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----- Original Message -----
From: BFP-UPDATE, Jerusalem
To: evn@zionsake.zzn.com
Sent: Wednesday, March 20, 2002 11:09 AM
Subject: Assassins and Suicide Bombers - History
Does Repeat Itself
A large portion of the media is intent on making Islam more palatable to
Western masses. In their program some very important questions are being
left unanswered. What about suicide bombers? The Western mind cannot fathom
someone who would strap himself with explosives and take his own life for
any cause. Individual psychotic conditions in which such an event would take
place are easy to pigeon-hole, but a more widespread societal psychosis is
too unnerving for Westerners to process mentally.
Suicide bombing is certainly not a new idea. The seeds of its past are in
the history of the Fertile Crescent; specifically Persia. A brief history
of its origins is enlightening. Today's spreading problem of terrorism is
not a new one. In 1080 AD, in Alamut, a castle taken by force on a high plateau,
a "new propaganda" as it was called by its secret members shook the population
of Persia. Al-Hasan ibn-al-Sabbah, a Persian Muslim from Tus, who was descended
from the Himyarite kings of South Arabia, allowed his dark side to birth
what we now know as "assassination." Fueled by a desire for vengeance, and
overwhelming ambition, Hasan ushered terrorism into the world. Hasan was
an Ismaili missionary, (an unpopular minority sect of Islam) dedicated to
bringing deeper truths to a secret circle of followers. The word "assassin"
is a Hellenization of the Arabic "hashashin," or hashish eaters. Hashish
was the drug of choice with which to numb young men's moral ethics to the
point that they could easily kill on command.
Often Hasan's violence is attributed to reprisals against the Crusaders,
lending justification to the assassin's behavior. But, the first Crusade
did not happen until November 1095, some 15 years after Hasan began his reign
of terror. Hasan's attacks were not aimed at Crusaders until much later.
They were aimed at rival leaders in the Islamic world. Hasan claimed a "higher"
spiritual source of information that emancipated his followers from traditional
Islamic doctrines, already fraught with enough violence. In effect it was
carte blanche to live as debauched a lifestyle as could be imagined; violence,
murder, and even moral lasciviousness were included. The Assassins lived
above civil law by reason of the fact that they were initiates in the secret
society.
Raids by the Assassins on neighboring castles netted the secret society a
broad-based foundation from which to work. Europe and the Crusaders felt
the blows of the Assassins later. The idea of paradise for suicide bombers
had its genesis in the castles of Hasan's assassins. Young recruits would
be drugged during their initiation ceremony with a potion that when consumed
left them comatose for hours. Carried into a beautiful garden in the confines
of the castle they awoke to erotic pleasures until they were sated. Later
the experience was likened to the reward of the "martyr" should he lose his
life during an assassination. (from "The Book of Sir Marco Polo, the Venetian"
translated by Henry Yule, 1875).
This brings us up to the present. What would cause a young man to strap himself
with explosives and sacrifice his life to murder other innocent civilians?
Is it really fighting oppression and humiliation as the Palestinian Authority
claims? Three suicide bombers seem to spring up for every one that dies at
his act of terrorism. Parents of these young men, and now young women, do
not express regret during television interviews. Instead they convey their
pride for their sons' or daughters' Acts of violence against a supposed arch
enemy. Israel used to suffer almost alone in this phenomena but since September
11th, the world has been ushered into a new phase. Things changed that day
and have not returned to normal as of yet - and they may never return to
what they were before that ignominious act of terror.
Are these suicide bombers stupid half-wits recruited by wicked men? Actually,
almost half of the bombers that statistics are available on have a high academic
education. Their ages seem to hover between 18-23, the age when unshakable
ideals have not been tempered by the test of time. More than half of the
suicide bombers have come out of the Gaza Strip. These suicide bombers are
the pride and joy of Arafat's military arm since there is almost no defense
against them. Someone who is willing to lose his life to take the lives of
others is as good as the best missile.
Hamas admitted in a report on MSNBC recently that suicide bombers undergo
months of indoctrination to prepare them for attacks. The parents of recruits
often do not know until the day of the suicide attack that their sons or
daughters have been involved in training. This smacks too closely of Hasan's
secret society of assassins to be comfortable. The clincher is the God
connection. All suicide bombers believe with the depth of their beings that
they are on a mission from God.
The arguments within the ranks of Islamic leadership itself as to whether
suicide bombers are good Muslims is swept away with comments like those of
Sheik Yousef al Qaradawi, an Egyptian cleric considered to be moderate. He
says, "They are not suicide operations. These are heroic martyrdom operations,
and the heroes who carry them out don't embark on this action out of hopelessness
and despair but are driven by an overwhelming desire to cast terror and fear
into the hearts of the oppressors." Splitting of hairs over where to blow
oneself up simply underlines the absurdity of the issue. Mohammed Sayed Tantawi,
a leading doctrinal authority in the Sunni Muslim world, wrote in Egypt's
Al Ahram that "if a person blows himself up, as in operations that Palestinian
youths carry out against those they are fighting, then he is a martyr. But
if he explodes himself among babies or women or old people who are not fighting
the war, then he is not considered a martyr."
The bottom line then is that Israel is not so much the bully on the block
causing an underdog society to rebel against an oppressor. Like Hasan's time,
the accusations of the assassins fighting against an overwheling oppressor
did not fit. In Israel as well, the accusations of a downtrodden populace
rising up against oppression does not fit. In light of the history of
assassination, and the philosophy thereof, Israel is only a victim of an
age-old philosophy with its roots in Islam. Suicide bombing by Islamic militants
also terrorized Sudan under the umbrella of the British before it came to
Israel. The wool over the eyes of viewers of major media is being lifted
as we uncover the roots of the problems.
Israel has been loathe to use methods that the British used in Sudan, i.e.,
wrapping the suicide bombers body parts in pigskin to assure that no ceremonially
proper Islamic burial could take place. This assured the assassin would miss
his trip to Paradise. It also was credited with bringing suicide terrorism
to a halt in Sudan under the British colonial government.
With more puzzle pieces in place, it becomes easier to see the slant being
placed on events in Israel. Should you wish to read more about Hasan and
the Assassins, I have listed two web sites here that have much more information
on a little known slice of history.
Shalom from Jerusalem
Ron Cantrell
Publications Department, Bridges for Peace For further study, two "Assassins"
sites:
http://www.alamut.com/subj/ideologies/alamut/hitti_Ass.html and
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/anthony.campbell1/assassins/
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Muslims are
conditioned to act
alone
Why Hesham Hadayet may be scarier than al Qaeda
Dennis Prager
http://jewishworldreview.com/0702/prager.html
Jewish World Review July 11, 2002
According to news reports, the administration, the FBI and every other relevant
official agency cannot yet determine whether Hesham Mohamed Hadayet's murderous
attack on El Al Airlines customers at Los Angeles International Airport last
week was an act of terrorism. They are not sure whether Hadayet's murders
were a hate crime, terrorism or an act of personal anger. They even claim
not to be sure about Hadayet's motives.
The American government sure is easily baffled. An extremist Egyptian Muslim
chooses July 4th to murder Americans and Israelis who are flying from an
American airport on Israel's national airline -- and the official line is
that we can't call this terror or even identify the murderer's motives?
This country's officials are in a state of denial and confusion that is almost
as frightening as the terrorism they are supposed to be fighting. The FBI
says that unless Hadayet is linked to a terrorist organization, he did not
commit an act of terror. But if that is now America's criterion for defining
terrorism, Timothy McVeigh did not commit an act of terrorism. He wasn't
linked to a terrorist group.
This absurd definition is worthy of the Keystone Cops, not the Federal Bureau
of Investigation. Of course, we need to know if this man was linked to a
terrorist organization, but the absence of such a link in no way lessens
the fact that this was terrorism.
By confining our definition of terrorism to acts committed by those with
links to terrorist organizations, we may be ignoring the most frightening
aspect of Islamic terror: There are many individual Muslim extremists without
any links to any terror organizations who are prepared to slaughter Americans
and Jews.
Only Allah knows how many Hadayets there are. But based upon what we humans
can know, millions of Muslims, especially Arab Muslims, have been raised
with a hatred of Jews and Americans whose intensity is unique in the world.
According to a former employee of Hadayet, Abdul Zahab, 36, a Syrian immigrant,
Hadayet had told him that "the Israelis tried to destroy the Egyptian nation
and the Egyptian population by sending prostitutes with AIDS to Egypt."
Hadayet learned this grotesque libel from the Egyptian government's controlled
media, which, like other Arab media, routinely spread such lies about Israel
and Jews. Millions of Arab and other Muslims believe that Jews kill non-Jewish
children to use their blood for Jewish holidays and that 4,000 Jews avoided
working at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 because they knew about the
attack in advance. No wonder Hitler's "Mein Kampf" is a best seller in the
Arab world and the anti-Semitic forgery "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion"
is widely reprinted and read there.
And this hate is taught here, too. The Washington Post and The New York Times
have reported on Islamic schools in America that teach hatred for America
and Jews. That is why this debate about whether to call Hadayet's act "terror"
or merely "a hate crime" is not only foolish, it is suicidal. If al Qaeda
is destroyed tomorrow, it will hardly mean the end of Islamic terrorism.
There are so many Muslims filled with a diabolical hatred of Israel, America
and Jews that no terror organization is needed for Americans and Jews to
be murdered regularly.
Were it not for the fact that Israeli security people were armed and
spectacularly capable, Hadayet would probably have murdered and maimed dozens
of innocent people. How many Hadayets must there be before America calls
their actions terror and awakens to the dismal reality that a frightening
number of such terrorists are created daily?
This is not a call to hate Muslims. It is a call to acknowledge Muslim hate.
This hatred, the most virulent in the world today, created both 9-11 and
Hesham Hadayet. Denying this serves no one, and it breeds contempt for those
entrusted with protecting us from Islamic terror.
JWR contributor
Dennis Prager hosts a national daily radio show based in Los Angeles. He
is a director of Empower America and the author of "Happiness is a Serious
Problem". Click here to visit
his website.
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