Harvey Enchin writes in the Vancouver Sun, with thanks to Boomeros.
Hours after the terror attacks on the London subway and a bus last week, the Canadian Islamic Congress issued a brief statement that condemned the bombing.
It offered no condolences, expressed no grief, displayed no shock; it was instead a directive to the public not to blame Islam.
“We hope Canadian Muslims are not found guilty by association,” said its national president, Mohamed Elmasry.
Criticism forced him to subsequently toss in some disingenuous sympathy, but he’d shown his true colours. That Elmasry should be speaking as the head of any Islamic organization is an affront to what its followers call a religion of peace.
Last year, he suggested all Israelis over the age of 18 should be murdered, arguing that because Israel has a civilian army they are legitimate targets for Palestinian suicide bombers. There were calls for his resignation, which Muslim leaders refused. Later, on a CBC radio program, he defended Islamic terrorism, saying the colonial powers committed worse atrocities and deserved what they got.…
As long as apologists for terrorism like Elmasry are allowed to be spokesmen for Islam, all Muslims are vulnerable to being found guilty by association…
What is obvious is that Islamic terrorism has nothing to do with Iraq, where the U.S. and its allies ousted a repressive regime and have invested billions of dollars to rebuild the country while putting their citizens’ lives at risk to establish democracy.
Nor has it anything to with the Palestinians to whom the G-8 leaders have committed another $3 billion US to help establish an independent state even though the Palestinian Authority has done nothing to dismantle its vast terrorist network as it is obliged to do under the “road map.”
Neither can Islamic terrorism be linked to the overthrow of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, where the U.S. liberated a people from tyranny, giving them the right for the first time to choose their government; or to the West’s encouragement of the fledgling human rights movement in the Muslim world, where the concept has been unknown.
No, the terrorists despise the West because it is there, because its principles of religious freedom, democracy and equality are anathema to them.
So moderate Muslim leaders have to do more than grudgingly concede that blowing up innocent people on a subway train is bad. They have to rout out the evil in their midst.
Most Muslims are not terrorists, but most terrorists are Muslims. There is no place in civil society for an ideology that celebrates mass murder or deems suicide bombing a sacred act.
Moderate Muslim leaders must take aggressive steps to ensure that Islam proves to be what they keep telling everybody it is — a religion of tolerance and peace.