(Toronto Sun) Salim Mansur - The dirty secret is how Muslims have suffered as a result of Islamism, have been driven from their homes, tortured, and killed across the Arab-Muslim world. The numbers run into millions. The other dirty secret is the continuing victimization of Palestinians by many of their fellow Arabs, and of their being used as pawns in the war of Islamists against Jews and Israel. Moreover, many Muslims, in supporting Palestinian rights without repudiating the rabid anti-Semitism of the Islamists, have contributed to the undermining of Islam as a religion of peace and coexistence, and sabotaged their moral authority to speak of justice in Palestine, or elsewhere. Ironically, or by providential design, the future of Islam and of Muslims, if they are to be free of the fanaticism of the Islamists, is bound to America's success in this war on terrorism. The writer is a professor of political science at the University of Western Ontario.
2004-02-16 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive