Why the rise of radical Islam?
By Victor Davis Hanson Read any newspaper or turn on any news broadcast and you’re bound to encounter stories of Islamic radicals fighting, killing and threatening each other–and just about everyone else. In Somalia, jihadists, with the support of Al Qaeda, have clashed with troops loyal to the country’s internationally recognized interim government and now threaten neighboring Ethiopia with all-out war. Nearby in Darfur, Sudan, Muslim militiamen called janjaweed are waging genocide against black Christian and animist villagers–apparently with the consent of the Sudanese government. Shiite and Sunni militias, each claiming to represent true Islam, keep slaughtering each other in Iraq. Hezbollah (“Party of God”) seeks to destroy democracy in Lebanon by provoking Israel, which it is sworn to eliminate. On the West Bank, Hamas and Fatah have taken a timeout from their attacks on Israel to murder each other and innocent bystanders. The Iranian Shiite theocracy–when not hosting Holocaust
