The Root cause of Terrorism is Totalitarianism

I just found this article by Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's ex-Prime Minister, on the root cause of Palestinian terrorism and hate - nice going Bibi!

The Root cause of Terrorism is Totalitarianism
by Binyamin Netanyahu

It's not the deprivation of rights; it's totalitarianism.
Do not be fooled by the apologists of terror.

These apologists tell us that the root cause of terrorism is the deprivation
of national and civic rights, and that the way to stop terror is to redress
the supposed grievances that arise from this deprivation.

But the root cause of terrorism, the deliberate targeting of civilians, is
not the deprivation of rights. If it were, then in the thousands of conflicts
and struggles for national and civil rights in modern times we would see
countless instances of terrorism. But we do not.

Mahatma Gandhi fought for the independence of India without resorting to
terrorism. So too did the peoples of Eastern Europe in their struggle to
bring down the Berlin Wall. And Martin Luther King's campaign for equal
rights for all Americans eschewed all violence, much less terrorism.

If the deprivation of rights is indeed the root cause of terrorism, why did
all these people pursue their cause without resorting to terror? Put simply,
because they were democrats, not terrorists. They believed in the sanctity of
each human life, were committed to the ideals of liberty, and championed the
values of democracy.

But those who practice terrorism do not believe in these things. In fact,
they believe in the very opposite. For them, the cause they espouse is so
all-encompassing, so total, that it justifies anything. It allows them to
break any law, discard any moral code and trample all human rights in the
dust. In their eyes, it permits them to indiscriminately murder and maim
innocent men and women, and lets them blow up a bus full of children.

There is a name for the doctrine that produces this evil. It is called
totalitarianism.

Indeed, the root cause of terrorism is totalitarianism. Only a totalitarian
regime, by systemically brainwashing its subjects, can indoctrinate hordes of
killers to suspend all moral constraints for the sake of a twisted cause.

That is why from its inception totalitarianism has always been wedded to
terrorism -- from Lenin to Stalin to Hitler to the ayatollahs to Saddam
Hussein, right down to Osama bin Laden and Yasser Arafat.

Those who fight as terrorists rule as terrorists.

It is not merely that the goals of terrorists do not justify the means they
choose, it is that the means they choose tell us what their true goals are.
Osama bin Laden is not seeking to defend the rights of Muslims but to murder
as many Americans as possible, and ultimately to destroy America. Saddam
Hussein is not seeking to defend his people but to subjugate his neighbors.

Arafat is not seeking to build a state but to destroy a state; the many
massacres of Jews he sponsors tells us what he would do to all the Jews of
Israel if he had enough power.

People who deliberately target the innocent never become leaders who protect freedom and human rights. When terrorists seize power, they invariably set up the darkest of dictatorships -- whether in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan or Arafatistan.

In short, the reason why some resort to terror and others do not is not any
absence of rights, but the presence of a tyrannical mindset. The totalitarian
mind knows no limits. The democratic mind sets them everywhere.

The essential steps to defeat international terrorism are being courageously
undertaken by President Bush. By declaring that terrorism is never justified,
and by deterring or destroying those regimes that support terror, President
Bush has bravely charted a course that will lead the free world to victory.

But to assure that this evil does not re-emerge a decade or two from now, we
must not merely uproot terror but also plant the seeds of freedom. Only under
tyranny can a terrorist mindset be widely cultivated. It cannot breed in a
climate of democracy and freedom.

The open debate of ideas and the respect for human life that are the
foundation of all free societies are a permanent antidote to the poison that
the terrorists seek to inject into the minds of their recruits.

That is why it is imperative that once the terrorist regimes in the Middle
East are swept away, the free world, led by America, must begin to build the
institutions of pluralism and democracy in their place. This will not happen
overnight, and it is not likely to result in liberal, Western-style
democracies. But given an option between Turkish-style freedom and
Iranian-style tyranny, the choice is clear.

We simply can no longer allow parts of the world to remain cloistered by
fanatic militancies. Such militancies, once armed with nuclear weapons, could
destroy our civilization. We must begin immediately to encourage the peoples
of the Arab and Islamic world to embrace the idea of pluralism and the ideals
of freedom -- for their sake, as well as ours.

Posted by David Melle at May 01, 2002 07:17 PM