Terrorism as a weapon.

On November 30, 2002, some 350 London Muslims, Christians and Jews, including the mayor, the deputy mayor, and every city MP and MPP, gathered for a meal at London's Islamic Centre. "This is important, not just for our community, but in light of world events," said centre president Faisal Joseph. "Jews, Christians and Muslims all want the same things--peace, security, and a safe haven for our children."

That statement is undoubtedly correct. Regardless of religion, all peoples prefer peace to war, security to insecurity, and safety to danger for their children.

Nonetheless, there is alarming disagreement over resort to terrorism as a weapon of war. While many Muslims condone the murder of Israeli civilians by Palestinian suicide bombers, the great majority of Christians and Jews unequivocally condemn all deliberate armed attacks on civilians, no matter what the provocation or who the perpetrators might be.

This is not to deny that some Christians and Jews have perpetrated terrorist atrocities such as the 1982 massacre of Palestinians by Christians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps near Beirut, Lebanon. In this dreadful war crime, members of the Lebanese Christian militia murdered an estimated 700 to 800 people, including several dozen women and children.

Six years earlier, thousands of Palestinian fighters had taken part in the slaughter of several hundred Christian civilians in the Lebanese town of Damour. Could this or any of the many other atrocities inflicted upon Christians in the Lebanese civil war have served in any way to justify the Sabra and Shatila massacre? Not at all. Virtually all Christian and Jewish leaders would agree that the Sabra and Shatila atrocity was wholly unjustified and inexcusable.

On February 25, 1994, Dr. Baruch Goldstein, a Jewish immigrant from New York, opened fire with a machine gun on Muslim worshippers in a mosque in Hebron, murdering 29. Former Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin did not seek to mitigate the crime by citing the number of Jews in the Hebron area who had been murdered by Islamic terrorists. Instead, he lambasted Goldstein as a "degenerate murderer." "You are not part of the community of Israel," pronounced an infuriated Rabin. "You are a foreign implant. You are an errant weed. Sensible Judaism spits you out. You placed yourself outside the wall of Jewish law. You are a shame on Zionism and an embarrassment to Judaism."

Likewise, Benjamin Netanyahu, then Leader of the Opposition, denounced Goldstein's "despicable crime as an inexcusable violation of Jewish values. Former Israeli president Ezer Weizman declared: "There is no understanding, no forgiveness, and no atonement for this horrible act."

Over the past two and a half years, so-called martyr bombers acting in the name of Allah have murdered more than 650 Israeli civilians and injured more than 2,000 others. In a recent report, Human Rights Watch noted: "The scale and systematic nature of these attacks in 2001 and 2002 meet the definition of a crime against humanity ... Human Rights Watch unreservedly condemns these atrocities.

But do most Palestinian Muslims regard these terrorist attacks as despicable crimes and inexcusable violations of Islamic law? Evidently not. According to opinion poll data cited by Human Rights Watch, a clear majority of Palestinians have consistently supported deliberate attacks on Israeli civilians by Palestinian suicide bombers. Some Muslim leaders try to justify the atrocities, by citing the number of Palestinian civilians killed by the Israeli military. All such rationales are despicable.

In the words of Human Rights Watch, "The arguments put forward to justify or excuse suicide bombings and other Palestinian attacks on civilians are without foundation. There can be no doubt that such attacks are grave crimes. In most, if not all cases, they are crimes against humanity. International law defines those who perpetrate these atrocities as criminals. So are those who incite, plan, and assist them. They should be brought to justice."

The Canadian Islamic Congress would do well also to publish such a forthright denunciation of all terrorist attacks on civilians. As it is, apart from Sept. 11, most leaders of Muslim organizations in Canada, as elsewhere, have issued no more than equivocal expressions of regret mingled with abstruse excuses for the atrocities committed by Islamic terrorists.

Rory Leishman lives in London, ON. His column appears every other issue.