A recent opinion piece by a Dr. A. Adel Noureddin in the Egyptian government newspaper al-Akhbar is adamant in insisting that the series of ?terrorist operations? that have taken place in Asia recently are decidedly not the reason Islam is equated with terrorism. Rather, as the author writes, ?No kind of reasoning can accept that Islam will be synonymous with terrorism. The fact is that this image-smearing campaign is launched, organised and funded by Zionism.?
In fact, the Egyptian author claims, the Asian terrorist attacks also ?target peaceful Muslims....? Of course, he concedes, ?other operations have been carried out by extremist Islamic groups...? but even those attacks were ?to avenge the mass killings of Muslims at the hands regular armies.? In the view of the al-Akhbar columnist, Islam have replaced the Soviets as the bogey-man of the West. That is to say, there is no real justification for the West to equate Islam with terrorism, just as, implicitly, the Soviet Union was also unjustly stereotyped, according to the logic of the Egyptian author?s column. ?Was not the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina an act of terror against Islam and Muslims? Do the mass graves found, or the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Bosnians constitute not enough evidence to prove our argument?? asks Dr. Noureddin rhetorically.
In fact, the Egyptian author claims, the Asian terrorist attacks also ?target peaceful Muslims....? Of course, he concedes, ?other operations have been carried out by extremist Islamic groups...? but even those attacks were ?to avenge the mass killings of Muslims at the hands regular armies.? In the view of the al-Akhbar columnist, Islam have replaced the Soviets as the bogey-man of the West. That is to say, there is no real justification for the West to equate Islam with terrorism, just as, implicitly, the Soviet Union was also unjustly stereotyped, according to the logic of the Egyptian author?s column. ?Was not the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina an act of terror against Islam and Muslims? Do the mass graves found, or the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Bosnians constitute not enough evidence to prove our argument?? asks Dr. Noureddin rhetorically.