What's the problem with that?

MEMRI posted this translated transcript of an Al-Arabiya TV Interview with Former Al-Qaeda Trainer in Iraq. Here are a few excepts that interested me:

The following are excerpts from an interview from Lebanon with Shehada Jawhar, former Al-Qaeda official in charge of training in Iraq, which aired on Al-Arabiya TV on December 7, 2007. In the interview, he discusses his journey to Iraq via Syria, the training and operations he carried out, his brothers in jihad, Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi, and the role played by Syrian intelligence.


Interviewer: "Who is Shehada Jawhar? Who are you? Who is 'Abu Omar?'"

Jawhar: "I am a Muslim human being, a Palestinian. I am a refugee, living in the Palestinian refugee camps [in Lebanon]."

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Interviewer: "How did you come up with the idea of going to Iraq?"

Jawhar: "Most of the Muslim youth in Lebanon set their sights on jihad in Iraq. As you know, in general, the Lebanese structure and system prevent you from going to fight in Palestine, even though Palestine takes precedence over Iraq and all the other countries. Palestine is our main cause. The structure here in Lebanon is completely messed up. You have to get past a hundred thousand obstacles in order to be able to fight the Jews in Palestine. This is impossible, because nobody - without any exception - wants the Muslim youth to go and fight the Jews. Even those who do fight the Jews do this out of their own considerations, and not out of ideology. I say this about everybody, with no exception.

"Therefore, Iraq is closer than Palestine - not in terms of distance, but in the sense that you can fight there, because everybody opens the gates to Iraq, but closes the gates to Palestine, even though it is more important."

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Interviewer: "So you went to Iraq to wage jihad."

Jawhar: "Yes. Did you think I went there to join their bowling or basketball team?"[...]


Interviewer: "Did you participate in operations?"

Jawhar: "Yes."

Interviewer: "What kind of operations?"

Jawhar: "Regular things. We used to attack the Americans. We used to carry out operations against the American bases in Iraq. We also used to set ambushes and attack American posts."
[...]

Interviewer: "You say 'against the Americans,' but did you target only the Americans?"

Jawhar: "Everybody was targeted, but the Americans took precedence."

Interviewer: "Who is 'everybody'?"

Jawhar: "Whoever fights against 'there is no god but Allah.' Is there anyone who defends the Americans any better than them? The infidels are one and the same. An infidel is an infidel - whether he is a Palestinian, a Jew, or an Argentinean. The infidels are one and the same, while an American Muslim is a Muslim. So what's the problem? What, an Iraqi who is an apostate and who helps the Americans should be treated like a VIP? He is worse than the Americans."

I've learned a few things from this interview:

Jihadists need to fight and kill people. It's their duty. Their first choice is to kill the Jews. But if they can't get to kill the Jews, anyone else will do, except for Muslims.

But this, too is problematic. For who is a Muslim?

Easier to answer, who is not a Muslim: "Whoever fights against 'there is no god but Allah."

What's a jihadist VIP treatment? Easier to define who is not a VIP:

"an Iraqi who is an apostate and who helps the Americans"

Confusing? Not really.

"Jawhar: "Yes, a terrorist. What's the problem with that? If I want to terrorize the enemies of
Allah, what's the problem with that?"

[-]

Interviewer: "How come Al-Qaeda has the right to execute people?"

Jawhar: "Of course it has. What's the problem? How come those idiots here in Lebanon, in Jordan, or anywhere else have the right to sentence people to death or imprisonment? What, are they any better than me?"

(H/T: The Iconoclast)

In an article here, Michael Weiss reviews a book by Ibn-Warraq, whom he calls "The Bertrand Russell of Islam", in which Ibn-Warraq is quoted as saying:

"... the three pillars of Western thought: rationalism, self-criticism, and universalism....[b]y Orientalism's lights... are mere masquerades for prejudice, hubris, and condescension — ironically, the very faults Mr. Warraq ascribes to Said and his epigones, particularly when it comes to such an urgent question as Kurdish autonomy in Iraq. "Anybody who wants to modernize must be a stooge of the imperialists," Mr. Warraq said, paraphrasing their worldview. "Anyone who thinks rationally is suspect. Foucault once said, '[Iranians] have a different regime of truth than ours.' This is cultural relativism gone berserk. If anything is 'Orientalist' in the pejorative sense, it is that."

Note how the red-highlighted passages bear more or less the same message as that of the Al-Qaeda terrorist. And keep in mind that Ibn-Warraq is speaking of the mindset of mainstream thinking in the Arab World

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If you think this is as explicit as it gets...

Take a look here , at these two cute Palestinian kids* :

To Al-Aqsa, to Al-Aqsa –

we shall unite our ranks.

We will wipe out the people of Zion,

and will not leave a single one of them.

(H/T: Mick)

I have to wonder if their parents watch their child prodigies with pride and joy and wipe a tear from the corner of their eye...

Well, we Jews may be incapable of scaling such heights of spiritual power, but we will always have this.

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* I have to wonder where UNICEF stands upon this massive, institutionalized child abuse. I searched the website but found no reference to institutionalized psychological abuse as in this case, where children are taught that mass-murder is a good thing for them.