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Ariel Center
  for Policy Research
POB 830
Shaarei Tikva  44810
Israel
Tel: 972-3906-3920
Fax: 972-3906-3905
Email: ariel.center@gmail.com

ACPR BOOKS

This study examines a new phenomenon, unprecedented in the danger it represents for the peace of the modern world. It was born in 1988 with the founding of al-Qa`idah by bin-Laden, and sprouted in February 1993 in the attack on the Twin Towers in New York. However, its institutionalization came in February 1998 with the founding of the Worldwide Islamic Front for Holy War against the Jews and the Crusaders, led by bin-Laden. This was a kind of worldwide Islamist international assault. The terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, was not the first in a series, but it was sufficiently traumatic in its significance to arouse the United States to determined action.

We treat the phenomenon as New, Anarchistic Islamic Terrorist Groups possessing ten traits distinguishing them from the old style fundamentalist “Islam”, and stress the worldwide threat that they embody. We have found that the most important distinction is their reversal of the strategy of action: The Arab regimes are stable as a result of the presence and aid of the West. Hence, it is necessary to expel the West, the new Crusaders, from their presence on Arab-Islamic soil, in order for it to be possible to overthrow the secular Arab-Islamic regimes that represent the new jahiliyyah, and to set up a state based on Islamic law.

We have analyzed four main factors that have brought about the growth of these groups and the molding of a new strategy, one more aggressive and violent. In order to internalize the phenomenon, we propose focusing on the cultural dimension in order to understand the roots of Islamic civilization and its sources, and to learn the features of the Arab-Islamic political system.

The goal of this study is to prove what researchers and decision-makers are not willing to say in the age of “politically correct”, but what many believe, that the combination of Arab radicals and fundamentalist Islam constitutes the greatest threat to the existence of modern society. The 20^th century witnessed the rise of two threats unprecedented in history, Communism and Nazism. When they were defeated and the illusion of the “end of history” emerged, the new Islamic fundamentalism flourished and now threatens to push back the achievements of mankind and to bury modern society.

Nevertheless, to a great extent, the new fundamentalist Islam is more dangerous: It is found in many states throughout the world, and has a population of more than one billion Muslims who are widely distributed geographically. Significantly, it is found in large numbers in modern, industrialized countries. Fundamentalism is based on a totalistic religion, which has no commitment to modern society. Indeed it aspires to utterly destroy modern society. It is more threatening, in combination with states having extremist regimes, and has both the means and powerful motives for purchasing and obtaining unconventional weapons; its ideology is uncompromisingly murderous and nihilistic; and it is supported by millions of frustrated, poverty-stricken people who seek to restore the humiliating present to the magnificent past.

Finally, we have sketched the measures that need to be employed in the war against terrorism in general, in the form of several packages. Yet, we have stressed that the new fundamentalist threat is so vital, so dangerous, so horrifying and so lacking in human feeling, that worldwide actions must be undertaken against it and against the regimes that support it, in the form of a total war of extinction. This is a war of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness, against the new Huns, the destroyers of modern civilization. If they are not overwhelmingly overcome, the 21^st century will be bloodier than the 20^th.

For excerpts of this book (in English), click here.