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What Is the Cause for ISIS Recruitment?
(Times of Israel) Christina Lin - Secretary of State Kerry claimed on Thursday, "there wasn't a leader I met with in the region who didn't raise with me spontaneously the need to try to get peace between Israel and the Palestinians, because it was a cause of [ISIS] recruitment and of street anger and agitation." This is perplexing because ISIS is recruiting Asian jihadists in droves, and Asians do not care much about the Middle East peace talks. Moreover, it is likely that Secretary Kerry's good friends in Qatar and Saudi Arabia are causing the jump in ISIS recruitment in Asia and elsewhere in the world. Singapore's former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew recognized the root cause of ISIS back in 2003, and pointed the finger at Saudi Arabia for the cause of terrorism in Asia. In the 40-odd years since petrodollars became a windfall in the Muslim world, Saudi extremists have been proselytizing, and building mosques and madrassas that preach Wahhabism. Lee warned in 2003, "In killing terrorists, you will only kill the worker bees. The queen bees are the preachers, who teach a deviant form of Islam in schools and Islamic centers, who capture and twist the minds of the young." Perhaps it may be more helpful for the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition if Secretary Kerry would ask his Saudi and Qatari friends to stop feeding those queen bees. The writer is a Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at SAIS-Johns Hopkins University.