Radical Islam: Not just Israel’s problem

The media’s narrow view of the global war on terror

By Aditya Kashyap
From the September 2006 Print Edition

Bias in the mainstream media has been criticized from all ends of the political spectrum. Some critiques of media bias are valid, while most are just the student tools of politicians or pundits attempting to alleviate blame for failed policy. Most petty "bias" rants do little service to the public. They do not enlighten voting citizens, and distract the public from the truly dangerous bias of the media, a bias that does not choose sides based on election cycles.

On July 11 the city of Mumbai, India, suffered serial bombings of its commuter train network by the Islamic extremist group now identified as the Pakistani-based Lakshar-e-Taiba. Faisal Sheikh, organizer of the group that attacked the train stations, joined the Islamic Students Movement in India "to do something for Islam." This was no Pakistani, but an Indian citizen who traveled to Pakistan for the first time in 2002 on a student visa to meet with extremists from Lakshar-e-Taiba in Lahore.

Claims blaming the 40-year history of periodical terrorist attacks in India on a political conflict between India and Pakistan are far from true. Radical Islam plays a significant role in fueling terrorism in the region, not only in India but in Pakistan itself; Muslim extremists have made three assassination attempts on Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf because was too moderate in their eyes. Pakistan’s government does not have control of the northern-most region of the country where fundamentalist Islamic tribes enact their own laws, independently of the Pakistani government, to allow for such atrocities as the sanctioned rape of a woman named Mukhtar Mai. Radical Islam is a dangerous ideology plaguing the Indian subcontinent, regardless of the political tensions between Pakistan and India. This revelation is not revolutionary, but has astonishing implications.

Almost instantly after the terrorist attacks took place in Mumbai, newswires across the world were inundated with reports of casualties, speculation on the perpetrators, and the descriptions of the blasts. All the major news networks — CNN, FOX News, MSNBC — began covering the story on television, but for no longer than a couple of days. Some may argue the conflict was of foreign origin and that networks typically focus on U.S.-based news stories, such as the war in Iraq. This notion is completely absurd considering that the Madrid and London train bombings, also conducted by Muslim extremists, were afforded coverage for week in all forms of media. To purport the Mumbai bombings were insignificant is also incorrect considering the scope and death toll.

At first, the disparity in the amount of coverage between these considerably similar terrorist attacks is puzzling. Yet, when one examines the post-coverage analysis of each event, the answer becomes clear.

After both the London and Madrid train bombings, it was discovered the Muslim extremist groups carrying out the attacks each cited Israel’s existence in Middle East as one of their major grievances with the West. The U.S. news networks were easily able to fill airtime with Middle-East–relations pundits who argued the terrorism was related to Israel’s tension with its Islamic neighbors. In the case of the Mumbai bombings, no such connection could be made between Muslim extremists committing terrorism and the state of Israel. Instead, the Mumbai terrorists’ hate spawned from completely different issues: the desire for a Pakistani, Islamic Kashmir and a general supremacist attitude and intolerance towards Hinduism. Lakshar-e-Taiba advocates a fundamentalist Islamic Pakistani state, but ironically India is the home to more Muslims than any other nation in the world besides Indonesia. Over the years, Indonesia has also suffered several significant terrorist attacks, most of which are also a footnote in the American media.

The U.S. news networks’ decision to highlight radical Islam’s terrorism when it relates to Israel and curb coverage of radical Islam’s terrorism when it targets other countries is harrowing. Such a bias purports the notion that Israel’s policies bear responsibility for the spawn of Muslim extremists. This leads to the ridiculous furthering of the notion that if Israel were to cease to exist, radical Islam’s terrorism would stop. It implies radical Islam only exists because of Israel. But Israel is just the current scapegoat for Muslim extremists. If Israel falls, extremists will find other focuses for their violence. Radical Islamic ideology has problems with its neighbors wherever it is harbored, whether it is in nations that are predominantly Christian, Hindu, Jewish, or Islamic.

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