The authorities in America finally managed to arrest dangerous and deadly terrorist Eric Robert Rudolph. Mr. Rudolph was behind a series of killings, bombings and fires that have terrorized communities in various states in America since 1996.
Eric Robert Rudolph is basically a Christian fundamentalist terrorist (yes, they do exist). He is referred to as “an angry white supremacist” but belongs to “the army of God”, a militia that targets a portion of clerics, gays and Jews. He has been greatly influenced by sermons of leading preachers such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. This terrorist is no different from the zealot Jewish lots who occupies Arab land and are armed with an arsenal of deadly weaponry and have been known to shoot and kill Arabs without asking questions. But that lot is referred to as settlers. They are Jewish fundamentalist terrorist.
These two groups are the same as Al-Qaeda, who have used religion to kill, destroy and terrorize humanity. It’s high time we equated all terrorist groups and treated them the same. They are all equally guilty of hate, terror and ignorance. The war on terror must not be based on bias and irrational judgments. Terrorism is an ugly enemy that affects all humankind alike; any attempt to criminalize one group of people (Arabs) or one religion (Islam), as is clearly being done by the Western media and the American administration, will only create further feelings of anger and animosity.
I recently had the chance to meet with an “important” figure in the American evangelical movement and all I can say is: “Wow, that is scary.” The ideas that this group has of America, the world and particularly the Arabs made me shiver. He was talking like a member of the Ku Klux Klan - sans the hood and sheets - racist and very derogatory. The big problem is that this man has the ears and heart of Washington.
We all have to work collectively on not allowing radicals to hijack governments or influence public thought and policy. This is no longer the dark ages or the Wild West, when an ignorant and arrogant language prevailed.
Arab News Opinion 10 June 2003
