Jihadists and the Big Lie

By Walid Phares

The Washington Times

January 10, 2005

As soon as the news of the killer tsunami aired, and the estimated fatalities started to escalate, most of the world reacted with sorrow and kindness.The reaction of jihadists and the clerics of radical Islam was something else altogether, but not unpredictable.

Had the tsunami hit the West Coast of the United States or the Japanese islands, the official theological story would have been that Allah punished the infidels for their aggression in Iraq. Had the waves reached Iran’s waterfront, the Salafi would have decreed that Shi’a apostates angered the divine. For each natural tragedy, the central madrassas produce an acceptable story. So, when the tsunami washed out tens of thousands of lives in two continents and five countries, the jihadists were ready: Step one: Determine who was killed and where. How many Muslims, how many Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Sinhalese and others? Only one matter is relevant when mass death and suffering occur — the role of the infidels, especially the United States and its allies.

Step two: unleash global Muslim frustration against the West. In the first hours after the tsunami’s deadly ravages, the chat-rooms of al Ansar were crowded with Mujahideen inquiring about the supreme version of the cataclysm. A (self- declared) sheikh stated that ‘Muslims have been killed by the thousands in Aceh province of Indonesia because of Kufr — action by infidels.’ Web-based broadcasts blasted President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair for ‘not doing enough to help Muslims [sic] victims, just because they were Muslims.’ Amazingly, a media storm in the West followed the first allegations on the jihadist networks, accusing the United States and Britain of failing the Muslim world. A former U.S. diplomat and a prominent American scholar wrote in the New York Times that this was a “grave miscalculation by President Bush, at a time he is suffering another disaster in Iraq.”

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