TEL AVIV – It’s not enough for Muslims to declare that groups like the Islamic State do not represent Islam; it is time for the Arab world to take concrete steps toward fighting terror, the parliamentary affairs editor for a Jordanian daily said.
In a column in the Al-Ghad newspaper translated by MEMRI, Jihad Al-Mansi responded to the May terror attack in Cairo that killed 30 Christians.
“It is not enough to continue condemning the systematic murder perpetrated by the benighted extremist organizations in Egypt, such as the killing of the peaceful Copts and their children one day before the start of the month of Ramadan,” he wrote.
He slammed the Arab world for staying silent in the face of similar attacks in Syria, Iraq and the UK.
“It is not enough to say that they do not represent Islam if not a single real step is being taken to confront the dimensions of the dereliction that is increasing and spreading before our eyes every day,” he added.
Al-Mansi blamed the “hijacking of Islam” on non-extremists who say nothing to defend Shi’ites, Christians and other groups when radical fundamentalists implore Allah to unleash “doom and disaster” upon them.
It’s time to stop turning a blind eye to the deeds of those same murderers who aspire to instigate ethnic strife in Egypt, like the sectarian war that they instigated in Iraq and in Syria. It’s also time to stop turning a blind eye to the extremist schools of thought whose existence everyone knows about as well as the fact that they shape the murderers’ perceptions. Enough of focusing only on the crime and not on its causes and those who incite to it! In the same way, it is not enough to publish statements of condemnation without taking active steps to stop the propagation of those murderers, to uproot their incitement and nip it in the bud and reach those who finance and recruit these benighted people and spread them around the world to murder and sow division to their hearts’ content.
He continued by slamming Salafist schools — which he claims receive millions of dollars — for being allowed to indoctrinate children against anyone who holds a different opinion.
He charged radical ideologies with espousing the notion that a woman is an object for pleasure while a Christian exists only as a target to satisfy the lust for murder. Al-Mansi called for “clear positions” against such dangerous ideologies.
“Let us declare to these murderers and to those who stand behind them … stop killing children, and stop destroying our Arab countries,” he wrote.
He slammed the Arab world for still allowing radicals to present their venomous views on TV.
“It is impossible to fight terrorism and extremism so long as there is even one person who is allowed to disseminate his poisons and his extremist ideas in the Arab region and is granted the right to influence our sons and daughters and to recruit them in the guise of religion and of defending the religion [of Islam].”
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