Dr. Qanta Ahmed
The war in Gaza and the barbaric
terrorist attacks on the border communities have managed to clearly and
forcefully shift the discourse in the world to Israel and Hamas, almost
positioning the entire Muslim world alongside the Palestinians in
demanding an end to Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip.
Worse still, antisemitic sentiment has
been clearly on the side of Hamas more than ever and it has managed to
deeply infiltrate social media channels in the Western world and from
there to the streets.
However, within this turmoil, it is
important to remember that even within the Muslim world, there are those
who have been horrified by the barbarism of Hamas terrorists and the
murderous ideology behind their actions. In fact, there are many around
the world who have been fighting against this worldview for decades and
have faced hatred and criticism as a result.
One of these individuals is Dr. Qanta
Ahmed, a physician, a Muslim, and a social activist who is among the
leading and prominent figures in the global fight against radical Islam,
which has hit the world from Orlando to Karachi and from Moscow to
Mozambique.
"I'm American and British. I was
raised in England. I am Muslim by birth, and I observe Islam. I have
spent close to the last 20 years, let's say since 9/11, combating
radical Islam, and trying to distinguish radical Islam from true Islam,"
she told Israel Hayom in a recent visit to Israel aimed at understanding the scope of the atrocities committed by Hamas.
"I work as a physician, I'm an academic
physician, at New York University. And in the course of the last couple
of decades, I've been to places that were deeply affected by terrorism.
In my everyday medical practice, I look after people who are survivors
of 9/11, they were first responders that day," she says, explaining how
the al-Qaida attack in 2001 on the US was a turning point for her. "I
saw September 11 from Saudi Arabia, where I was a physician, and saw
that event happening live in Riyadh, at a time when Saudi Arabia was
under the grip of reactionary puritanism."
Dr.
Ahmed traveled the world in the wake of the immense damage caused by
Islamist terrorist organizations. She met survivors of the Taliban's
terror; in Iraq, she met Yazidis who had escaped the massacre by ISIS in
Sinjar; and in Mosul, she encountered children who had been recruited
as fighters for the terrorist organization ISIS. These face-to-face
meetings with the victims strengthened and sharpened her perception of
the distinction between Islam as a religion and its use for murderous
terrorism.
"I have been able to see the impact of
terrorism from the moment that I witnessed it in Saudi Arabia, to the
effects on the lives minds, and bodies of my patients that I've been
treating for getting towards two decades, to the impacts on Muslim
societies, the impacts on Muslim children, the impacts on the Yazidi
people and their enslavement, almost every aspect that I can, I've been
able to see with that, with that background," she says.
Q:
As a Muslim, you define the difference between Islam as a religion as a
core of belief, to Islamism, to what one might call political Islam.
What are the key differences in theory and in practice?
"It's a very good question. And this
is partly why the Islamists are so facile at that. So facile at
disguising totalitarianism as a creed. So Islam is a very simple belief
system. It requires belief in one God. It requires devotion to prayer
and remembrance of God, charity, also fasting, and also visiting Mecca.
In fact, the visit to Mecca is only for those who can afford it…. So the
differences between Islam and Islamism is a belief system centered
around service to others, service to others is how we worship God or 90%
of Islam is really what you're doing for others, how you treat other
people. Just like in Judaism, the loss of one life – if you cause the
loss of one life, it's the loss of all mankind. If you take one life,
you've taken all of mankind. Those commandments are very explicit in
Islam. Islamism is completely different. Islamism mandates that Islam
can only be experienced in a legal caliphate. The one other deceits of
Islamism is the concept that there is some requirement of violent jihad.
So, Islam is very clear on jihad. The greater jihad is the struggle for
self-improvement, always trying to eliminate the baser instincts that
are present in all human beings. There's no such thing as a holy war in
Islam, there was only a just or an unjust war. The Islamist takes that
and state that violent jihad is an essential creed, to subscribe to
their beliefs. So what Hamas has just prosecuted, they are being
celebrated and fated as loaded figures who have prosecuted a holy war.
And that is absolutely abhorrent."
Over the years Ahmed has visited Israel
numerous times – this is her 12th visit – and got a first-hand look at
the Israeli reality. "As I deepened my understanding about radical Islam
or Islamism, whether it's nonviolent or violent, I began to realize
that Israel was one of the prime recipients of Islamist terrorism, and
began to learn about Islam. Islam in relationship to Israel…When I saw
these atrocities, of course on October 7, I checked on my friends in
Israel and was deeply worried about them, but it was the rapid denial of
the event that was broadcast in Western media and also in the protests
that very much affected me. "
Upon arriving she saw the atrocities up
close on a tour with security officials to the Gaza border communities
and to the National Forensics Institute, where she saw the autopsies
being made. "I bought a ticket and came here immediately to see things
for myself and talk to survivors and eyewitnesses, and see the places of
genocide and even look at the bodies of those that were executed by
this genocidal Islamist jihadist event," she says.
Q: You categorize this as genocide. Do you mean it to the full extent of the word?
"I should qualify that I'm not an
expert in international law. There may be specific definitions, but as I
understand it, the terrorists, the Hamas group on October 7, came with
lethal and very specific threats of systemic extermination, torture,
abduction forced displacement of the Israeli people. These terrorists
had maps and floor plans, they knew the levels of the homes, and they
even knew the names of the families living there. And they were familiar
with which families may be retired senior officials within the Israeli
military. There was no question in my mind, they had lethal intent, and
there's no question in my mind they had that intent. Even more so than
the Israeli identity, it was the Jewish identity that they were seeking
to eliminate. The reason I call it genocidal is these people were
eliminated. I don't like to use these words, because the words
themselves can be dehumanizing, but these people were massacred. They
were exterminated because of their Jewish identity. Some of the bodies
also had all of those atrocities and then additionally been incinerated.
So, this is not like a mass shooting. This is not some kind of mass
casualty event, even though casualties were generated. This was lethal
extermination driven by a fanatical ideology. Many of the injuries –
when I've described them to my colleagues who are experts in genocide,
documenting genocide, understanding genocide, and defining genocide,
recognize the injuries could be genocidal. "
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