WarSclerotic

On June 12, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau led the Liberal Party in supporting a Conservative Party motion condemning “the current regime in Iran for its ongoing sponsorship of terrorism around the world, including instigating violent attacks on the Gaza border.” It also called for designating the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization.

Trudeau’s vote marked a sudden, unprecedented U-turn from more than 10 years of his personal and very public support for pro-Islamist causes and Iran, beginning in 2008 when he entered the parliament.

Since Justin Trudeau’s election two and a half years ago, however, the U.S. has grown increasingly worried about the Canadian government in general, and the prime minister in particular. Trudeau has called those who oppose the return of ISIS fighters to Canada “Islamophobic.” He also has said that ISIS fighters can be a “powerful voice for preventing radicalization” in Canada, even though his government does not have a deradicalization program. In addition, the government has yet to appoint a leader for the Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence.

The approximately 60 ISIS fighters who have returned to Canada roam the country freely. None has been charged or convicted. The government has shown no will to deal with them, not even when one was caught on tape describing how he had executed prisoners. Canada also has stopped sending the names of known ISIS fighters to the UN registry of terrorists, in spite of the fact that some of them are reported to be a chemical-weapons risk.

Most alarming to the U.S., however, has been Trudeau’s position on Iran, where the regime seems to want to increase its influence in Canada due to its proximity to the U.S. Trudeau has been enabling this penetration. He allowed Tehran to re-open its embassy in Canada. He has already lifted Canadian sanctions against Iran, and his government has downgraded its travel warnings to citizens wishing to go there, despite ongoing arrests and torture of Canadians and others. In the run-up to his election, Trudeau told a Khomeinist newspaper with Hezbollah sympathies that he would have a special immigration program for Muslims.

Justin Trudeau’s father, former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, had held rather radical views in his youth. Typical of the days of his youth and education (1930s to early 1940s) he held views which included anti-Semitism and pro-fascism, not unusual in many intellectual circles at the time. views. He also held pro-separatist views for Quebec. As he matured, and certainly after assuming the role of prime minister, he moderated his positions and became a Canadian Federalist who was tough on terrorism. But he remained overtly friendly with dictators, such as Cuba’s Fidel Castro.

Like his father before him, Justin Trudeau too has maintained an admiration for dictatorships. After the death of Cuba’s Fidel Castro in 2016, Justin Trudeau wrote a fawning eulogy for him. When questioned in an open and friendly forum about which country he admires most outside of Canada, Trudeau said he admired the basic dictatorship of the Chinese Communist government.

In a column for the Toronto Star, Justin Trudeau’s brother, Alexandre “Sacha” Trudeau, wrote that Castro’s “intellect is one of the most broad that can be found … Combined with a Herculean physique and extraordinary courage, this monumental intellect makes Fidel the giant that he is.” He did not address the issue of Castro’s having been one of the world’s most brutal dictators, who systemically imprisoned, tortured and murdered his own people for more than five decades.

Four years earlier, Sacha — who is also a filmmaker — cooperated with Iran’s state-owned PressTV to co-produce a flattering documentary, entitled “The New Great Game,” about the Islamic Republic. According to the documentary, Iran’s nuclear program is for “defensive” purposes only, and serves as an effective “deterrent” against supposed Israeli aggression and belligerence. While not initially disclosed at the time of the program’s airing, it became clear later that Al Jazeera Arabic had also contributed to it. Al Jazeera is the media mouthpiece of the government of Qatar and under the heavy influence of the Muslim Brotherhood.

In another documentary (“The Fence“), Sacha Trudeau profiled Zakaria Zubeidi, the then-leader of the terrorist group, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the military arm of Fatah. The film portrayed Zubeidi as a Robin Hood-like “leader of the resistance;” he did not focus on the suicide bombers who gave the group its “martyrs” name.

So extreme has Sacha been that even Canada’s state broadcaster, CBC, called one of his anti-Israel films — “Peace, Propaganda, and the Promised Land” – itself a piece of propaganda that never should have been broadcast. His mother, Margaret Trudeau, has observed that, from a very young age, Sacha has always been a bit of a revolutionary,

As for Justin Trudeau: Although he himself is not an Islamist, his cooperation with Islamists is part of his overall ideology in relation to Canada’s political, cultural and value systems. According to him, Canada has “no core identity” with “no mainstream.” He believes that Canada is the “first post-national state,” and that the nation is no longer shaped by its European national origins, but by a “pan-cultural heritage.” This is false. Canada simply is not that different from many other Westphalian states in being “post-national” or any other way.

The totalizing nature of Trudeau’s positions, however, appears to be a goal, rather than a statement of the current reality. His views appear to include the belief that only the so-called globalist “elites” can be trusted to shape the future of the world, and that the populace cannot be trusted with such things as referenda or a direct role in governance.

In December 2015, newly elected Prime Minister Trudeau sent a video message to the Toronto-based “Reviving the Islamic Spirit” conference — which has morphed into a virtual “Who’s Who” of Islamists in Canada and the U.S. Its speakers have included Tariq Ramadan, the grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al Banna; and Imam Siraj Wahhaj, an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The conference was also sponsored by IRFAN Canada — until it lost its charitable status for funding terrorism.

Trudeau had the option of not sending any message at all, or of conveying one of assimilation. The message he did send, however, included repeated and direct references to how he shared the values and vision of the conference. What values, exactly, did he mean by this? Those similar of the Muslim Brotherhood and other radical Islamists?

That brings us to the question of why Trudeau supported the Conservative Party’s anti-Iran motion. What happened for him to make a complete policy reversal on one of his only consistent beliefs throughout his political career?

The answer lies in the events at the G7 summit in Quebec on June 8-9. The discord between Canada and the U.S. was evident on a series of matters related to the North American Free Trade Agreement, but what went on behind the scenes was far more critical.

Pictured: U.S. President Donald Trump and Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau converse at the G7 Summit, on June 8, 2018 in La Malbaie, Canada. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)

In attendance at the summit was President Donald Trump’s recently appointed National Security Adviser, John Bolton, whose hard-line views on the Middle East in general and on Iran in particular have not exactly been a secret. Under his watch, the U.S. has threatened sanctions against Iran, especially in the wake of America’s withdrawal from the “nuclear deal.” Trudeau, on the other hand, was instrumental in the deal that would see Canadian company Bombardier sell aircraft to a firm in Iran owned by the Revolutionary Guards.

It is interesting to note that on June 12 — the day of the Canadian vote — U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen addressed the first International Homeland Security Forum in Israel, which dealt with threats to the West, and stated: “From Ottawa to Berlin, our communities are now on the frontlines.” Her referring to Canada first should not be lost on Canadians.

Two things are clear from all of the above. The first is that Trudeau did not vote willingly for the Conservative motion; he seems to have been encouraged into it by Trump and Bolton. (In any event, the motion did not succeed in having the IRGC designated as a terrorist group. Doing so requires a long process that can be dragged out for months, most likely past the next election in November 2019.)

Second, and most important, Trudeau’s temporary aberration is not likely to change his ideology. As long as leaders in the West who hold such views remain in power, Canada will be on the watchlist of those who oppose the spread of Islamic extremism and theocratic dictatorships. This does not bode well for Canada. It may well be living through its highest-risk moment since World War II.

Tom Quiggin is a former military intelligence officer, a former intelligence contractor for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and a court appointed expert on jihadist terrorism in both the Federal and criminal courts of Canada. He is the author of SUBMISSION: The Danger of Political Islam to Canada – With a Warning to America, written with co-authors Tahir Gora, Saied Shoaaib, Jonathon Cotler, and Rick Gill with a foreword by Raheel Raza. The book is available on Amazon.com in both paperback and Kindle versions. He is also the primary contributor to the QUIGGIN REPORT podcast.

Parts of this article originally appeared in a QUIGGIN REPORT podcast.

On Sunday June 10 in London, the yearly so-called Al Quds Day march — Al Quds is the Arabic name for both Jerusalem and for the day, invented by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who led Iran’s 1979 revolution that overthrew the Shah — will take place. The march is, basically, a call for the destruction of Israel, sometimes also Jews in general. Many other cities, among them Toronto, Berlin and Tehran, will also be “celebrating” the day.

Last year in London, around 1000 people waved countless Hezbollah flags, in honor of Iran’s proxy terrorist organization, while chanting slogans such as “Zionists/ISIS are the same, only difference is the name” and “From the river to the sea – Palestine will be free”. They also carried banners that said, “We are all Hezbollah,” (what a comforting thought for the British).

Pictured: The 2014 Al Quds Day march in London, England. A Hezbollah flag is held aloft at upper-right. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

The leader of last year’s London Al Quds rally, Nazim Ali – director of the “Islamic Human Rights Commission”, which organizes the annual march – called for the annihilation of Israel and accused British Jews — falsely — of being behind the 2017 fire in London’s Grenfell Towers apartment complex. “This demonstration calls on justice for Grenfell. Some of the biggest supporters of the Conservative Party are Zionists. They are responsible for the murder of the people in Grenfell”. He also made it known to the crowd that he thought the UK should effectively become free of Jews: “We are fed up of the Zionists. We are fed up of their rabbis. We are fed up of their synagogues. We are fed up of their supporters.”

“It’s just an opinion,” a female police officer said.

The real problem is the contrast in how the slightest criticism of Islam in the UK is perceived by British police, who readily go about arresting and prosecuting people for it, for example here, here, here, here and here.

After complaints about Ali’s statements, the Metropolitan Police investigated, but the Crown Prosecution Service declared in December 2017 that he would not face prosecution:

“We considered whether offences of inciting racial or religious hatred or a public order offence had been committed, in line with the tests set out in the Code for Crown Prosecutors. We concluded that the evidential test in the Code was not met and therefore no charges have been authorised.”

In the UK, calling for the annihilation of an entire people – the Jews – as well as blood libeling and inciting against British Jews is not considered “inciting racial or religious hatred” and apparently does not even lead to charges. British authorities apparently consider marching with terrorist flags while calling for the death of Jews a legitimate activity.

If, however, like the scholar Robert Spencer, one reports on these activities, one is barred from entering England.

Not only was Nazim Ali never charged, but he will have ample opportunity to have another go on Sunday.

Last year, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, wrote to then Home Secretary Amber Rudd asking her to close the legal loophole that makes it legitimate for terrorist supporters to fly Hezbollah flags on the streets of London. The loophole is the fact that the “political wing” of Hezbollah is not proscribed in the UK. In response to Khan, Amber Rudd wrote:

“The group that reportedly organised the parade, the Islamic Human Rights Commission, is not a proscribed terrorist organisation. This means they can express their views and demonstrate, provided that they do so within the law. The flag for the organisation’s military wing is the same as the flag for its political wing. Therefore, for it to be an offence under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000, for an individual to display the Hizballah flag, the context and manner in which the flag is displayed must demonstrate that it is specifically in support of the proscribed elements of the group”.

In other words, showing support for the terrorist group Hezbollah in the UK is legitimate, because the authorities make believe that the support is for the “political wing”. As someone once said, “If the Salvation Army had a wing called Murder Inc. that would be fine.”

This year, Khan has again written to the Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, but it is unlikely that the letter will yield a different response from last year’s. According to the mayor’s spokesperson:

“Anti-Semitism or hate crime of any kind has no place in our city or in our society. Sadiq has written to the Home Secretary to raise his deep concerns about the support shown for Hezbollah at the annual Al Quds Day march. He has called on him to urgently reconsider his predecessor’s decision not to take action to stop this.”

This year, the vicar Stephen Sizer, who has suggested that Israel was behind 9/11 and was banned from social media by Church of England authorities for six months for sharing “clearly anti-Semitic” material, will be one of the main speakers at the Al Quds march. Sizer has also apparently met top Hezbollah officials in Lebanon and participated in a 2014 conference in Iran where he was to deliver a speech on the “Israeli lobby”. The conference was reportedly attended by several Holocaust deniers; it was intended to “unveil the secrets behind the dominance of the Zionist lobby over US and EU politics”.

Jeremy Corbyn defended the vicar at the time, claiming that he had been condemned because he had “dared to speak out against Zionism”.

Mick Napier, of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, will also be speaking at the march. An activist who promotes isolating Israel to destroy it economically, Napier was convicted of aggravated trespass against an Israeli cosmetics store in 2014 and of failing to follow police orders to leave the store.

An afternoon of racism is in store for Londoners on Sunday, but as long as the hate is directed against Jews by Muslims, British authorities apparently have no problem with it.

Judith Bergman is a columnist, lawyer and political analyst.

Is Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who keeps talking about Cyprus as a security threat to the eastern Mediterranean, trying to deliver a message? Erdogan has long been warning Cypriot and international companies exploring energy resources in the region not to “trust the Greek side in Cyprus.”

The Turkish president’s repeated verbal attacks on Greek Cypriots also shed light on a recent interview, broadcast live on Turkish Cypriot TV, with 84-year-old Turgut Yenağralı — a former member of the paramilitary Turkish Resistance Organization (TMT), founded in 1957 and known for its criminal activities in Cyprus.

Yenağralı, in the interview, boasted about his role in the mass murder of Greek Cypriots and the reason for it.

“We traveled across Cyprus and either beat up or killed those who committed crimes against Turkishness,” he began.

Question: Why did you engage in those activities? Was it an adventure or for excitement?

Yenağralı: No, it was for Turkishness.

Question: Was it easy to kill these people?”

Yenağralı: There is nothing more enjoyable… We took great pleasure after we killed those people.

Question: Did you care about whether these people were criminal or not?

Yenağralı: Why would anyone [care]? Criminal or not… As long as they are kafirs [infidels], they belong to the same race of dogs… When we wanted to shoot the kafir, [the two women members of the group] hid guns in their [brassieres] and carried them for us.

Yenağralı said that he and his friends were never told by Turkish Cypriot leaders to reduce or stop their activities. This omission is probably not surprising, given that one of TMT‘s key founders was Rauf Denktaş, who served as the head of the “Turkish Federated State of Cyprus” between 1975 and 1983 and subsequently as the president of the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” from 1983 to 2005 — both “states” recognized only by Turkey.

Yenağralı said that after Cyprus gained independence from British rule in 1960, the TMT buried their weapons and continued their activities in an “underground” way — only to take them back later. However, “Guns kept coming from Turkey,” he added. “We started sending men to Turkey for military training. I too went to Turkey twice for military and intelligence training before 1960.”

Yenağralı claimed that when the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) was established in 1964, he befriended some UN officials — something that made it even easier for the TMT to reorganize and take up positions in the area. “A UN commander prepared a UN Peace Corps uniform for me,” he said “and I wore it and traveled in his UN vehicle. Because I sent them lamb meat every week and I sent them two women [prostitutes] one night.”

“Killing was my art,” he said, describing his group’s activities after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974. “It was the Turkish Cypriots who killed the Greek Cypriot captives more than the Turkish military did.”

He also expressed sadness that a Turkish commander prevented him from killing Greek Cypriot prisoners of war on the Karpas peninsula after the invasion. “I am still grieving over missing [that opportunity],” he said.

Pictured: A fence demarcating the “Buffer Zone” manned by United Nations peacekeeping soldiers at the “Green Line” in Nicosia, Cyprus. (Image source: Marco Fieber/Flickr)

Yenağralı said he was also involved in transporting illegal settlers from Turkey to Cyprus, to replace the Greek Cypriots who had fled the carnage in the northern part of the island to seek refuge in the free, southern part. The invasion was what changed the demographic structure of the island, turning what was once a Greek majority in the north into a Turkish area for the first time in the island’s history.

One thing Yenağralı’s confessions do is to expose the lie behind Turkey’s referring to its invasion as a “peace operation” launched to protect Turkish Cypriots. Turkey, as Yenağralı illustrated, had been involved in criminal activities in Cyprus for decades prior to the invasion — both before and after Cyprus’ independence in 1960.

After Yenağralı’s interview, Şener Levent, the editor-in-chief of the Turkish Cypriot newspaper Afrika, wrote:

“Our Greek Cypriot brothers who have migrated from Mesarya [Mesaoria] villages who read this might ask: ‘Did this man [Yenağralı] kill my father? Did he kill my mother, my sibling?’ I too would ask if I were them. This man is still alive and lives in Mağusa [Famagusta]. I know he is not the only one. There are others. A citizen of ours says that ‘another one in Serdarlı [Tziaos] also boasted like that for crushing the head of a Greek Cypriot with a piece of rock. And he is proud of that!

“Then we ask: Why is there not peace yet? How can we make peace when we have rabid murderers living among us? Instead of prosecuting them, we enable them to appear on TV and to boast about their murders. Are we still looking for missing people? Go and ask this man… After carrying out his ‘art,’ in what wells did he dump those he murdered, or where did he bury them? If he and the like do not know, who else will? If you do not even bring to account a murderer who says, ‘killing was my art,’ who will you bring to account?”

So far, these “rabid murderers” have not been held accountable for the slaughter of innocent Greek Cypriots: the ethnic cleansing of northern Cyprus. The greater issue is that he and his partners in crime were aided and abetted by the Turkish authorities. All of those responsible need to be tried at international criminal tribunals — the sooner, the better.

Uzay Bulut, a journalist from Turkey, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute. She is currently based in Washington D.C.

Whether one likes it or not, the image of the Jews depicted and disseminated extensively by Quran is that they are inherently evil and enemies of Islam, enemies of “the religion of truth,” and of all Muslims. When anyone, such as a moderate Muslim or non-Muslim, draws attention to this dismaying fact, such as its direct connection to an indoctrinated hatred of “all” Jews, and when anyone calls for a justified examination or reform of these views, he immediately faces accusations of “Islamophobia.” He is then overwhelmed by dozens of false rationalizations and supposed justifications in a way that indicates a deeply-rooted avoidance by senior Muslim scholars and institutions — and even many mainstream Muslims — of the truth that Quranic verses are full of hatred of Jews. All of the Jews, no exceptions:

Al-Bukhari (3593) and Muslim (2921) narrated from the hadith of Ibn ‘Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) that he said: I heard the Messenger of Allah (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) say: “The Jews will fight you and you will prevail over them, then a rock will say: ‘O Muslim, here is a Jew behind me; kill him.'”

In Saheeh Muslim (2922), it is narrated from the hadith of Abu Hurayrah that the Messenger of Allah (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) said: “The Hour will not begin until the Muslims fight the Jews and the Muslims will kill them, until a Jew hides behind a rock or a tree, and the rock or tree will say: O Muslim, O slave of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Except the gharqad (a thorny tree), for it is one of the trees of the Jews.”

Christians (and all “disbelievers”) are not far behind:

“They have certainly disbelieved who say, ” Allah is the third of three.” And there is no god except one God. And if they do not desist from what they are saying, there will surely afflict the disbelievers among them a painful punishment.” (Quran 5:72) Sahih International translation.

“O you who have believed, fight those adjacent to you of the disbelievers and let them find in you harshness. And know that Allah is with the righteous.” (Quran 9:123) Sahih International translation.

“O you who have believed, do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies. They are [in fact] allies of one another. And whoever is an ally to them among you – then indeed, he is [one] of them. Indeed, Allah guides not the wrongdoing people.” (Quran 5:51) Sahih International translation

It was no wonder, therefore, that Egypt’s al-Azhar University, the most influential school of Sunni Islam, was enraged by a call from many intellectuals in France to amend the verses in the Quran that disseminate anti-Semitism and hatred of non-Muslims.

Al Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt. (Image source: Sailko/Wikimedia Commons)

Recently, Al-Azhar condemned an open letter written by co-founder of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, Philippe Val, and signed by more than 250 French politicians and public figures such as former President Nicolas Sarkozy, three former Prime Ministers, elected officials, intellectuals, and artists, calling to reconsider outdated the Quran verses that provoke hatred and killing of Jews and promote anti-Semitism. Twelve members of Charlie Hebdo’s staff, including its senior editor-in-chief, Stéphane Charbonnier, were murdered and 11 others injured by three Muslim extremists shouting “Allahu Akbar” [“Allah is the Greatest”], on January 7, 2015.

The new manifesto, “Against New Anti-Semitism,” which emphasizes the need for urgent action against the rise of anti-Semitism and recent increase in violent anti-Semitic attacks in France, was published in the newspaper Le Parisien on April 21. “In our recent history, 11 Jews have been murdered — and some tortured — by radical Islamists because they were Jewish,” the manifesto said.

Signed by politicians from the right and left, as well as Jewish, Muslim and Catholic leaders, the declaration asks that “the verses of the Quran calling for the killing and punishment of Jews, Christians and unbelievers be [denounced as] outdated by theological [Islamic] authorities, as were the incoherencies of the Bible and the Catholic anti-Semitism abolished by Vatican II, so that no believer can rely on a sacred text to commit a crime.”

In response to the manifesto, the Deputy to the Grand Imam of al-Azhar, Abbas Shoman, decried any calls for purging or considering obsolete any verses of the Quran and labeled such calls as “absolute ignorance,” the Egyptian daily al-Masry al-Youm reported. And in obvious taqiyya (dissimulation), Shoman denied that the Quran contains “any verses that command the killing of anyone that has not committed a crime that necessitates that, such as premeditated murder” and falsely described all “war and killing verses” as calling for justified self-defense and as verses of peace. He also asked the signatories of the manifesto to understand that the Quran is the right way and “if they insist on their misguided understanding [of it], they should go to hell with their wrong understanding.” Notably, Sheikh Shoman overlooked that the French manifesto not only talks about the murder and abuse of Jews; it was also talks about the culture of anti-Semitism being promoted by dozens of Quranic verses. One wonders how, after having been taught Islamic supremacy all their lives, imams could even try to understand such a manifesto. Sheikh Shoman’s remarks may just indicate his own indoctrinated anti-Semitism.

Islam is not the only religious text that contains violence and anachronistic passages — a fact highlighted by a few imams such as Tareq Oubrou, imam of the Grand Mosque of the southern city of Bordeaux. Yet, as has been noted elsewhere, Islam is the only remaining religion in which “people still live by” these texts, where violence is divinely sanctioned.

Sheikh Shoman correctly says that Allah loves not the aggressor,

“Fight in the way of Allah those who fight you but do not transgress. Indeed. Allah does not like transgressors.” (Quran 2:190) Sahih International translation.

Yet, it has often seemed easy to point to others as aggressors — whether real or imagined — to justify a “defensive” response and guarantee that the defense of Islam has been “just.” The problem, of course, is that what constitutes an “aggression” is wholly subjective. While everyone has the right to defend oneself if attacked, justifications for what constitutes an attack have ranged from children naming a stuffed teddy bear Muhammad (the teacher, who was British, received death threats and served jail time) in the Sudan, or another teacher, in Spain, who was sued for having discussed ham, a major Spanish export, in class.

The Catholic Church issued a declaration ( November 18, 1964) that unequivocally absolved the Jews of all times — whether in the era of Jesus or in later days — from the ancient charge of deicide, which meant abolishing incoherencies of the Bible and traditional Catholic anti-Semitism. Muslims strongly believe that the Quran, which forbids befriending “disbelievers” is the permanent word of Allah, the only God, hasn’t and will never be altered or modified and should not be equated with other religious texts have been altered and distorted.

“Let not believers take disbelievers as allies rather than believers.” — Quran 3:28; Sahih International translation.

In an egocentric and deceptive spirit, the “Observatory of Islamophobia,” which is affiliated with the Egyptian Dar al-Iftaa (an institution run by al-Azhar scholars and is responsible for issuing fatwas [religious opinions]) denounced the manifesto as hateful and Islamophobic, and claimed it that causes attacks and antagonism against Muslims. The statement deliberately ignores that, according to the manifesto:

“French Jews are 25 times more likely to be attacked than their fellow Muslims. 10% of the Jewish citizens of Ile-de-France — that is to say about 50,000 people — were recently forced to move because they were no longer safe in some cities and because their children could not attend public schools anymore.”

We will never be able to understand Islamist violence in Europe, the Middle East, and around the world if political and religious leaders — including al-Azhar and Pope Francis — insist on saying that Islamist violence has nothing to do with Islam. Saying that “Islamist violence has nothing to do with Islam” does not make it so. Like or not, it does.

As the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, remarked in a November 2016 lecture at the Catholic Institute of Paris, “If we treat religiously-motivated violence solely as a security issue or a political issue, then it will be incredibly difficult — probably impossible — to overcome it.” The archbishop also insisted that, “Until religious leaders stand up and take responsibility for the actions of those who do things in the name of their religion, we will see no resolution.”

A. Z. Mohamed is a Muslim born and raised in the Middle East.