Preaching Peace and Funding Terror

While on a recent visit to New York, I had the occasion to meet Dr. Bashar Ja’Afari, Ambassador to the United Nation for Syria. We met while each of us was preparing for a television appearance. While the topic of the show in which I was to appear was a debate of the Armageddon, the Ambassador was there to discuss Syria’s role in the current Israeli conflict. Ironically, the Ambassador’s country of origin was at the very heart of the Armageddon discussion.

After exchanging pleasantries, I took the opportunity to probe the mind of the high- ranking Syrian official with respect to the recent Israeli conflict. As many of us have heard before, Dr. Ja’Afari stuck to the company line, 90 percent of all Muslims desire peace. While I will agree to this point, it is the follow up question that still haunts many victims of terror from around the world: Why can’t the 90 percent control the remaining 10 percent whose sole mission is the destruction of Israel and the terrorization of other countries that offer freedom to it citizens?

This, of course, is the sticking point the entire Muslim world is forced to overcome each and every day. While most agree that Syria may publicly say they do not want terror and do not want a conflict in their region, the funding, housing and training and supplying of Hezbollah, a terrorist group responsible for more American deaths than any other organization except Al Qaeda, is certainly an indicator that they have another mission and peace has nothing to do with it.

I took great interest as Ambassador Ja’Afari went on explain that this radical Islam that I began to chide him about was a by-product of America. He claimed that since the 1960s, America has been funding radical Islam from Nigeria to Sri Lanka and Iran to Iraq. I nodded politely and inquired as to his rationale and proof this allegation. The proof was a non- existent diatribe of the typical response: The West just does not understand us.

At last we agreed on something: I failed to understand why sending children into a crowded shopping area to detonate themselves made any sense. I failed to understand why a country that says it wants peace also has an agenda of destroying another. I failed to understand the reason behind the fact if 90 percent of Muslims want peace, why then, can they not control the radical 10 percent that only want to destroy civilization.

Muslims, while most are peace-loving people, have a problem. In some nations, such as Lebanon, the radical 10 percent has been elected to government positions. In other nations, rogue factions of Muslims run throughout the country terrorizing their own, repressing freedom, abusing women, and stamping out any form of western thought or behavior. Some nations allow their rulers to hold press conferences, where threatening their neighbors in the region is not only commonplace, but expected. Until the radical 10 percent are put under control by their own people, this problem will fester as it has for years to come. All the while, regimes like those of Dr. Ja’Afari’s continue to preach peace and fund terror.

As fate would have it, our conversation was terminated when the UN Ambassador to Israel, Dan Gillerman, walked into the room where we were speaking. Without saying a word to each other, it was clear from the look in Dr. Ja’Afari’s eyes that peace was not in his mind at that moment.