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[ThinkAndGrowRich]

The question that comes to my mind is this....If the supposedly peaceful MAJORITY will not VISIBLY and VOCALLY chastise and punish the VERY VISIBLE and VOCAL violent MINORITY....what the hell else is the world supposed to do, but to think that Radical Islamic Terrorist are truly representative of Islam as a whole??

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060318/COLUMNIST14/603180340
[/quote]The violence of the minority
Article published Saturday, March 18, 2006

ON MARCH 3, Mohammed Taheri-azar, a 22-year-old graduate of the University of North Carolina, rented an SUV and drove it into "the Pit," an area between two libraries on the UNC campus in Chapel Hill where students congregate, injuring nine.

Mr. Taheri-azar told police he made the attack "to avenge the deaths of Muslims around the world."

Attitudes and actions like those of Mr. Taheri-Azar explain why 46 percent of Americans expressed a negative view of Islam in the most recent Washington Post-ABC News poll.

According to the poll, the proportion of Americans who believe Islam helps to stoke violence against non-Muslims has more than doubled since 9/11.

Since the poll was taken in the aftermath of the rioting over the Danish cartoons, the Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections, and an upsurge of violence in Iraq, one could argue this percentage is remarkably low. If you'd taken a poll in 1943 about American attitudes toward the Germans or the Japanese, substantially more than 46 percent would have expressed disapproval.

James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, said the negative attitudes were a product of the "demonization" of Arabs by politicians and media commentators.

The truth is that most politicians and journalists struggle as they try to distinguish between Muslim extremists and the religion of Islam itself.

In Chapel Hill, university officials have refused to characterize Mr. Taheri-azar's assault as either a hate crime or an act of terror. When some students protested the attack, there was a counterprotest.

"By calling it religious violence, you are telling people that Muslims are violent," sophomore Jonathan Pourzal told the Durham Herald Sun.

Mr. Taheri-azar's attack "has exposed not only the continuing danger of domestic terrorism but also the inability of some leaders and communities to recognize that danger and take it seriously," wrote Shannon Blosser in National Review.

The lengths to which many in the Establishment go to avoid drawing any connection between Islamic terror and Islam itself is causing a backlash among Americans, one which is causing otherwise sensible people to overlook critically important distinctions.

I said in my column March 4 that there are genuinely moderate Muslims who support liberty and democracy. I received a distressing number of erudite e-mails, many quoting from the Qur'an, from people who said no, the problem is Islam itself.

People like Mr. Taheri-azar fuel this assumption. He was, according to classmates, a friendly guy who drank and smoked pot. His radicalism seemed to appear out of the blue.

"This is what I have dubbed the 'Sudden Jihad Syndrome,'" wrote Daniel Pipes. "It has the awful but legitimate consequence of casting suspicion on all Muslims. Denouncing these views as 'Islamophobia' is as baseless as accusing anti-Nazis of 'Germanophobia.'

"Instead of presenting themselves as victims, Muslims should address this fear by developing a moderate, modern, and good neighborly version of Islam that rejects radical Islam, jihad, and the subordination of 'infidels,'●" he said.

Sheikh Abdul Palazzi, secretary general of the Italian Muslim Association, agrees:

"Muslims should be in the forefront of efforts to refute the Islamists and to counter their abuse of Islam," Sheikh Palazzi wrote. "Unfortunately, either from fear or for other reasons, Muslims are doing virtually nothing to distinguish authentic Islam from the counterfeit image presented by the Islamists."

Muslims - and liberals - have got to stop making excuses for the violence of the minority, or an ugly situation will get uglier.
Jack Kelly is a member of The Blade’s national bureau.
» E-mail him at jkelly@post-gazette.com
» Read more Jack Kelly columns at www.toledoblade.com/jackkelly