Illegitmate actions are the focus

Submitted by Schills (United States), Jun 27, 2012 at 19:21

Sara,

President Bush, in addressing Palestinians during the last Intifada, stated that even if the Palestinians had a legitimate claim their would be no discussion of a Palestinian state as long as they continued utilizing the illegitimate means of murdering civilians. The issue of offensive Jihad verse defensive Jihad focuses on whether or not Jihadists have a legitimate cause. I am at this point only concerned with the illegitimate murder of civilians.

I have been focused on the illegitimacy of Jihadist attacks on civilians from within the context of Islam, because approaching the subject from outside of Islam would be summarily dismissed. In this regarding I have pointed out that even if a Muslim were fighting a legitimate Jihad, he would be prohibited from killing civilians.

My effort is not to convince Jihadists. They cannot be persuaded. The goal is to convince Muslims generally that Jihadist actions are illegitimate making it harder for Jihadists to successfully attack us, and easier for us to isolate and eliminate them. Since we are westerns, it is necessary to convince people such as yourself, DNM, etc. that rhetorical attacks on Muslims generally only serve to strengthen the position of Jihadists. As I pointed out to you in a different post, socialists come in a spectrum ranging from Tony Blair to Stalin. Just as it does not make sense to treat all socialists like Stalin, it does not make sense to treat all Muslims like Jihadists.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".