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Saudi: Radical Islam worse than Nazism

Saudi journalist says terror groups should be treated as Nazis, total war should be declared on extremist Islamic Ideology
By Roee Nahmias

Courageous words: Not everyone in the Arab world praises Osama Bin Laden and terror groups as heroes. Indeed, some Arabs have issues scathing attacks on radical Islamic groups and they manner in which they interpret Islam.

 

The criticism leveled at extremists by Saudi journalist Muhammad al al-Sheikh, however, is unusual in its harshness. In two pieces published in Saudi newspaper al-Jazeera, and presented courtesy of the Middle East Media Research Institute, al-Sheikh charged radical Islamists hold a similar, and even worse, ideology than radical Islam, and should be treated as Europeans coped with Nazism.

 

The first article was published in July 10, following the release of an extremist spiritual leader from prison. The release raises many questions, al-Sheikh said.

 

“The man is one of the forefathers of terrorism and he is the one who raised, through his books and radical interpretations, many of those belonging to terror groups.”

 

“They say a Jordanian court acquitted him of charges that include the blowing up of American facilities…however, this dangerous terrorist did something much worse: he seized upon the down-and-out situation of many Muslim youths today in order to perpetuate violence, murder and destruction forever. In order to plant deep roots for the idea of suicide and to incite kids to commit suicide."

 

“This is the root of the problem,” said al-Sheikh.

 

‘Hating the other’

According to al-Sheikh, “eradicating terror will only be possible by doing away with the ideas that come from our society. A military solution is not enough,” he said.

 

“We must treat modern Jihad parties just as the Europeans treated Naziism," he added.

 

“The ideas of radical Islam are similar to the ideas that drove the Nazi ideology. If the economic freeze and national depression in 1930 led to the emergency to murderous Nazism, we can say that the economic and cultural failure that grip Arab and Muslim countries today, together with the frustration of many Muslims, are once again driving this murderous philosophy."

Similarly, the common denominator is hatred and physical elimination of the other, al-Sheikh said

“I still believe that one of the first tasks for the international community today should be to reconstruct its experience with Nazism and cope with this barbaric, dangerous culture as it did with the Nazi culture,” al-Sheikh wrote.

“If this isn’t done, the coming days could be very eventful and their implications for the whole of humanity would be much more severe than those of the World War,” he concluded somberly.