Palestine is burning again and over one billion Muslims in the world can do nothing but to play helpless spectators. What else can they do? Their anger and frustration is not targeted at the Israelis and the Americans alone, but also at the impotency of their own so-called Islamic governments. It is the internal paralysis of their own self-serving corrupt and repressive regimes which antagonises them more than anything else. And then, there is the fraudulent peace process. I was a teenager when I started hearing about the Middle East peace process. A generation later, my teenage son is already sick of hearing this term in its intended context. Father and son, we may be disillusioned by this timeless impasse, other fathers and sons have benefited immensely from the misery of our Palestinian brothers. In 1992 George Bush talked of a Middle East peace plan and sent Palestinians, Israelis and the world media to Spain in a flurry of hopes and dreams. It turned out to be the Gulf war charade, to get the sympathies of Muslim members of the coalition. Naturally the whole thing fizzled out as soon as it was supposed to. A decade later his son, who came into the office with a Middle East policy of no interference, played the generation game so shamelessly. He spoke of a 'viable Palestinian state' (within 48 hours of the attacks on America) and only days before bombing started in Afghanistan. It is as easy as this to trick and manipulate the Islamic world today. Muslim leadership, which never ceases to find newer depth in its incompetence, becomes eager suckers every time.

If the west wants to align with Israel because it is closer to its own culture and its own interests, so be it. It has stood by it for fifty years anyway. If it wants to withdraw its humanitarian sympathy towards the Palestinian cause, do it. What has this hollow gesture achieved to date? But none dare deny these longest suffering people of our time to resist what you resisted in 1940. These oppressed and tormented people are doing no more than the people of a dozen nations did while resisting the Nazi occupation, "by all means possible", during the Second World War. Yet the media in the West does not see or present it as a war against occupation. With the few exceptions, majority of the media is made up of human robots towing their government's line. The infuriating debate on TV seems to be a conspiracy in its own right. You get a fluent speaker in English talking utter rubbish on behalf of Israel and then you have a Palestinian spokesperson, which is either pulverised by aggressive questioning or is such a hopeless English speaker that a winning argument is turned into an instant stalemate. In the countless debates the central issue, that the conflict is between an occupation force and a resisting population, is always absent. And then there is talk of Israel's right to defend itself. This is bewildering stuff. Since when the occupation forces were granted rights? Did Saddam Hussain have a right to defend himself in Kuwait? Had Hitler occupied Britain in 1940, would the Nazi forces have been granted the right to defend themselves against any resistance?

Newsreaders tirelessly report on Israelis "striking back" at Palestinian "targets". What targets? The only strategic target Palestinians have is the suicide bomber. Given the fact that the bomber is the first to die in such attacks, I can never understand the demands for apprehending people responsible for suicide bombing. Just as many in the west cannot comprehend how a man like Bin Laden possibly become a hero in many Muslim lands, they don't (or don't want to) understand the motivation and the cause behind the suicide bomber. There cannot be a clearer answer than the recent events in Palestine and America's support for Israeli brutalities. Much has been said in the western media about the suicide bomber. Most of the explanations are either ridiculously distorted interpretations or blatantly meant to be malicious towards the faith of Islam. The gutter press even links them with a reward of virgins, in the life after, as the apparent motive. I guess I would be wasting my time asking such 'intellectuals' to explain the motives of the Japanese Kamikaze pilots, or the Sri Lankan Tamil tigers. In Islam, the act is Haraam as is murder and adultery. Suicide bomber has no religion. It can never be condoned, but we should not dismiss it as a mere display of fanaticism as the US & Israeli politicians often do to deflect the blame from their unjust policies. In its Palestinian context at least, It is simply the last resort of a very desperate and a very oppressed people. With no super powers, no money to buy coalitions, no CNN and no BBC on their side, the choice is simple - a death worth living. Enough is enough being their battle cry. Their legitimacy? It also comes as a challenge to the international cartel of 'justice and democracy' in the shape of dozens of United Nation resolutions gathering dust in the heart of New York - of all the places.

Islamic civilisation is approaching the completion of a century of its extra ordinary decline. Despite its unstoppable march as a religious faith, Islam continues to be held hostage by its own corrupt and incompetent leadership. Its societies have experienced unprecedented degree of decadence and humiliation. One of the most vibrant cultures the world has ever known looks a ghastly shadow of its glorious past. And yet the leaders of the Islamic world are being applauded, or should I say 'aided and abetted', to maintain this status quo - so sickeningly referred to as 'stability'. We are being sold this 'stability' to make sure we stay where we are right now - down. When your adversary is down what else would you wish for but 'stability'? This 'stability' is neither acceptable to the Muslim masses, nor compatible with the true spirit of Islam. Muslims must do every thing possible, within the laws and principles of our great faith, to reverse this situation. Time is our testimony that we cannot depend on the 'good will' and 'justice' of our masked enemies; nor can we ever achieve economic independence (or are going to be allowed to) with the humiliating handouts.
Our salvation is Jihad - against ourselves. Yes, before we talk of Jihad against injustice and aggression of the outsiders, we must fight a Jihad within our own societies to put our own house right first. Jihad against our domestic injustices and against our indigenous oppression. Educational, economic, and technological Jihad. Jihad to find the path of the righteous one with our own Islamic values, with our own cultural heritage. There is no quick remedy and it is the only way out of this quagmire. First, individual Jihad, and then the collective one, to achieve justice through strength. Strength is not only a tool for the oppressor, it also is the prerequisite to dignity and self respect in this jungle of a world we are living in. Only and only through strength you can demand your rights. Right to resist occupation and oppression in Palestine, right to demand an end to the continuing genocide in Iraq where a September 11th takes place every month in the shape of death of five thousand children. Right to bring down dictators like Saddam Hussain and right to call the leader of the "civilised" world a liar when he turns away from the promise that the war against Iraq was not a war against Iraqi people. If we have strength, we will implement OUR United Nation resolutions just as those with strength are implementing theirs.