Many Muslims have pointed out since September 11 that Islam forbids killing women, children, and the innocent. Of this there is no doubt, but there is a key distinction: as I explain in Onward Muslim Soldiers, the Shafi’i school of Sunni jurisprudence stipulates that “it is not permissible . . . to kill women and children unless they are fighting against the Muslims.” The Hanbali jurist Ibn Taymiyya, a favorite of modern Muslim radicals, directed that “as for those who cannot offer resistance or cannot fight, such as women, children, monks, old people, the blind, handicapped and their likes, they shall not be killed unless they actually fight with words (e.g. by propaganda) and acts (e.g. by spying or otherwise assisting in the warfare).”
This is one reason why Samir Qantar, who murdered a four-year-old Israeli girl, her father, and a policeman in a notorious 1979 raid, has said: “In our opinion there are no civilians in Israel.” In Onward Muslim Soldiers I quote Muammar Qaddafi’s son, Seyf-al-Islam (Sword of Islam) Qaddafi, saying the same thing: “There are no civilians in Israel.”
This is also why Muslims can meet in a mosque and plot the murder of children in a nearby school: “Israeli police raided a West Bank mosque on Wednesday, capturing two Palestinians who allegedly were planning to attack a school. One was reportedly wearing an explosives belt.” This from AP, with thanks to LGF.
“. . . Israeli troops raided the mosque in the West Bank village of Bardala, nine miles south of Beit Shean. Tadji Sawafta, a local official, said two men were arrested.
“Dore Gold, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said the Palestinians were planning a suicide attack on a school in the Israeli town of Yokneam. One was wearing an explosives belt like those used by suicide bombers, Israeli media said.”