"We Arabs Are Not Terrorists! ... The West Is the Terrorist!"

Translations of Arabic/Islamic Media

Fatwās • Press • Misc

Translated from the original Arabic by Al Mutarjim

This article is an example of how people seek to excuse the murder of civilians in the name of Islam, which happens every day and has been going on since the beginning of Islam, by attempting to somehow equate that with certain actions the 'other' has undertaken.

In the West's current perspective on terrorism, the criteria for classifying something as terrorist have become defective and crooked from what they were in the last two decades--the West currently defines terrorism as anything which opposes its policies, or contradicts its ideology! The Western definition of terrorism is not confined to suicide operations, or bombings, or what they consider terrorist groups--it goes far beyond that. The two main criteria are Western politics, and the new American policy in the Middle East. In the West, terrorism is defined according to their own self-interest and in the language of colonialism, in which they are fluent. Terrorism is not known as it is defined in international law, which is the infringement of mankind's rights and dignity, but instead it has come to be known as however the West desires it. If we are going to talk about terrorism, there is no way we can ignore the terrorism which is carried out by the West in its many forms.

We have the right to speak about this because we Arabs are not terrorists! Nor are we racists, but instead we are the owners of civilization and culture. We were even the first in history to create a civilization, for the Sumerian civilization was the first in history. Its influence still continues to this day, as does that of the Canaanites and ancient Egyptians, all of which are deep-rooted in our history. We are people who love freedom and culture, and not, as the West likes to describe us, the people with exploding butts, or just a bunch of angry mobs. Let us see what the West looks like when we discuss their colonial past, for it is more terrorist and bloody than either the Nazis or the Stalinists. It was the Western colonialists who destroyed entire civilizations and wiped out whole peoples, and killed and displaced millions! Throughout human history, none have committed more crimes on the rights of mankind than the West. The colonial West applied Machiavellian principles against the rights of the people whose land they occupied. For example, when France occupied Algeria, how many crimes did they commit, and how many of the peoples' rights did they violate? It is enough for us to say that Algeria became the land of a million martyrs due to the crimes committed there by the French occupation.

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Since the discovery of America five centuries ago, this nation has perpetrated terrorism. No one can deny that America, the modern nation, has destroyed the civilization of the American Indians, America's original inhabitants. And what did these new immigrants do to the rights of those Indians, the owners of land, history, and culture? Nor can any intelligent person deny the modern American terrorism which was perpetrated over the past century on the rights of the people by American colonialism. For example... [Goes on at length to give several examples of supposed American atrocities, including military actions in Vietnam, Panama, and of course Iraq, and quotes from such highly-regarded scholars as Noam Chomsky.]

* * * After all the rights trampled on by the West, how do they claim the right to describe us as terrorists, and describe themselves as civilized, cultured, and democratic? Here I have only given an outline of the information, but we should remember that Western terrorism was (also) represented by France, the UK, and Holland in the colonial age, when they were sending their soldiers to the slaughter! There remains an ever greater condemnation for the West in regards to terrorism, which is their creation of the entity which usurps the land of Palestine, which has killed, displaced, and forced (the Palestinians) to wander for six decades. (The West) has done nothing but support this monstrous entity, in killing and destroying the displaced Palestinian people! Regarding the United Kingdom, it is enough to mention that it is the author of the sinister Balfour (Declaration)! Enough to the dreaming and ignorance of what is going on around us! We are not against having good relations with the West, but only on the condition that our good relations are built on our Arab Islamic culture and identity, and not built on the logic of power or arrogance, nor on the logic that we are terrorists and they are humanitarian! All of us are searching for our human rights, but without taking away those rights (from others) with the executioner's whip! God hath made us free! We should also understand the truth that the West has long promoted terrorism against us, while we dare not say that the West is the terrorist!

"Terrorism in Modern Times and Western Concepts" (&date=2011-02-04 archived)
Donia al-Watan, Gaza, December 15, 2010, http://pulpit.alwatanvoice.com/articles/2010/12/15/216205.html. 

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