No justification for IS’ abominable crimes

Many Jordanians in the US are furious about what they consider “a systematic distortion of our image, both as Arabs and as Muslims”. 

They admit that the stereotype about Arabs in the American minds has been negative for centuries, and about Islam even worse since the Crusades.

King Hussein tried to change attitudes vis-à-vis Arabs, to eradicate misconceptions about Islam, and to project a new image of the Arab Muslims as a civilised society, adhering to the ethical values of the 21st century, abiding by the moral criteria of a monotheistic religion that advocates tolerance, humanity, and love for the Almighty who considers all peoples as his sons that should be protected, respected, feel the grace of mercy and be taken care of.

Huge efforts were exerted to change the negative image of Arabs and Muslims in the American and European eye. Researchers were paid tens of millions of dollars to find ways to create a new image and to deconstruct the subliminal negative ones.

But what happened to US journalist James Foley a few days ago projects the worst image about Arabs and Muslims. Such heinous acts will depict our peoples as bloodthirsty barbarians, at war with humanity and civilisation, and living by inhuman code of values.

Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi’s Islamic State, which beheaded Foley is the same group that, on July 19, 2014, expelled 12,000 Christians from their homes in Mosul, where their lineage goes back for millennia. 

Using Islam as a cover, the Islamic State followers forced 650,000 Iraqis of the Yazidi religious sect to flee their hometown of Nineveh and other village communities. But the Islamic State mullah issued orders to keep 1,000 Yazidi girls and sell them to his fighters for $145 each, in a newly revived form of slavery.

The name of Islam was used to justify these abominable crimes.

Surprisingly, none of the top five Islamic authorities in Jordan came out openly to condemn the acts of barbarism committed in Mosul in the name of Islam.

The Lebanese cardinals took the first flight to Erbil, Kurdistan, to express solidarity and support to the expelled Christians. But the highest Islamic authorities in Jordan have not issued one statement of condemnation of the way the name of Islam is being used to justify crimes, barbarism and degradation.

Jordanians in Washington have legitimate reasons to feel aghast at the distortion of our image as Arabs and Muslims.

But how many years are needed to convince the world that the Arab nation is civilised despite its Baghdadis?