Terrorists can find succour anywhere. All it takes is a measure of fanaticism and intolerance, writes Ibrahim Nafie Internal Scotland Yard documents warned that terrorists could be preparing to use women and children as suicide bombers in further attacks on trains and other soft targets in London, it was reported this week in the British press. The news item sent a chill up my spine as I contemplated the ramifications of the very existence of such documents in Britain's security and law enforcement agencies. The most obvious implication is that Arab and Muslim men and women of all ages, indeed everyone with Arab or Asian features, is henceforth going to be treated as a potential suicide bomber in the making. Wherever they are -- at home, at work, on buses and trains -- they are going to be eyed with permanent suspicion and kept under constant surveillance. If the reports are true, Europe is on the brink of a new phase in its treatment of Arabs and Muslims. And the initiatives will come from a nation whose prime minister declared, as he entered his country's bid to host the Olympics, that its capital embraces people of all cultures, races and religions. The news also coincides with a spate of decisions taken in European capitals to clampdown on radical imams and tighten restrictions on the right to political asylum from Arab and Muslim countries. These precautions, taken together, tell us what sort of picture Western societies have formed of Arab and Muslim peoples, and of Islam. The terrorist groups that masterminded and carried out the attacks on Washington and New York, on London, on Taba and Sharm El-Sheikh and elsewhere, have committed the gravest injustice to Islam, to the Muslim people and to their communities in the West. I also believe that those commentators who appear on Arab satellite news programmes and panel discussions to inform us that these crimes are a justifiable response to aggression in Iraq or Palestine are no less guilty than the actual perpetrators of the attacks. Now is the time to set into motion a truly earnest, comprehensive and collective drive against the ideology and activities of these groups, and against those who pose as apologists for terrorism. It must be stressed that terrorism is a universal phenomenon and, as such, cannot be pinned on any one society, ethnic group or religion. It exists wherever there are the factors that help it take root and breed. In this regard it is important to consider recent developments in Israel in response to its forthcoming disengagement from Gaza. Radical settler groups and ultra right religious extremists have stepped up their campaign of incitement as the 17 August deadline for the first phase of troop withdrawals and settlement evacuation in Gaza approaches. They are resorting to increasingly violent means of protest, goading Israeli soldiers into disobeying the evacuation orders and generally inflaming the Israeli public through a massive campaign to portray the Gaza withdrawal as a catastrophe no less cataclysmic than other calamities visited upon the Jews, with the difference that this one is being visited by Jewish "traitors". With all this incendiary propaganda poisoning the air is it surprising that a religiously extremist Israeli soldier decides to board a bus full of Arab Israeli citizens bound for the town of Shfaram and, when the bus reaches its destination, to open fire on the passengers, killing four and wounding at least 48 others. Yet the incitement to hatred and violence goes on. Some in Israel refused to describe this massacre as a terrorist attack while others cast around for possible justifications. Apparently apologists for terrorism are to be found in all societies. But there were also commentators in Israel who had the courage to speak out against the frenzied attempts by politicians and commentators to downplay the incident. Under the heading "The killers are coming from the right", in Yediot Aharonot of 5 August, Yossi Sarid insists that the Shfaram incident should be referred to as what it is, a terrorist attack. He adds: "It is unclear why police commanders and some news reporters attempted to forego the obligatory definition. There are Jewish terrorists out there. It's still hard to digest this but it's a fact, and their acts have no other name but 'terror'." The former leader of the left-wing Meretz Party then reminded readers of other terrorist acts perpetrated by Jewish extremists, such as Ami Popper who, in May 1990, lined up and shot seven Palestinian workers waiting for their bus and Barukh Goldstein who killed dozens of worshippers at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron in February 1994. He concludes ominously. "Many other people subjected to incitement are walking in our midst now and they're planning the next terror attack." I believe that Yossi Sarid's article is a powerful response to those who want to pin terrorism on Arabs and Muslims. Terrorism flourishes wherever it finds the right environment, wherever there is fanaticism and intolerance, wherever there is an inflated sense of self-importance and self- righteousness and the concomitant tendency to automatically cast others as inferior, outsiders or heretics. There is no denying the magnitude of the terrorist threat. However, I would still caution European countries, and Britain in particular, against overreacting by pursuing measures that would bring needless harm to the innocent people who make up the vast majority of Arabs and Muslims residing in the West. The world needs to wage a comprehensive fight against terrorism and against the root causes of terrorism. But this fight must be waged in a manner and spirit that ensures that all governments and societies work together for otherwise the fight against terrorism could become a wedge that drives nations and societies apart.
