It Is Not Class Warfare

Myth shattered

By MICHAEL COREN

It has been a week for murderers, hypocrites and heroes. In Britain a group of Muslim doctors and medical students have been arrested in connection with a series of attempts to murder thousands of innocent people waiting to board aircraft or, sin of sins, dancing in a club.

Commentators were incredulous that people of science sworn to do none harm should apparently act thus. Fools. The doctors' unions in Egypt and Jordan are dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, a fascist group that preaches jihad. The second in command of Al Qaida is a pediatrician and one of the founders of Hamas a surgeon.

The idea that poverty and oppression produce psychotic mass murderers has always been a patronizing illusion. Egyptian universities churn out fundamentalist fanatics, the Saudi middle class is riddled with extremism.

But none of this would happen, argue the appeasers, if America and Israel left the Middle East alone. Tell this to the Christians of Egypt, Syria, Palestine and North Africa. They had done nothing to provoke the Islamic armies that invaded their countries, imposed Muslim rule, converted at sword-point and humiliated those who remained Christian and Jewish as second-class citizens.

Yet still in the west we hear the usual moans. There is fundamentalism in all religions, they say, and we should be careful not to judge. Well, next time I'm at the airport I'll make sure to look around for any Christian, Jewish or Buddhist fundamentalists who are obsessed with slaughtering me and my children.