Islamist
Attacks on Holidays
by Noah Beck
Special to IPT News
April 20, 2017
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 Nearly 50 people
were murdered on Palm Sunday when Islamic State terrorists bombed two Coptic churches in
an Easter celebration-nightmare. The next day, on the eve of the Jewish
holiday of Passover, the Islamic State's Sinai affiliate launched rockets at Israel.
Just before Christmas, a terrorist claimed by the Islamic State rammed a truck into Berlin's crowded Christmas market,
killing 12 people. And in Australia, a group of self-radicalized Islamists planned to attack St Paul's Cathedral. In
2011, Nigerian Islamists murdered nearly 40 Catholic worshipers in a Christmas
Day attack.
Terrorists attack where and when they can. But they seem keenly aware
that turning holidays into horror can carry greater shock and terror. In 2002,
30 Israeli civilians were massacred and 140 injured by
a Hamas
suicide bomber who blew himself up as they sat for the seder,
the traditional Passover meal, at the Park Hotel in Netanya.
It isn't just terrorists who see advantages in striking during holidays.
The 1973 Yom Kippur War may be the most famous example, when the armies of
two Muslim-majority states, Egypt and Syria, attacked Israel on the most
sacred day of the Jewish calendar. That war produced an estimated 20,000
deaths.
Christians and Jews aren't the only religious groups that have been
targeted by Islamists during non-Muslim holy days. The Hindu festival of
Diwali has also been attacked. In 2005, a series of bombs killed over 60 people and injured
hundreds in Delhi; a Pakistan-based Islamist terrorist group, the Islamic
Revolutionary Front, claimed responsibility. Last October, Indian police
arrested an Islamist cell inspired by the Islamic State for planning an attack during Diwali.
Muslims are also victimized by Islamist attacks in increasing volume. A
2015 mosque bombing in Yemen killed 29 people during prayers for the Muslim holiday
of Eid. Last July, also during Eid, three people were killed at a
Bangladesh checkpoint when gunmen carrying bombs tried to attack the country's
largest Eid gathering, which attracted an estimated 300,000 worshippers.
Last May, as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan approached, a spokesman
for the Islamic State urged jihadists to "make it, with
God's permission, a month of pain for infidels everywhere." Days
later, as Ramadan celebrations stretched past midnight in central Baghdad,
a minivan packed with explosives blew up and killed at least 143 people.
Terrorists also target secular holidays. Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, a
Tunisian resident of France, killed
85 people and injured hundreds more in a truck-ramming terrorist attack
as people gathered for a Bastille Day celebration. In New York last fall,
dump trumps were deployed to protect the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade,
after the Islamic State called it an "excellent target."
Holidays are often chosen because they are "optimal attack
days," in terms of gathering large crowds into soft targets like
houses of worship, religious markets, ceremonial gatherings, and parades.
Last November, U.S. officials warned that the coming holiday season
could mean "opportunities for violent extremists" to attack.
A terrorist attack on a holiday is also more likely to attract media
attention. And because holidays draw tourists, well-timed attacks can amplify
the economic damage that would be wrought by terror even on a
non-holiday. After a spate of attacks toward the end of 2015, "about
10% of American travelers have canceled a trip ... eliminating a potential
$8.2 billion in travel spending," reported MarketWatch.
But ISIS, al-Qaida and other Islamist terrorist groups believe they are waging
a holy war above all else. Attacking infidels, be they Christians, Jews or
Muslims of other sects, motivates jihadis more than anything else.
"Those who targeted churches on holiday celebrations tend to be
professional terrorist groups," Raymond Ibrahim, author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians,
told the IPT. By contrast, "mob attacks happen either on a Friday,
after an especially potent sermon, or whenever infidels need to be put in
their place (e.g., a Christian accused of blasphemy, then the church in his
village gets torched)."
In 2015, Islamic State warnings of future attacks against Christians noted
that Christians were their "favorite prey" and no longer
protected as "dhimmis," a reference to non-Muslims in Islam who
may, in exchange for paying the jizya tax, receive some state protection.
Thus, within the larger context of a holy war, attacks on non-Muslim
holy days can be viewed as part of the more general Islamist strategy of
humiliation, forced submission to Islam, and the denial of any competing
religion. Attacking on Diwali or Christmas or Yom Kippur is essentially
declaring that such "infidel" holy days ought to be desecrated
rather than respected. The symbolic message is akin to the one communicated
by the two Islamists who entered a French cathedral and beheaded an octogenarian priest, Jacques Hamel, during
mass services last July.
Attacking places of worship on holy days – when they are most used by
and relevant to their congregations – is also a good way to undermine these
religious institutions and their supporters. If Islamist terror makes
churches the most vulnerable on the days when they are most crowded, how
will those houses of worship attract enough followers to sustain
themselves? And how will their congregants practice their faith? The Coptic
Pope curbed some Easter celebrations in Egypt after the
recent Palm Sunday blasts.
Such questions may help to explain why Christians, who have lived in the
Middle East – the birthplace of Christianity – for millennia now constitute
only about 3 percent of the region's population, down from 20 percent a century ago.
Indeed, the only non-Muslim country in the entire Middle East is also
the safest place for non-Muslims in the region, including Christians,
Druze, and Bahai. "Christians and other minorities in Israel prosper
and grow," says Shadi Khalloul, founder of the Israeli Aramaic
Movement. "[W]hile in other countries in the Middle East, as well as
in the Palestinian Authority, they suffer heavily from the Islamic movement
and persecution – until forced to disappear."
Noah Beck is the author of The
Last Israelis, an apocalyptic novel about Iranian nukes and other
geopolitical issues in the Middle East.
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