After the terrorist attacks in London, the Sun Online in the UK published a special feature of Islamic terrorist attacks that have occurred around the world since 1993.

The newspaper listed the 1993 World Trade Center bombings, the explosion on a Philippines Air jet in 1994 that killed one and injured 10, the Khobar Towers bombing that killed 26 U.S. servicemen in 1996, the East Africa Embassy bombings in 1998, the USS Cole in 2000, September 11, bombings in Bali and Jakarta, recent attacks in Saudi Arabia, the 3/11 Madrid bombings, and several others.

The world map posted by the Sun for this feature showed dots all over the atlas—except one area that is notably dot-free. 

If this feature is to be believed, then practically the only place in the world to have been untouched by Islamic terrorism in the past decade is Israel.

Obviously, this was no accidental omission.  Europeans, like much of the world, have long believed that the terror faced by the Jewish state is a particularized domestic dispute, or more specifically, a “resistance” to “occupation.”  Few have linked Palestinian terrorism to the larger, global movement of Islamic terrorism depicted in great detail by the Sun Online.

While the old PLO, led by secular Communists under the banner of Arab nationalism, had no connection to the older European terrorist groups like the Irish Republican Army or the Basque separatists in Spain, brainwashed Palestinian youths blowing themselves up are motivated by the same ideology shared by Islamic terrorists from Indonesia to London.

With Wednesday’s announcement by British authorities that the terrorists behind the attacks were suicide bombers, it is becoming increasingly difficult to argue that Israel faces a different enemy than the rest of the West. 

As even Tony Blair himself noted, the perpetrators killed in the name of Islam—just as young Palestinian suicide bombers do.  It was only after Arafat turned to Islam as his rallying cry that he was able to get young children to strap bombs onto their chest.

Palestinian children are indoctrinated to believe that violence is inherent in Islam, and those die in the course of murdering Jews will be rewarded with eternal paradise.  “Martyrdom” is so glorified in Palestinian schools and society at large, in fact, that kids barely into puberty clamor for the “privilege” and “honor” of becoming a “shahid.” 

The exaltation of terrorism under the guise of Islam helps explain why most of the suicide bombers come from middle- and upper-middle-class families.  Early reports indicate that the four suicide bombers in the London attacks also were not from impoverished backgrounds—and all were born and raised in Britain.

But even before the London attacks, abundant evidence demonstrated that the Palestinian terrorist organizations were fellow travelers with the likes of al Qaeda.  The views and goals of Hamas and Hezbollah, among other terrorist groups, are, if anything, in sync with those of al Qaeda. Continued...