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Stop
Asking 'Why Do They Hate Us?'
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Every
time there's a mass casualty Islamist terror attack, the Western
intelligentsia pops the same question.
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Shortly after the latest ISIS suicide bombers struck in Brussels on
March 22, German Green Party MP Franziska
Brantner tweeted "Why do they hate us so much?" The
intelligentsia's ignorance perseveres in spite of the answer right in
front of them: it's not hatred but an ideology called Islamism that
compels violence. We are now almost 15 years beyond 9/11, and it's time
to stop asking this question after every major jihadist attack.
First, the obligatory disclaimer: "they" refers to Islamists
and "we" to everyone else, including moderate Muslims (with all
due respect to Donald Trump).
The self-indulgent introspection began in earnest on October 14, 2001,
when Fareed Zakaria asked
in Newsweek "Why Do They Hate Us?" Zakaria blamed the
victim. US support of "Israel's iron-fisted rule over the occupied
territories" and various other "oppressive police states"
in the Arab world is the cause. Zakaria acknowledged briefly the
"total failure of political institutions in the Arab world" but
still blamed the U.S. for having "neglected to press any regime
there to open up its society." That essay ends with the admonition
that "We have no option but to get back into the nation-building
business."
It is ideology, not hatred, that
compels Islamist violence.
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Several days later in LA Weekly John Powers concurred
that American support for "brutal, undemocratic Middle Eastern
regimes" is the root of the problem and concluded that "they
hate us because we don't even know why they hate us."
The question persisted throughout the next decade and returned with
new vigor in 2015, a year that began and ended with ISIS attacks in
Paris. On November 13, 2015, while the dead in the Bataclan concert hall
and in the streets of Paris were still being counted, Bill Maher asked guests on
his television show "why do they hate us?" (they blamed
"the Bush Doctrine") before concluding that "we still
don't know the answer."
On December 7, 2015, Hisham Melhem asked
the same question in Politico and found the answer in poor
assimilation and rampant Islamophobia from San Bernardino to the banlieues
of Paris. After the Brussels attacks Politico ran an unsigned op-ed
titled "Why Do They Hate Us So Much?" bemoaning Europe's
growing populism and nativism. Moustafa Bayoumi raised this
question in The Nation, answering that "Only when we face
up to our delusions and actions and stop torturing others into silence
will we be able to keep ourselves out of darkness."
Has the West learned nothing in the past decade and a half? Why do we
still ask this question when the answer is clear?
The theological underpinnings of
ISIS are found in four doctrines, all easily grasped.
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The theological underpinnings of the most violent strain of Islamism
(what some
analysts call
bin Ladenism) are found in four doctrines, all easily grasped. Together
they make up the ideology that seeks to conquer the world. All who oppose
it are treated in a way that only seems like hatred because we cannot
imagine any other motive for the violence.
First, the Doctrine of Loyalty
and Enmity prevails among Islamists whose dichotomous world view is
comprised of Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb. Mark Sageman translates
these two as the "Land of Islam" and the "Land of
Conflict." Loyalty and a strict adherence to Sharia law are demanded
of all who inhabit Dar al-Islam, while everyone else is the ultimate
"other." Islamists consider the West to be Dar al-Harb.
Second is the Doctrine of Offensive Jihad.
Whether they are following Ibn
Taymiyyah, Syed
Abul Ala Maududi, Sayed
Qutb, Abdus
Salam Faraj, or Osama
bin Laden himself, Islamists have internalized the doctrine of
loyalty and enmity to the extent that they believe engaging in offensive
jihad is the only way to remain faithful to Muhammad's example. Offensive
jihad is often portrayed as a defensive jihad against ideological
"attacks" emanating from Dar al-Harb.
Islamists make a distinction
between suicide and martyrdom in the service of Islam.
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Third is the Doctrine of Martyrdom. People misunderstand suicide
terrorism by thinking that only hatred could cause someone to seek
revenge in an act that requires his death. This in fact is wrong, for not
only do Islamists from Hamas to Hezbollah
and even bin
Laden claim that they love death like we love life, but they also
make a distinction between suicide, which is committed "out of
depression and despair" according to Ayman
al-Zawahiri, and martyrdom, which is carried out "to service
Islam." The one thing witnesses remember about the Hezbollah suicide
bomber who killed 141 Marines on October 23, 1983 is that he was smiling
as he drove his truck into their compound in Beirut, Lebanon. When
Palestinian suicide bombers detonate themselves, their comrades and
families celebrate
their wedding to dark-eyed virgins, not their hatred.
Last is the Doctrine of Takfir,
an Arabic term referring to the process whereby an Islamist accuses a
moderate or heterodox Muslim of being insufficiently Islamic and
therefore no longer worthy of the protection conferred by the doctrine of
loyalty. Those so identified become just another enemy from Dar al-Harb.
Only takfir, not hatred, can explain the preponderance of Muslims killed
by Al-Qaeda and ISIS.
Those who fail to understand the ideology of Islamism will remain
confused by it, attributing the violence to hatred because they don't
understand the real motives. So like battered spouses, victims of
Islamist violence continue trying to alter their behavior in futile
attempts to make "them" love "us."
A.J. Caschetta is a senior lecturer at the Rochester
Institute of Technology and a Shillman-Ginsburg fellow at the Middle East
Forum.
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