​Orlando: root of the problem

The Orlando attack has taken America back to a post-9/11 atmosphere, designated by fear and bewilderment. The same questions arise. What happened? What motivated the killer? What is the link, if there is any, between Islam and the ideology of the killer? How should we act, domestically and internationally, to prevent another terrorist attack from happening? Should we employ means that are opposed to our fundamental values in order to achieve such an end?

None of these questions can be answered if we don’t try, with courage, clear-slightness and rationality, to understand the deep, structural problems that have caused this and many other terrorist attacks across the West and the world. Understanding the roots of the problem requires us to abandon the partisan attitudes that have characterized the political debate since the Orlando attack. We need to re-question even our strongest, most entrenched beliefs in order to put our emotions aside, and discuss ideas rationally.

I believe the roots of the problem are three: Islamic fundamentalism, which provided the motive for the killer to act; the absence of gun regulations, which provided the opportunity for the killer to act; and the presence of The Islamic State organization (also known ISIS or ISIL), which considers itself a state and controls a territory, mainly in Syria and Iraq.

According to the leading expert on ISIS’ theology, Bernard Haykel, it is fundamentally wrong to say that ISIS is un-Islamic. I use the phrase “Islamic fundamentalism” for a reason: ISIS’ ideology is closely identified with the jihadist wing of a branch of Sunni Islam called Salafism, which aims to strip the Islamic faith of what it considers “centuries of intricate and technical Islamic scholarship” in order to revert to the initial purity of Islam, to the fundamentals of Islam as embodied by the Prophet and his companions. According to Salafism, the Koran is the word of God that must be understood literally, thus that can be understood by any literal person.

And the main root of the problem is ideological, not military. This is why, for example, the Western armies, among the most powerful armies in the world, have not been able to eradicate the Taliban movement in Afghanistan, whose ideology is also fundamentalist, despite 15 years of military presence in the country.

Therefore, in order to protect itself, the United States first needs to name the ideology that is incompatible with its fundamental values and principles such as democracy (the rule of the people’s law as opposed to the rule of God’s law), the recognition of the equal worth of each person, individual freedoms etc. Second, America needs to take all the necessary steps in order to force its diplomatic allies, mainly Saudi Arabia, to end their sponsoring of Islamic fundamentalism movements around the world. Third, America must make it clear that it will not allow the spread of dangerous Islamic fundamentalism in its territory.

Nevertheless, the big challenge of the United States is not merely to apply the policy prescriptions mentioned above, but to do so without alienating the millions of Muslim-Americans who also disavow today’s terrorist attacks. We must show them that the literal interpretation of the Koran and ISIS’ ideology are strongly intertwined, and that disavowing these attacks requires them to declare certain core texts and traditional teachings of Islam as no longer valid, while only embodying those that are compatible with Western values.

But merely fighting against ISIS’ hatred is not enough. ISIS leadership continues to plan terrorist attacks across Europe, and has succeeded in carrying out attacks in Paris and Brussels due to the porous border between Syria, Turkey and Europe that allowed the combattants to move relatively easily across borders. However, when it comes to America, which is located across the Atlantic Ocean, it seems that ISIS has an incentive to rely on “lone wolves,” namely, radicalized people acting on their own initiative, thanks to availability of firearms, which are sometimes very lethal. Background checks and the ban of assault rifles to public consumption are, I believe, capital first steps in solving that problem.