end. The disruption begins at 15:09 with the calling out of my name. I resume speaking at 17:25." - Dr.Daniel Pipes.

Watch the Islamic jihadists in our university campuses. See the distinct contrast between the Jewish/other students and the kaffiye-clad/Intifada T-shirt wearing jihadists.

Dr.Pipes' talk is in line with what Mr.Freund says in his article.

[Luigi Frascati]

Speaking from direct experience I can personally attest that I too, in my little world, was subjected to a heavy dose of criticism and offensive remarks on the part of Muslims.

Last year I published online an article that I gingerly entitled “Allah Economics”. This article can be found at http://ezinearticles.com/?Allah-Economics&id=162039 for those interested to view it. It is essentially a short analysis of the factors, which coexist and move the financial world in Islam with an emphasis on banking and lending practices.

This article is not political in nature, nor is it critical of Islam’s religion in any way. I did point out that the main obstacle for the domestic economies of Islamic countries to fully develop is the association of temporal and religious power, but that was pretty much as far as I went with criticizing anybody.

Soon after publishing I received some twenty plus e-mails from Muslim readers (who must have picked up my e-mail address from my blog) denouncing this article as blasphemous and offensive, and covering me with all sorts of epithets ranging from being an ‘incompetent idiot’ to much, much worse - with one e-mail even warning that my ‘day of reckoning will soon come’ ….

These Islamic and Islamist folks will stop at nothing to impose their views, with the good manners or the bad ones, and will never accept anything that even remotely runs against their religious beliefs and social doctrines. And those in the West, whether politicians or just common people, who believe that they can ‘talk’ to Islam and somehow hope to open up a dialogue with them are in for the disillusion of their lives.

They call it the ‘clash of civilizations’ but I believe we are heading towards what it looks more and more to be the ‘War of the Worlds’.

[Lion King-Ben David]

INDEED JACOB'S TROUBLES--In Australia already Muslims are speaking of a Islamic Utopia in which Sharia Law is the end-all, the PRESUMED motor of nations as they see it--BUT THE REALITY IS OPPRESSION AND A REPEAT OF THE DARK AGES INWHICH RELIGIOUS FANATICISM HINDERED THE PROGRESS OF NATIONS--America could lose the War in the M.E. and so called ROAD MAP to peace could be the key to Pandora's box enabling the annihillation of ALL FREEDOM LOVING PEOPLE GLOBALLY yet the Bush Admintration see the successful outcome of this misguided peace initiative AS THE APEX OF BUSH'S PRESIDENCY'yet because of DIVINE IMPLICATIONS the reverse will be true--the President may leave office not only with dishonour but A BROKEN MAN because he dared to reproach his Maker--WORSE THAN THIS,the same administration falsified scientists' URGENT reports on Global warming WHICH MEANS CLIMATIC SHIFT IS NOT ONLY INEVITABLE, BUT UNAVOIDABLE-common man will interpret that event AS NATURE GONE MAD--so it is more than flooding a few Pacific Island--you can't blame it totally on GEORGE W or even GEORGE SENIOR--it goes back many presidencies except in their day the Polar Ice Caps weren't melting. WELL TODAY IT IS TOO LATE FOR US AND THANKS TO APPEASEMENT AND COMPROMISE THE WAR ON GLOBAL TERROR COULD BE LOST EXCEPT THE TANACH TELLS ME OTHERWISE--IT IS PITY GEORGE PREJUDICED AS HE IS,DOESN'T BLESS HIMSELF WITH TIME TO READ OUR JEWISH TANACH AND UNDERSTAND WHAT THE TRUE GOD HAS IN MIND FOR MANKIND AND HOW THE ANCIENT TORAH WILL BE THE LIGHT BY WHICH ALL NATIONS WILL ENJOY GENUINE LASTING PEACE AS WELL AS UNENDING PROSPERITY THROUGH GLOBAL TRADE WHERE CORPORATE GREED HAS NO PLACE AT ALL--HASHEM IS ABOUT TO TURN ISLAMIC TERROR ON ITS HEAD BY DIVINE INTERVENTION AND WILL USE THE GRAND ALLIANCE TO ACHIEVE THAT REALITY DESPITE THE SHIITE BOAST TO ANNIHILLATE THOSE BRAVE MEN WHICH LIBERTY SENT IN HARMS' WAY--UNBELIEVABLE AS IT MAY SOUND TO SOME THE TANACH PREDICTS THE ALLIANCE SUPPORTED BY ISRAELI FORCES WILL OVERRUN DAMASCUS AND DRIVE RESIDUAL ISLAMIC FORCES OVER THE EURPHRATES AND BEYOND PREHAPS EVEN TO TEHREN BECAUSE HEAVEN ALONE DECIDES HISTORICAL OUTCOMES AND NO NATION CAN STAY THE HAND OF THE ALMIGHTY AND WHERE DOES THAT LEAVE THE SHIITE MADMEN WHO ENVISION AN IRANIAN VICTORY AGAINST THE WEST AND WHERE,AS THEY SEE IT, SHARIA LAW MADE DOMINANT OVER THE ENTIRE M.E AS WELL AS THE WEST.
TRUE OUR SELF RIGHTEOUS ISLAMIC ENEMIES SEE OUR SINS AND OUR SINS ARE MANY YET DESPITE OUR SINS HASHEM WILL INTERVENE NOT ONLY FOR THE GREATNESS OF HIS NAME BUT BECAUSE OF ANCIENT PROMISE MADE TO OUR FATHERS THAT IS WHY US JEWS AND JOSEPH THE LOST TRIBES OF ISRAEL WILL BE SAVED FROM ANNIHILATION AND BECAUSE OF HIS MERCY THERE SHALL BE NO SECOND JEWISH HOLOCAUST WHICH THE ISLAMIC WORLD BOASTFULLY PREDICT.
DESTINY SHALL NOT PERMIT A WORLD DOMINATED BY SHARIA LAW BECAUSE HEAVEN ALONE DECIDES AND ACCURATELY PREDICTS HISTORICAL OUTCOMES NOT PERVERSE MEN--HEAVENS REALITY FOR NATIONS FAR EXCEED THE VISION SUBMITTED BY MISGUIDED MUSLIM CLERICS-IT IS A WORLD BLESSED WITH PERPETUAL PEACE AND NATIONS WILL NOT ALLOW THEMSELVES TO PURSUE THE BACKWARDNESS OF WAR BUT INSTEAD FAITHFULLY FOLLOW THE IRREFUTABLE UNCHANGEABLE LAWS OF MT SINIA AND BY THE LIGHT OF THAT TORAH SHALL NATIONS KNOW UNENDING GLOBAL PROSPERITY WHERE FAMILY VALUES MEAN SOMETHING AND WHERE GREED IS IMPOSSIBLE.

[Cawsestassy]

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[Idetrorce]

very interesting, but I don't agree with you
Idetrorce