It’s always the same after every terror attack in that nothing is ever the same anymore. Everything we thought we knew must be rethought all over again. In the week since the attacks in Paris rocked us to our cores, the very meaning of basic principles we thought we once understood are up for debate. What does Freedom mean? What does it mean to be Brave? Or Innocent?
In response to the Charlie Hedbo shooting, and specifically to the Charlie Hedbo shooting, Hamas said “any differences in opinion is no justification for killing innocents.” Now, why would they say that? Not because it’s wrong, but because it’s wrong coming from them. This is the same organization, after all, who indiscriminately fires rockets into Israel to kill anyone they can and more recently instructed Palestinians to drive their cars into crowds of Israelis, resulting in the deaths of a mother and her baby in its stroller. A baby. What could that baby have possibly done? Was it not innocent? Or according to Hamas, are no Israelis innocent? Or are the implications even more troubling?
Hamas-run Al Aqsa TV airs a children’s program called The Pioneers of Tomorrow. It’s a show in the same vein as Barney & Friends in which a young female host named Saraa and costumed characters entertain and interact with their young viewers, callers and in-studio guests. And disguised in the fun, they also educate with stories and songs and special guests. They teach the children key life lessons, or as the first mascot of the show, a Mickey Mouse-type named Farfour, put it: “we are placing together the cornerstone for the ruling of the world by an Islamic leadership.” In that way, it does differ a bit from Barney.
The first element in that cornerstone is pride in speaking Arabic and not English, the crass language of the infidel. Though, in later seasons, the benefits of knowing the language of the enemy to better understand them is encouraged. The show presents thought-provoking debates about what to do with the Jews in Israel. Saraa takes the stance that they should be expelled and left to scatter around the world, while Nassur the bear contends the Jews should be slaughtered. They ultimately reach a compromise wherein Jews are expelled from Islamic holy lands, but by any means necessary. So if they won’t go peacefully, then it’s expulsion by slaughter. Until that time comes, the host and cast of characters encourage children to throw rocks at Jews, shoot them, punch them, kill them, and Assud goes so far as to promote eating them. And in 2008, when a cartoon came out of Denmark, he broadened his appetite to include Danes.
If there is a central theme of The Pioneers of Tomorrow, it’s the need to protect Islam and the Al Aqsa mosque and take revenge on the criminal infidels who occupy it “by means of morning prayers, blood, sacrifice, and pain by means of martyrs and endurance.” And to drive home the point, over the life of the show, three of the mascots, Farfour the mouse, his cousin Nahoul the bee, and Nahoul’s brother Assud the rabbit die on screen a martyrs death. Just in case anyone thought they were getting too preachy and not putting in enough practice. They even sing the classic “When We Get Martyred” song. It goes a little something like this- sing along if you know it:
When we get martyred we will go to Paradise.
When we get martyred we will go to Paradise.
No, don’t say we are too small, this life has made us grown ups.
Without Palestine, our childhood means nothing.
Without Palestine, our childhood means nothing.
Even if they gave us all the money in the world, it won’t make us forget.
I am willing to sacrifice my blood for my country.
Without Palestine, our childhood means nothing.
Without Palestine, our childhood means nothing.
Our childhood means nothing… It’s not just Israel. In the Radical world of Islam, there simply is no innocents.
The Taliban has been taking advantage of gullible children, coercing and bribing them to be suicide killers for years. al Qaeda has its Birds of Paradise and Islamic State their Zarqawi’s Cubs Camps where they train prepubescent boys in, and romanticize the life of jihad. They take their own young and darken their hearts and wash their minds of the ability to make their own choices. Which is what it means to be Free: to be able to make your own choices. And standing by those choices in the face of adversity and consequence is what it means to be Brave. And being Innocent is the ability to make those choices free of prejudice. And right now, that is not what it means to be Islamic in too much of the Muslim world. And it's the meaning of Islam which is at stake here.
Howard Dean and President Obama can say the radical terrorists aren’t Islamic, but that’s like the world telling America what it means to play football. If anything, that just makes America angrier about soccer. Only Islam can define Islam. The free world can fight the immediate threat of the radicalized subset of Islam, but the real war is for the innocents of Islam. Not just for now, but for the future generations of Islam. Will those generations be future representatives of peace and love or will the innocents be lost to violence and hate?
Right now, those two diametrically opposed sides are making their cases, but one is making theirs a lot louder than the other. We keep hearing that moderate Islam is condemning terror in the name of Islam, we just don’t hear about it all the time but it's there. Well, we have to hear it, because we hear the Radicals, and they seem to be winning. If not the hearts of the world, then the minds. If moderate Islam is going to win out, they must stand up in the face of Radicalism and in a full throat, with no justification or equivocation, they must condemn the acts and make clear what it means to be Islamic and as they're acts today are defining Islam for today and tomorrow, any acts done in the name of Mohammad are returned in kind on Mohammad. If you are respectful in the name of Mohammad, then you are respecting Mohammad. If you love in the name of Mohammad, then you are loving Mohammad. And if you kill in the name of Mohammad, then you are killing Mohammad. This must be done, not just for the peace of mind of the rest of the world, and not at all to take ownership of or apologize for Radical Islam, but to save the innocents of Islam, to ensure the meaning of the innocence of Islam.
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