By: Mohamed Abulrahman

There have been numerous attacks in recent months and years on innocent people in different countries. We are not talking about the “deranged individuals” who carry a gun and go to a school, a theater, or any other crowded place and start shooting. We are referring to those organized attacks by organizations identified by our government as “terrorists” such as the recent one in San Bernardino, California that killed 14 people and the attack in Paris, France that killed 129 people, and the attack known as the “Charles Hebdo attack”, also in France that killed 11 people. There was also the attack in Kenya in 2011 that killed 147 people. Many other attacks took place in other countries over the years.

The so called “terrorist organizations” like Al-Qaida, ISIS and many others are not just a menace to the world but they are dangerous and deadly as we saw in California, France and other places. Unfortunately, all of these organizations’ members are Muslims, or so they claim, but what they are doing contradicts everything Islam stands for, which reminds me with an incident I read about on the internet. An ISIS man in Syria stopped a car driven by a Christian man with his wife sitting next to him. The conversation between the two men went as follows:

ISIS man: Are you Muslim?

The driver: Yes we are.

ISIS man: If you are Muslim, recite something from the Quran.

The driver recited something from the bible.

ISIS man: Yes, you are Muslim, go on and enjoy your day.

The driver’s wife asked her husband: Why did you tell him we are Muslims?

The driver: Because if I tell him we are not, he will kill us both.

The wife seemed to be worried. Her husband said: don’t worry, this man does not know anything about Islam or the Quran; if he does, he won’t be going around killing people.

To associate Arabs and/or Muslims with terrorists and terrorism is wrong. In fact, true Muslims are the first to condemn such heinous crimes committed by these thugs. They claim to be Muslims but they know nothing about Islam. If the profit Mohammed is still alive, I have no doubt that he will form an army and wipe those criminals off the face of this earth. The Israelis and their supporters in the United States and around the world want people in every country to believe that all Muslims and all Arabs are terrorists. Actually, you don’t blame them for this evil attempt because every criminal tries to pin the crime on someone else after profusely denying committing it. The crimes that Israel commits in the land of Palestine are numerous to mention and gruesome to talk about.

Believe it or not, the biggest and most dangerous terrorist organization in the world, and by far the overall worst one is called ISRAEL, the country of thugs. Before you let your jaw drop to the floor and say what??? Why Israel??

Well, just think about it. The definition of terrorists is a group of thugs killing innocent people and destroying their properties. No one did that more than Israel. In the name of self defense, they invaded the Gaza Strip and killed thousands of innocent people, and using the planes, tanks, missiles, bombs and other military equipment that our government gave them, they destroyed billions of dollars worth of properties in Gaza and the West Bank. If bombing schools, hospitals and homes is not terrorism I don’t know what is!!

The two biggest single attacks happened in 2001 and 2014. The first was on the Twin Towers in New York that killed 3,000 people, but the biggest and worst attack, outside of a war, happened in 2014 when Israel, for no reason at all, launched not a war but a massacre against the people of Gaza killing 2,200 of them and destroying billions of dollars worth of properties.

Although the number of people died in New York was larger than the number killed in Gaza, the latter was considered much worse due to the property destruction and the deplorable conditions that the area was left in afterword. The people who perished in New York were hailed as heroes, remembered every year in a special ceremony and their families were compensated for their loss. Our country invaded Afghanistan in attempt to revenge the incident, where as the people who died in Gaza were forgotten and the event rarely mentioned in the news. Their families were never compensated and the United Nations’ aid of food, medicine, and other life necessities were blocked by the Israeli army. A book can be written about the atrocities that the Israelis committed in Gaza and the West Bank but this is neither the place nor time for it.

BUT!! The $64 million question is…Who is responsible for the creation of such groups as Al-Qaida and ISIS??

If you say… well, the terrorist groups themselves are responsible for their actions. They committed these crimes on their own and they answer to, and take orders from, no one. Bravo, you are half right. Actually, the first blame should be directed toward the countries and organizations that either created them or caused them to exist. BUT… who are those countries, you ask?

Don’t look too far. We, the United States of America indirectly were the major contributor to the creation and strengthening of these groups.

What??? You ask in shock; how can you say that when we are fighting them and trying to destroy them (except Israel of course).

When Saddam Hussein was the president of Iraq, Al-Qaida had no trace in that country because Hussein did not like them and would not allow them in his country, but when George W. Bush, better known as “the worst president in the country’s history” decided in his infamous wisdom and under pressure from his vice president to invade Iraq to please and protect the Israelis, Al-Qaida had a golden opportunity to enter Iraq and flourish in it, thus allowing them to dig up their heals in the country. Following his orders, or rather Dick Chaney’s orders, our army killed a large number of Iraq’s army and dissolved the remaining fragments of it. Now Iraq has a few untrained soldiers who are under equipped and underfunded. This army is incapable of fighting anyone, which opened the doors to ISIS to attack villages, kill a large number of innocent people and occupy land.

It’s ironic that the two groups that we are forced to call “terrorists” have never attacked or threatened our, or any other, country in the world. The two groups are Hamas and Hizb- Allah. In the Middle East, if you Arabic and you fight for your country, Palestine, you are called terrorist.

Terrorism is a huge problem facing not just our country but the whole world. BUT… what is the solution, you ask??

Not everyone realizes this but most problems have solutions. Some solutions are more effective than others but never the less there is always one. Most people think there is no solution to terrorism or it involves a full scale war which no one wants including the president. Actually, the solution is simple and does not involve war. Here are the steps to the eradication of ISIS once and for all.

• Pressure Saudi Arabia to cut off their funding. There is no doubt that ISIS needs a huge amount of money to run their evil operation. Saudi Arabia and some countries in the gulf provide them with that.
• Pressure Israel to stop aiding ISIS. It’s a known fact in the Middle East that Israel and ISIS are fighting on the same side. They are both fighting the Syrian army, and they are both trying to destroy the reputation of Islam. When fighters from ISIS are injured, where do you think they are treated? In Israeli hospitals.
• Encourage fighter to leave ISIS and financially reward them. Many fighters join the terror group for the money. They are desperate for funds and willing to do what it takes to support their families. ISIS provides the funds for them. That’s what Some of the ISIS defectors on 60 minutes said.
• Support the individual groups in Iraq and Syria who are fighting ISIS. There are many militia groups in Iraq and Syria who are fighting ISIS with what they have which is not much. In an interview on 60 Minutes with one of the militia leaders, he said: people around here are either our friends and fight with us or our enemies and fight with ISIS. When the reporter said: then the US is your friend right? He replies, not really. The US refused to assist us in our fight against ISIS. He added: we don’t want American soldiers to fight our battles but we would appreciate other types of help like equipment and funding. The reporter then asked the commander of the American forces in Iraq about that. He said that’s true; only 20% of the people who fight ISIS qualify for our criteria to help them.
• Get congress to authorize bombing and fighting ISIS, and continue the air strikes on ISIS and encourage other countries to join in especially the surrounding ones.

If these steps are followed, ISIS will seize to exist in one or two years without sending our soldiers to fight in Iraq or Syria.