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Update
from AIJAC
Beslan,
Chechnya, and Global Islamist Terrorism
Sept.
7, 2004
Number 09/04 #03
Today's Update discusses the implications of the almost unthinkably horrific
mass murder of school children in Beslan, North Ossetia, by terrorists associated
with the Chechens, though some appear to be Arab Islamists.
First, Zeev
Schiff, defence writer for Ha'aretz, looks at the links between
this attack and other Islamist terrorism. Schiff is especially scathing
of those who continue to turn a blind eye, and insist there is good and
bad terrorism, making serious international cooperation against terror
impossible. For his analysis, CLICK HERE.
Next, British
commentator William Rees-Mogg concentrates on the implications for Russia
of this horror, comparing its impact to Sept. 11. He says the effect of
the attack may push Russia toward greater cooperation with the US against
terror, something largely positive. For this detailed discussion off Russia's
status in the war on terror, CLICK HERE.
Finally,
Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, editor of the Al-Arabiyah news channel
writes that it is time for Muslims to admit that even though not all Muslims
are terrorist, almost all terrorist today are Muslims. He strongly calls
for Muslims to stop making excuses, look at their societies and do something
about terrorism, in yet another sign that there are new and promising
ideas getting heard in the Middle East of late. For al-Rashed's important
call for Muslim responsibility, CLICK HERE.
Analysis
/ A deadly common denominator
By Ze'ev
Schiff
Ha'aretz, Sept. 7, 2004
There is a line connecting this weekend's mass murder in a school in North
Ossetia, the ongoing genocide in Sudan, the bomb blasts on Madrid trains,
the bombing of Istanbul synagogues and the suicide bombings in Be'er Sheva.
That line is Islamic - for the most part Arab - terrorism and it endangers
world peace, particularly as some of the organizations involved are trying
to acquire nonconventional weapons, including nuclear arms.
This is not necessarily a "clash of civilizations," as a number of academic
experts claim, because Islamic terrorists are carrying out murderous attacks
against Muslims in Sudan, and against Muslim regimes such as Morocco, Saudi
Arabia and Turkey. There is no chance of dealing with such terror without
international cooperation. But such a combined effort cannot take place
when most members of the United Nations support "justified terrorism" if
it is carried out in the form of suicide bombings against Israeli civilians,
while a blind eye is turned to the fact that countries like Syria and Iran
fund terror operations and harbor the culprits. The massacre in North Ossetia
also shows that there is no "good" or "bad" terrorism. It is also no coincidence
that the last to offer assistance to those being butchered by Arab militias
in Sudan are the Arab countries, including its neighbors.
The murder of children by terrorists in North Ossetia is shocking because
of the large number of victims, but few remember the trauma of the attack
against an Israeli school in Ma'alot nearly 30 years ago. Similarly, in
that case, Palestinian terrorists took over the school and held scores of
pupils hostage. Like in North Ossetia, the Ma'alot rescue effort hit a snag.
The toll was 25 dead, among them 21 pupils. In both cases the murderers
presented themselves and were recognized as freedom fighters.
The tendency is now to divert attention from the murderers to the failed
attempt of the Russian forces that were rescuing the hostages. The root
of the evil, and of the act of terrorism against civilians, lies in the
premeditated takeover of the school, and the fact that the pupils were held
hostage and were threatened with death if the colleagues of the terrorists
were not released from Russian prisons.
The rescue operation in Russia has raised many questions because this is
not the first time that dozens of hostages have been lost in that country
as a result of an unimaginative and poorly executed action. In October 2002,
more than 120 hostages were killed when Russian special forces stormed a
Moscow theater where Chechen terrorists held hundreds of civilians. But
the theater was only the second-choice target of the terrorists: The primary
target had been a nuclear plant, but tight security there deterred them
from carrying out their attack.
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Beslan
is Russia's 9/11: it will change the world
William
Rees-Mogg
Times
(London), September 6, 2004
IN THE past three years, the world has been adjusting to the consequences
of 9/11. That one event has dominated American politics and policy. It
has divided the Nato alliance, with France and Germany taking one line
and the United States and Britain another. In both America and Britain
it has been the central issue of political debate. It has been a major
influence on the increasingly unstable world market for oil. It has been
the crucial event in the growth of Islamic terrorism.
On the day of 9/11, I was asked to write a short piece for The Times ,
reacting to the event. I thought that the nearest to a comparable date
was December 7, 1941, the day of Pearl Harbor, 60 years before. The American
people responded to that with an absolute determination to destroy the
power which had attacked them. They have done so again. President Roosevelt
called it 'a date which will live in infamy'. The consequences included
the dropping of the first nuclear bomb on Hiroshima; in many ways they
persist in influencing the present.
Many other people saw 9/11 in the same way. Clearly we were right. Like
Pearl Harbor or the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo
on June 28, 1914, 9/11 was one of the days which changed the world. Now
we have to ask whether the hostage-taking of the schoolchildren of Beslan
on September 1, 2004, the 65th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second
World War, was another of these historic tragedies. In Russia, at least,
that is how it has already been understood.
Beslan is for the Russians another terrible event which changes everything.
It changes many of the major factors of world relations, the future of
Russia itself, including the future of the Putin presidency, the war against
terrorism, including both Russian and Western relations with Islam, the
response to the growing threat of nuclear proliferation, the basic relationship
between Russia, Europe and the US, the probable outcome of the American
election and possibly even of the next British election, the future of
the world oil market, the future of the Middle East, and particularly
of Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia, even the economic development of the emerging
superpower, China.
Beslan is what strategists call 'a low-probability, high-impact event'.
Potentially it changes everything.
One must not underestimate the sheer impact of the horror of the event
itself. It is something people find very hard to contemplate. The people
who planned this massacre are every bit as evil as the people who planned
Pearl Harbor or 9/11, or as the SS men who ran Auschwitz. There is a blank
horror about what they did to young children which fortunately has few
parallels in the history of evil. It is important to hold onto that because
the world's sense of horror will influence everything that will follow.
A certain degree of wickedness is never forgotten or forgiven, whatever
its motive or political justification.
One can however start by asking some practical questions, issues which
are of unavoidable and therefore of legitimate concern to the whole world
of business and government. How, for instance, might Beslan affect Russian
or Arab oil supplies, on which the world economy depends? That is not
a cynical question. The oil inflation of the 1970s destroyed two or three
American presidents, a German chancellor, a French president, a couple
of prime ministers in Britain, and even contributed to the defeat of the
Gang of Four in China and fatally undermined the Brezhnev regime in the
Soviet Union. It damaged the world economy and grossly impoverished the
Third World. Such far-reaching events require analysis.
In the past decade, oil prices were surprisingly low; that led to underinvestment
in the development of new supplies, while the rapid growth of the Chinese
economy increased global demand beyond all market projections. At the
same time, the growing Russian oil supplies were stolen by the oligarchs
or kleptocrats of the Yeltsin era; the present Russian Government - quite
reasonably - wants to recover Russia's oil from the men who sold it to
themselves, at knockdown prices, in the 1990s.
The world oil market now largely centres on four countries, all of which
lie on the faultline of Islamic terrorism: Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iraq
and Iran. Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader, comes out of the Saudi
oil industry. His family culture is that of an Islamic oil man. The US
President, George Bush, has himself had experience in the oil industry
and was Governor of Texas, the leading oil state. Both men know that terrorism's
strongest weapon is the potential ability to disrupt global oil supplies.
The oil element in the war on terrorism is not a cynical American ploy;
oil is the economic base of the war, and that is well understood by both
sides.
The men who planned Beslan want to destabilise Russia, and particularly
to undermine President Putin, whom they see as their most formidable Russian
enemy. That is true whether the terror was planned by Chechen nationalists
or by Islamic radicals, or by some mixture of the two. The Beslan siege
has indeed had some initial effect in destabilising Russia and weakening
Mr Putin. Yet I expect that he will survive this crisis, for the same
reason that Beslan may be helping to re-elect Mr Bush. Democracies do
not like war, but when they are engaged in a war, they tend to back the
strongest leaders, such as Lloyd George in 1916, Churchill and Roosevelt
in 1940, De Gaulle in 1958, or Ariel Sharon repeatedly in Israel.
The Western nations have an overriding interest in the economic and political
stability of Russia - though after 175 years of blood, the Chechen problem
will be at least as difficult to solve as those of Ireland or Cyprus.
Beslan has reinforced the American understanding that it is at war, and
is indeed under direct threat. Mr Bush is their war leader, even if American
voters might prefer John Kerry's domestic policies. Mr Putin is an authority
figure; he is the toughest Russian leader since the end of the Soviet
Union. That may be what the Russians need; it is almost certainly what
they prefer.
After oil,
there is the issue of nuclear proliferation. Whoever is elected president
- and it will probably now be Mr Bush ' Iran will have nuclear weapons
and ballistic missiles inside the next term of office, perhaps by the
end of 2005. No one knows how to prevent that. The basic choices of policy
are to do nothing, to apply political pressure, to impose economic sanctions
or to use military force. It is certain that Mr Bush would go higher up
this scale of response than Mr Kerry.
It is not obvious how high Mr Bush would be willing to go, though the
Cheney-Rumsfeld team might be willing to go the whole way. Mr Putin has
more reason to accept a strong line with Iran than he had before. Iran
is involved in most of the terrorist plots in the Middle East, and plays
a big part in keeping Iraq destabilised. Russia has been committed by
Beslan to the war against terrorism, and Iran is on the side of the enemy.
What about China? There was an interesting clue in the coverage of Beslan
on CCTV-9, China's world television news service. The hostage-takers were
called 'separatist rebels'. China does not support 'separatist rebels'
in China or anywhere else.
Islamic terrorism seems to be a loose network; I doubt if there can be
any central strategic controller. There is a strategic idea of uniting
radical Islam against the non-Islamic world. Yet such a strategy also
makes the rest of the world more united against the terrorists.
Strategically, Beslan pushes Russia, which is a major power and a nuclear
one, towards working with the US against terrorism and in the Middle East.
China and India have similar motives and a similar fear of terrorism.
Europe remains as doubtful as ever, but becomes less important. Objectively,
as the Marxists used to say, the Chechen separatists have strengthened
Mr Bush; they have pushed Russia towards supporting his policy and they
have helped him to win re-election.
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'Innocent religion is now a message of hate'
Abdel
Rahman al-Rashed
Sunday Telegraph (London), 05/09/2004
It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally
certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims.
The hostage-takers of children in Beslan, North Ossetia, were Muslims.
The other hostage-takers and subsequent murderers of the Nepalese chefs
and workers in Iraq were also Muslims. Those involved in rape and murder
in Darfur, Sudan, are Muslims, with other Muslims chosen to be their victims.
Those responsible for the attacks on residential towers in Riyadh and
Khobar were Muslims. The two women who crashed two airliners last week
were also Muslims.
Bin Laden is a Muslim. The majority of those who manned the suicide bombings
against buses, vehicles, schools, houses and buildings, all over the world,
were Muslim.
What a pathetic record. What an abominable "achievement". Does all this
tell us anything about ourselves, our societies and our culture?
These images, when put together, or taken separately, are shameful and
degrading. But let us start with putting an end to a history of denial.
Let us acknowledge their reality, instead of denying them and seeking
to justify them with sound and fury signifying nothing.
For it would be easy to cure ourselves if we realise the seriousness of
our sickness. Self-cure starts with self-realisation and confession. We
should then run after our terrorist sons, in the full knowledge that they
are the sour grapes of a deformed culture.
Let us listen to Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Sheikh - the Qatar-based radical
Egyptian cleric - and hear him recite his "fatwa" about the religious
permissibility of killing civilian Americans in Iraq. Let us contemplate
the incident of this religious Sheikh allowing, nay even calling for,
the murder of civilians.
This ailing Sheikh, in his last days, with two daughters studying in "infidel"
Britain, soliciting children to kill innocent civilians.
How could this Sheikh face the mother of the youthful Nick Berg, who was
slaughtered in Iraq because he wanted to build communication towers in
that ravished country? How can we believe him when he tells us that Islam
is the religion of mercy and peace while he is turning it into a religion
of blood and slaughter?
In a different era, we used to consider the extremists, with nationalist
or Leftist leanings, a menace and a source of corruption because of their
adoption of violence as a means of discourse and their involvement in
murder as an easy shortcut to their objectives.
At that time, the mosque used to be a haven, and the voice of religion
used to be that of peace and reconciliation. Religious sermons were warm
behests for a moral order and an ethical life.
Then came the Neo-Muslims. An innocent and benevolent religion, whose
verses prohibit the felling of trees in the absence of urgent necessity,
that calls murder the most heinous of crimes, that says explicitly that
if you kill one person you have killed humanity as a whole, has been turned
into a global message of hate and a universal war cry.
We can't call those who take schoolchildren as hostages our own.
We cannot tolerate in our midst those who abduct journalists, murder civilians,
explode buses; we cannot accept them as related to us, whatever the sufferings
they claim to justify their criminal deeds. These are the people who have
smeared Islam and stained its image.
We cannot clear our names unless we own up to the shameful fact that terrorism
has become an Islamic enterprise; an almost exclusive monopoly, implemented
by Muslim men and women.
We cannot redeem our extremist youths, who commit all these heinous crimes,
without confronting the Sheikhs who thought it ennobling to re-invent
themselves as revolutionary ideologues, sending other people's sons and
daughters to certain death, while sending their own children to European
and American schools and colleges.
Abdel Rahman al-Rashed is general manager of Al- Arabiya news channel.
Yesterday, his article appeared in the pan-Arabic newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat.
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