Intimidation and demoralization of an enemy before a deadly assault has been a war tactic from the dawn of history and before. It also exists in the animal kingdom. Successful intimidation eventually ends with a death blow. The attack on the USS Cole, the bombing of US embassies in Africa, and the atrocities on 9/11, 2001, were all acts of intimidation, constituting in effect a declaration of war. These attacks on US national symbols should not be interpreted in any other way. These were declarations of war against the US and its allies, as were the attacks on Spanish trains in Madrid in 2004 and on London buses in 2005.

All these attacks on the West were perpetrated by Al-Qaeda, a militant Muslim organization inspired by the radical Muslim Brotherhood (MB). The anti-American MB was established in Egypt in 1928 by Hassan Al Banna following his visit to the US. However, the MB is not unique. The Salafi Muslims of the Arabian Peninsula whose ideology dates back to the 12th Century, enhanced by Wahabi Islam that evolved there in the 18th Century, match or exceed the anti-Western sentiments of the MB and do actively support MB activities.

And lately, the Iranian Shiite anti-Western political movement, established in Tehran by Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979, and represented today by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian despot, follows in the footsteps of the Wahabis, but with a twist — it is trying to hasten the coming of the twelfth Imam who is supposed to destroy the West in order to submit all of humanity to Islam, the "religion of submission".

All these diverse Islamic political movements despise Western democracy, which allows man, rather than Allah, to set the rules for human behavior. All these movements also hate Jews, the victims of Mohammad's historic aggression, whom he managed to eliminate from the Arabian peninsula.

Many Muslims view democracy and Zionism as religions antagonistic to Islam (this is why democracy cannot be established in any Islam dominated country, to the chagrin of the US Dept of State). The ideological principles of Islam, based on the Koran, which promote Jihad (holy war) against non-believers, will also characterize all future Islamic political movements. Let us remember that Jews were murdered by Muslims, just because they were Jews, throughout history, including in Ottoman Palestine, long before Khomeini, Ahmadinejad, Arafat, Abu Mazen, or Al Banna were ever born.

Observant Muslims truly believe in the Koran's verses: "We will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve, because they set up with Allah ..., and their abode is the fire, and evil is the abode of the unjust". [Koran 3.151]. "... I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them. ". [Koran 8.12] "...but Allah came to them whence they did not expect, and cast terror into their hearts; they demolished their houses with their own hands and the hands of the believers; therefore take a lesson, O you who have eyes!" [Koran 59.2]

Terrorizing non-believers is, therefore, an integral part of Islam.
 

ISLAM IS NOT A PEACE LOVING RELIGION like modern Christianity, despite what apologists of Islam repeatedly say. My friend Dr. Tawfik Hamid wrote recently:

"The statistics are striking. According to a recent survey by the Justice department, while Muslims constitute about 1% of the American population, they contribute 80% of the Home Grown Terrorism. According to these data, the probability of an American Muslim to conduct a terrorist act in the US is approximately 400 times the probability of American Non-Muslims to an act of terror. Furthermore, the vast preponderance of the last decade's worldwide terror acts have been conducted by Radical Islamic groups."

These terror acts by Radical Islamists have already exceeded 15 thousand acts since September 11th, 2001. (The list is available at http://www.thereligionofpeace.com).

Dr Tawfik Hamid (www.tawfikhamid.com), who was a member of the MB in Cairo and knows their ideology from within, is trying today to reform Islam by reinterpreting the Koran. Dr. Hamid and the better-known Dr. Zhudi Jasser, the son of Syrian parents, have the same goal. Dr. Jasser says: "Without a paradigm shift in the way we address the issues of Islamist terror and ideology, I am ever more fearful of what lies ahead for American Muslims. Radicalization and terror are but a symptom of an underlying ideological conflict between modern western liberal democracy and the false dream of the Islamic state and its instrument of shar'iah law". [Fox News March 9, 2011]

Unfortunately, these two brave idealistic intellectual Islamic apostates who are risking their lives, are there alone, with a very small number of Muslim followers, and a few hundred non-Muslim friends. They cannot be a real challenge to the hundreds of thousands imams, who spew hatred of the West and misojudaism every Friday in mosques all over the world.

Islam, unlike Catholicism, has no single living authoritative figure who could reform it. There is no one, like Pope Benedict XVI who recently reiterated his predecessors' sentiments regarding Christian-Jewish relations

"VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI has made a sweeping exoneration of the Jewish people for the death of Jesus Christ, tackling one of the most controversial issues in Christianity in a new book. In "Jesus of Nazareth-Part II" excerpts released Wednesday, Benedict explains biblically and theologically why there is no basis in Scripture for the argument that the Jewish people as a whole were responsible for Jesus' death" (March 2, 2011).

Unlike Christianity or Judaism, Islam has no mechanism to modernize and reform, i.e., to analyze and reinterpret the "immutable" Koran, which is considered by Muslims to be the word of Allah. Christian and Jewish scriptures, on the other hand, are known by their believers to have been written by men, many of whom are known by name. Therefore, it is allowed to examine and reinterpret Jewish and Christian scriptures. This is an insurmountable difference that prevents militant Islam from becoming "a religion of peace".
 

THIS BRINGS US BACK TO THE USA' MIDEASTERN POLICIES. The following are my strongly felt opinions and interpretation of recent world events, as controversial as they might be.

President George W. Bush's declaration, following 9/11, that Islam is "a religion of peace," in spite of all the evidence contradicting this statement, implied in effect a surrender to Jihadism. At least, this must have been the way the Jihadists interpreted Bush's statement. Based on previous acts of Al-Qaeda, Bush must have had sufficient information on Jihadism long before the strike of 9/11.

The alternative common explanation — that this unwarranted move by the American President was motivated by the friendship between the Bush family and the Saudi royal family — is untenable. Bush as president of this country, with all the responsibility that this office entails, was not bound by family friendships. Neither was Jimmy Carter when he succumbed to Jihadist blackmail, going into a rathole for the rest of his tenure. President Bush, like Bill Clinton before him, was intimidated by Islam's aggression, and hoped to appease it by his amazing declaration.

Clinton coddled Yasser Arafat, the notorious Jihadist, and, like his wife Hillary, supported a "Palestinian State." to appease Arafat. In doing so, Bill Clinton was pursuing his own policy of establishing a new Muslim state in the heartland of ancient Serbia. Kosovo was yielded to the very same Jihadists who drove out the Soviets from Afghanistan and years later perpetrated 9/11. Clinton's Kosovo policy succeeded after the US media demonized the Serbs, and NATO, using US Air Force, bombarded Belgrade indiscriminately into compliance. I hope that I am not the only one who sees an analogy between Clinton's policy in the Balkans and the current American ME policy.

George Bush's declaration that Islam is "a religion of peace," must have helped to recruit thousands of new Jihadists, since perceived intimidation is followed by intensified aggression.

Presidents Clinton and Bush did not need Drs Jasser and Hamid to tell them the true nature of Islam. There were hundreds of published studies by reputable American and European scholars to tell them this, many years ago.

This brings us to the 2008 election, when John McCain prohibited bringing up the Islamic upbringing of Barack Obama as an issue. This undoubtedly helped Barack Obama's election to presidency. McCain reluctance to invoke the Islamic issue was most probably connected to the "traditional" American submissive policies of Carter, Clinton and Bush.

President Obama now advocates a transnational world under the rule of the Muslim-controlled UN. Obama's transnational world reminds me of the "desired" Islamic global Caliphate (but this might be just a coincidence). However, Obama's policy in Libya, following in the footsteps of Clinton's policy in Serbia, is unlikely to be coincidental. Obama has been trying to help the MB Jihadists, using NATO while fighting the same Jihadists in Afghanistan. This is certainly disquieting.

Obama also consistently refuses to defang militant Islamist Iran, which by using its Jihadist proxies (Hezbollah and Hamas) has cost the lives of thousands of US servicemen in Afghanistan and Iraq and a comparable number of Israeli victims.

The state of Israel is now under the gun of millions of followers of the "religion of peace," starting with Ahmadinejad who vowed to "wipe Israel off the map," before he does the same to the US (thanks for this order of Iranian priorities!), and ending with Egypt with whom Israel has a US guaranteed peace treaty. With the support of Obama, it is likely Egypt will be ruled by the MB in the near future and abrogate the treaty with Israel. Israel is now apprehensive of having the same fate as Serbia, or worse — being wiped off from the face of the earth by Iran, without Obama moving a finger. The surrender of Lebanon to Iran with the tacit approval of Obama, does not bode a better fate for Israel, America's traditional ally.

Also Israel is not free from intimidation. Israeli authorities have been intimidated by European and Israeli jihadist sympathizers, to facilitate, by an unjustifiable PC attitude, the recent gruesome murder of sleeping babies in Itamar. Much worse, however, is Israel's tolerance of Hamas' continued shelling of Jewish towns in Southern Israel. This inexplicable tolerance must be interpreted by the Jihadists as successful intimidation of their hated Zionists enemies.

Even if we try to forget Obama's Islam-inspired ideology, the MidEastern policy of the US, beginning with Carter and Ronald Reagan's retreat from Lebanon, can be perceived as intimidation of this nation. Reagan retreated while realizing that Jihadist Islam is a mortal enemy of America. Irrespective of Reagan's reasoning (that might have been impaired by his injury), his move must have been perceived by the Jihadists as intimidation and submission (the meaning of the word "Islam").

Had Reagan acted decisively and eliminated Iran's militant Islamic regime, which planned, financed and finally ordered the Beirut massacres, the world would have been a much safer place today, and many, many American lives would have been spared.

The same might be true, though to a lesser extent, of Bush's unwarranted declaration that Islam is "a religion of peace." The same is also true of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's support for establishing near ground zero of the 9/11 attack a Muslim memorial for that Jihadist atrocity.

All these must be perceived by devout militant Muslims as indications that the United States can be successfully intimidated by Islamic jihad, which must now be made ready to inflict its mortal blows on the hated West.

Policy mistakes were made in the past and will be made in the future. It is critical to recognize these mistakes and correct them as soon as possible. Following the current 30+ year-long trajectory of intimidation by Islam, the US will sooner of later succumb to Jihadism. To survive, the US must immediately stop being intimidated and inflict on Jihadist Islam an indisputable mortal military defeat.
 

Michael Anbar , Ph.D., is Professor of Biophysics and Chairman of Dept. of Biophysical Sciences, Sch. of Medicine, Univ. of Buffalo (1977-2002, now retired). Previously, he was professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science and Deputy Director of the Soreq Nuclear Research Institute, in Israel. He actively participated in the wars of 1948,1956 and 1967, and is the author of Israel and its Future.

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