This month's comment by AKef Tayem, founder of S.O.A Ministries

"We should then run after our terrorist sons, in the full knowledge that they are the sour grapes of a deformed culture."

I read an interesting editorial in the Dallas Morning news, titled 'An Arab journalist's wake-up call.' - Dallas Morning News September 9th, 2004

I would like to first quote a few paragraphs from the editorial and also the article it refers to, before I present my views for this months comments:

'The world crossed a Rubicon last week in Beslan Russia. The torture and massacre of children by Muslim terrorists and forcing a number of people to come to terms with an agonizing truth. The prominent Arab Muslim journalist Abdel Rahman al-Rashed said it bluntest and best: "It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims."

Mr. al-Rashed made his agonizing observation in a column published Saturday September 4th, in the London-based Arab-language newspaper Al Sharq al-Awsat.

In his article Mr. al-Rashed writes " The hostage-takers in Beslan, North Ossetia, were Muslims. The other hostage-takers and subsequent murderers of the Nepalese chefs and workers in Iraq were also MUslims. Those involved in rape and murder in Darfur, Sudan, are Muslims, with other MUslims chosen to be their victims.

"Those responsible for the attacks on residential towers in Riyadh and Khobar were Muslims. The two women who crashed two airlines last week were also Muslim. Osama bin Laden is a Muslim. The majority of those who manned the suicide bombings against buses, vehicles, schools, houses and buildings, all over the world, were Muslims. What a pathetic record. What an abominable 'achievement'.

"Does this tell us anything about ourselves, our societies, and our culture....let us start by putting an end to a history of denial. Let us acknowledge their reality, instead of denying them and seeking to justify them with sound and fury signifying nothing."

"For it would be easy to cure ourselves if we realize the seriousness of our sickness. Self-cure starts with self-realization and confession. We should then run after our terrorist sons, in the full knowledge that they are the sour grapes of a deformed culture. "

"...Let us listen to Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the sheikh - the Qatar based radical Egyptian cleric - and hear him recite his fatwa about the religious permissibility of killing civilian Americans in Iraq. Let us contemplate the incident of this religious sheik allowing, nay even calling for, the murder of civilians.

"This ailing sheikh, in his last days, with two daughters studying in 'infidel' Britain, solociting children to kill innocent civilians."

In conclusion to his article, Mr. Al-Rashed writes: “ We cannot redeem our extremist youths, who commit all these heinous crimes, without confronting the sheikhs who thought it ennobling to reinvent themselves as revolutionary ideologues, sending other people’s sons and daughters to certain death, while sending their children to European and American schools and colleges.”

I must say that I found the article to be very courageous and edifying to say the least. I too made the same observation over thirty years ago…only it had a more dramatic result on my life.

I sympathize with the youth who’s gullibility is sought after and exploited by radical extremist Muslims. But unfortunately for Islam the issue goes much further. As Mr. Rashed so eloquently expressed, it is the Arabic culture that provides the breeding ground for young terrorist recruits…I know, I could have been one myself… “Such thoughts and comments are of special significance to me, because they influenced my upbringing. It is difficult to grow up and find out my ideology and concepts about people of other nationalities and religions were based on lies, distortions and un-founded accusations. What puts me in an even more precarious situation, is that I am a Palestinian Arab, a refugee at that. A potential lethal combination judging by the unending news reports of suicide bombers…’There, but for the grace of God, go I”. (quote from my book ‘A Muslim, the Qu’ran, and Jesus, the Son of Mary’)

On my website, www.sonsofabraham.com, I too hold Islam’s hierarchy responsible for the poisoning of pan-Arabian budding olive branches into fanatic zombies girded with belt laden attire, brainwashed into thinking that their cold, inhuman, and heinous crime of killing innocent people, including children, some not too much older than themselves, would earn them a 'ticket' to Paradise, where seventy young virgin black eyed beauties are anxiously waiting the arrival of their shredded and mutilated bodies, to fulfill all of their sexual fantasies...dream on!

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