fighting terrorism must be house to house, hearts and minds

Original Post: 17 Nov 2005

Fighting terrorism must be house to house, heart to heart, not by F-16s and tanks only. The tragic events of Amman and the daily events taking place in Iraq calls on all of us to be part of the fight against terrorism, and to enlist every one of us in the war against terrorism. The fight against terrorism, must not be left to George Bush’s “Neocons”, it must be our fight. The fight against terrorism must not be defined by war criminals like Ariel Sharon, but must be our fight too. The fight against terrorism must not be left to dictators like Musharraf, but must be our own fight.
To start with we must all of us, Muslims and Arabs before any one else in the world must not ever define and call suicide bombing a “martyr operation” we must call suicide bombing for what it is a criminal act and murder and we must never accept any excuse for such operation and must never accept any justification for such a cold blooded murder.
We Muslims, Arabs and Palestinians must never celebrate the lives of those who commit such cold-blooded murder and must never give recognition or value for these cowards and criminals and must never even attend or visit the families of such suicide bombers. We must never, ever give any recognition or contribution of suicide bombers to the cause of freedom and liberty.
We also must admit and give recognition to the fact that such suicide and terrorist acts do not take place in complete silence and in complete secrecy. Some must know, and no suicide -bombing takes place in complete isolation of the community. Suicide bombing in Palestine does not take place in complete vacuum of families and friends knowing about it. The daily acts of terrors taking place in Iraq does not take place in complete vacuum and without the knowledge of at least few people, who are as guilty as the terrorist and suicide bombers.
We all know that it committing suicide bombing and terrorist acts does not take place without the support of a number of people. To commit such acts of mass murder and killing takes more than one person. There are those who secure the explosive, who secure the cars, who secure and make available the detonators, who recruits these killers and murderers. It is an enterprise and every one in this enterprise is part of this murder incorporated.
Let us not ever accept and hear from Arab journalist who tries to give excuses and put forward justification for such murder. Terrorism taking place in Amman, in Baghdad, in Casablanca, in Riyadh has nothing to do with the American occupation of Iraq. We must never accept proposition of leaders of certain organization that put forward justification for suicide bombers and terrorism.
That is why I am convinced that fighting terrorism and suicide bombers must and should and will take place within every house, within every school, within every mosque. The killing that takes place finds no justification and we should never accept any excuses for terrorism and suicide bombing, even the Israeli and American occupation must never be used by any of us as an excuses. We must make sure that these killers and murderers must never find safe haven among us and among our people and among our mosques. Next time a terrorist or a suicide bomber commit acts of terrorism and murder we must make sure that no one, ever go and visit the families of these killers and murders and give the standard condolences. If any thing, we all must condemn terrorist and suicide bombing for what it is, killers and murderers.
The fight against terrorism, is our fight and we must declare was on these terrorist.