A reality check for those who seem to think that radical Islam can be negotiated with.
Jerusalem, Israel (AHN) - Internet cafes in the Gaza Strip have become a primary target of Islamic terror groups, prompting owners on Wednesday to issue a desperate appeal to the Palestinian Authority for protection.
The Jerusalem Post reported that the latest attack came overnight Tuesday, when a large explosive charge severely damaged an Internet cafe in a northern suburb of Gaza City.
The attack was the 48th of its kind in the past five months. Local shops selling CDs and DVDs have also been targeted.
Stop and think about this for a moment. Why are the terrorist goon squads targeting internet cafes and CD/DVD shops? Could it be because those places are the primary ways the younger generations in the middle east get access to western culture? You know that it is.
Despite all the controversy last year over calling the terrorists “Islamic fascists” (it still boggles my mind how anybody could object to that terminology) here is an example of Islamic fascism at work. The extremists want the people of the middle east isolated from western culture. They don’t want them to be exposed to new ideas. New cultures. New types of entertainment. Because allowing that sort of exposure means risking change in their society. It is, after all, a bit harder to radicalize people who grew up reading about liberal western society on the internet and being entertained by the performers who live/work there. Not impossible, mind you, but harder.
Which is exactly why our country needs to be on the ground in the middle east. We need to be protecting the sort of commerce that allows internet cafes and CD/DVD stores to flourish. We need to keep open connections between our society and the middle east’s societies because our society, and all of the freedoms it embraces, is a good influence upon them. The more they’re exposed to it the more they’ll want it.
It’s not a desire that will grow overnight. Cynics will no doubt point to the widespread hatred of America and the west in general present all over the middle east, but that doesn’t mean we should stop trying. It doesn’t mean we should give up and bring our troops home. The only way the middle east is going to stop being the threat it is to the rest of the world is if the regimes that make it up liberalize. And the only way they’re going to be able to do that is if the boot of the Islamic radicals is taken off their collective throats.
We can do that for them, and make our world safer at the same time. We just have to keep trying.