ISIS or Islam: Which Breeds Terrorism?

By Raymond Ibrahim

A lie conceals the truth. And hidden truths never have a chance of being acknowledged, addressed, and ultimately ameliorated.

Because of this simple truism, one of the greatest lies of our age -- that violence committed in the name of Islam has nothing to do with Islam -- has made an intrinsically weak Islam the scourge of the modern world, with no signs of relief on the horizon.

One of the latest manifestations of this lie took place in Pakistan. On Easter Sunday, a suicide bombing took place near the children's rides of a public park, where Christians were congregated and celebrating the resurrection of their Lord. At least 74 people -- mostly Christian women and children -- were killed. Nearly 400 were injured.

Recalled a witness:

There was human flesh on the walls of our house.

Who -- or what -- was responsible for this assault? “We claim responsibility for the attack on Christians as they were celebrating Easter,” said Jamaatul Ahraar, a splinter group of the Taliban. In a media statement, the group said it “deliberately targeted the Christian community”:

We had been waiting for this occasion.

The Taliban is not alone. Look here, here, here, and here for examples of similarly lethal attacks on Christians celebrating Christmas or Easter by other Islamic groups and individuals around the world, who also “had been waiting for this occasion.” Even “the terror cell that struck in Brussels (last month, killing 34) was planning to massacre worshippers at Easter church services across Europe, including Britain, intelligence chiefs believe.”

Even so, connecting the dots and understanding what binds all Islamic terrorist groups is a big no-no for mainstream media.

The problem, we will be told, is the “Taliban,” which “has nothing to do with Islam.” Rather, it’s a finite, temporal, localized problem: defeat it and the problem vanishes.

Yet meanwhile -- about 5,000 miles west of the Taliban's territory -- in Nigeria, Christians are also under attack. According to a new report, since 2000 about 12,000 Christians have been slaughtered for their faith and 13,000 churches destroyed.

Just last month, over 500 Christians were butchered. According to the official narrative, something called “Boko Haram” is responsible. This is another group that defines itself exclusively according to Islam, another group that habitually bombs churches during Christmas and Easter, another group that we are told “has nothing to do with Islam.” Again, this group represents a finite, temporal, localized problem: defeat it and the problem vanishes.

About 5,000 miles west of Nigeria, Americans were told that something called “al-Qaeda” attacked and killed 3,000 of their countrymen -- and that defeating that finite group would cease the terror.

Its leader Osama bin Laden was killed, and victory was proclaimed -- except that an even more savage manifestation, this time called the “Islamic State” (it too “has nothing to do with Islam”), arose and has gone further than al-Qaeda could’ve ever dreamed, in great part thanks to the Obama administration.

The problem is not simply that media and decision-makers refuse to connect the dots and insist on treating each of the aforementioned groups as disparate, finite groups with different motivations, none of which is Islam.

The larger problem is that regular Muslims who are not called “Taliban,” “Boko Haram,” “al-Qaeda,” “ISIS,” ad infinitum, commit similar acts, and much more frequently.

Although the “Taliban” was behind the recent Easter Day massacre, everyday Muslims also discriminate against, persecute, enslave, rape, and murder Christians every day in Pakistan (click here for a typical month).

Everyday Muslims who burned a young Christian couple alive due to unsubstantiated rumors that they had insulted Muhammad. Every day, Muslims regularly rape and sometimes murder Christian girls (and boys) because they are subhuman “infidels.”

Those who slaughtered 500 Christians last month in Nigeria were not “Boko Haram.” They were un-affiliated (but Muslim) herdsmen.

Likewise, “Northern Muslim political and religious elite are also major actors of targeted violence towards the Christian minority.”

Although ISIS claimed the Brussels attack, everyday Muslims ban, burn, bomb, and urinate on churches, and as in Pakistan and other Muslim majority nations, target non-Muslim European women for rape on the basis that they are subhuman “infidels.”

The media likes covering this horror when terrorist groups are responsible for especially spectacular attacks, because the media can follow with the customary admonition that they “have nothing to do with Islam.” But few dare acknowledge when Muslims in general engage in acts of violence and intolerance against non-Muslims.

According to a recent study, Muslims  -- of all races, nationalities, languages, and socio-political and economic circumstances, hardly just “terror groups” -- are responsible for persecuting Christians in 41 of the 50 worst nations to live in as a Christian.

These statistics are consistent with a recent Pew poll finding that in 11 countries alone, at least 63 million and as many as 287 million Muslims support ISIS.

Similarly, 81% of respondents to an Al Jazeera poll supported the Islamic State.

What “extremist,” “terrorist,” and “militant” groups (that “have nothing to do with Islam”) are doing is but the tip of the iceberg of what Muslims are doing all around the world.

(See “Muslim Persecution of Christians,” reports which I’ve been compiling every month since July 2011. Nonstop violence and carnage is committed by “everyday” Muslims against Christians. Each monthly report contains dozens of atrocities -- any of which, if committed by Christians against Muslims, would receive 24/7 blanket coverage.)

Media aren’t just covering up for Islam by pretending the attacks committed by Islamic groups on non-Muslims “have nothing to do with Islam. “ They also cover up for Islam by failing to report the everyday persecution non-Muslims experience at the hands of everyday Muslims -- Muslim governments (including the governments of “U.S. friends and allies”), Muslim mobs, and Muslim individuals -- not just Muslim “terrorists.”

Because of these entrenched lies, the world must continue to suffer from Islamic terror. Not only have these lies allowed countless innocents to be persecuted into oblivion in the Muslim world, but they have allowed the same persecution to enter America and Europe, most recently via mass immigration.

The fact remains: an ugly truth must first be acknowledged before it can be addressed and fixed. It may be hard to acknowledge an ugly truth -- that Islam, not “radical Islam,” promotes hate for and violence against non-Muslims -- but anything less will continue to feed the lie and feed the jihad on innocents.