Terrorist drove a car into a pedestrian street and department store in Sweden. Many dead and wounded. People are aghast.
In Norway, they discovered a bomb that luckily did not explode yet.
People are shocked but this is what is happening, not to exaggerate, once a week in Israel. There is no week that a car did not roam into some children, women, civilians or a bomb explode in a coffee shop or on a bus, killing indiscriminately.
Are the terrors related?
I do not think so. The terror in Sweden, Norway, Paris, Berlin or London have nothing to do with Palestine.
None of the terrorists was a Palestinian like none of the terrorists in the Boston Marathon, or the one that threatened bombing Times Square. None of them were Palestinians, and the countries terrorized have nothing to do with Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.
Most of the terrorists were born in the country they are terrorizing.
It can not be an attempt to take the country down like the Palestinian terrorists believe they can scare Israel into submission and the “Jewish colonialists” will go back to the country of their origin like the crusaders did.
In the case of France, Great Britain or Germany it could not be the goal of their terror. Those countries will survive.
So what is the purpose of the terror?
Is it a revenge to punish NATO countries that are occupying their land? But I am confused. Are not these NATO countries sending their sons and daughters to die there to bring democracy to them, emancipate them of dictatorships?
I believe there is no goal. The terror is an expression of the persons frustration. A manifestation of feeling like second class citizens. Kind of punishing with terror a society that does not fully accept them as equal.
How come the Jewish immigrants did not terrorize, although there was an anti-Semitic attitude and discrimination when they came in?
Jewish people were grateful for being alive and having a chance to survive. They worked at any job they could get and saved to educate their children and grandchildren. In three generations, the grandchildren of a seamstress or bath room attendant became a famous surgeon or a Nobel prize winner. They became part and parcel of the host society.
That is not the case with the Muslim culture. The expectation is to be equal here and now. It breeds anger and a mentally unbalanced person could become the next terrorist.
The solution in my opinion is on several axes:
Jail any religious leader that incites unrest.
Escalate the educational efforts, indoctrinating immigrants that the road to equality and belonging is through multigenerational education.
And the silent majority of the Muslim population must stop being silent. They must get organized to self control the messages delivered to the younger generation about discrimination.
Let me make one thing clear. My life has been saved by Albanian Muslims during the Second World War. I consult and work in Azerbaijan, a Muslim country.
I admire the Muslim people, the culture and the religion.
I do not believe it is the religion that is driving the terror. It is the feeling of deprivation, of inferiority caused by unrealistic expectations to be part of a hosting society in a hurry.
Just thinking
Ichak Kalderon Adizes