TORONTO – Former terrorist Dr. Tawfik Hamid, senior fellow and chair for the Study of Islamic Radicalism at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies and author of Inside Jihad: Understanding and Confronting Radical Islam, is dedicated to fighting the spread of radical Islam by teaching a fresh, peaceful and theologically sound interpretation of the Koran to young Muslims.

“Antisemitism is rising, no doubt,” he told an audience of about 800 at Beth Tzedec synagogue last Tuesday evening. “Justification for barbarism is rising.” However, “I’m here to tell you there is a solution. Islam has to teach values of peace.”

The war on terror “is not a war between Israel and the Arabs or between the West and the Arab world or Islam,” he asserted. “It’s a war between civilization and barbarism, between love and hate, between life and death. We either win this war or we will lose this civilization.”

Born in Egypt in 1961, Dr. Hamid, a medical doctor, hails from a secular, materially comfortable family.

“It’s terrorism that brings poverty, not poverty that brings terrorism,” he declared. “And why do these factors [poverty, low level of education and lack of freedom] not affect non-Muslims and make them become suicide bombers?”

In Gaza, for example, “just imagine the flourishing economy that could be created.”

When he was a student, “the first experience that put me in touch with the Divine was through studying the DNA molecule. Unfortunately, this motivation towards G-d led me to join an Islamic group, the Jumai Islamia [JI].”

The first principle he was taught at JI was to suppress any critical thinking.

“If you start to think, you’ll become an infidel,” he was told.

He became a radical together with the likes of Dr. Ayman Al-Zawaherri, who eventually was Al-Qaeda’s second in command.

Other brainwashing techniques included using the concept of hellfire to scare believers into murdering for G-d’s cause and exploiting the sexual deprivation syndrome among male students, who were discouraged from marrying and from having extramarital relations.

According to Dr. Hamid, the danger emanating from radical Islamists increases “when they smell that you are weak…. They don’t think with the same logic. You have to realize that…. You must think before making concessions.”

He discussed the reasons for the development of radical Islam, beginning with the increasing wealth of Saudi Arabia in the late 1970s, which many perceived to be a blessing because of its form of Islam – often referred to as petro-Islam. It was in fact a literal understanding of religion, he explained, resulting in the impossibility for Jews and Christians to survive there; women had no rights, and the arts and music were totally suppressed.

Second, and “in my view, the most dangerous” element, was the taking on of jihad as a personal responsibility, which resulted in suicide bombings and other forms of terrorism.

Third, “with your wonderful immigration policies, you invited them to spread this violence all over the world,” he said, referring to the current situation in Europe and the radical Islamist threat facing the entire civilized world, including North America. “Many people think it’s complicated, but it’s straightforward.”

According to Dr. Hamid, the agenda of world domination is mainstream among Moslems and will remain so without the availability of a peaceful interpretation of the Koran. In fact, the Koran recognizes that the land of Israel belongs to the Jews, he said.

He passionately challenged allegations that Israel is the cause of terrorism in the Middle East.

“When 150,000 innocent Algerians are murdered and their children are butchered in front of their eyes…can anyone say the Arab-Israeli conflict is the cause?

“When I was young, I always saw queues of Palestinians trying to live in Israel, but I never saw queues of Israeli Arabs trying to leave. If Israel is an apartheid state, why isn’t anyone trying to escape that hell?”

Notwithstanding the facts, many Western intellectuals continue to buy the notion that Israel is to blame, and Dr. Hamid believes the reason is antisemitism, even among leftist Jewish groups.

To test the sincerity of certain imams claiming to support interfaith dialogue and peace, he presented seven concepts that would be denounced publicly and unambiguously if they truly reject radical Islam: killing apostates; beating and stoning women; calling Jews pigs and monkeys; declaring war on non-Muslims; enslavement of other human beings; fighting and killing Jews, and killing gays.

He also weighed in on Iran.

The civilized world must stand together with Israel to halt Iran’s nuclear program, he said. “We were lucky with 9/11 because if they had nuclear weapons, they would have used them. I know, because I was one of them.”

He concluded with a moving poem he wrote the night American Jewish journalist Daniel Pearl was beheaded by radical Islamists in Pakistan. It ended with the line: “If they have killed you because you are a Jew, then I am a Jew from now on.”

The lecture was sponsored by Speakers Action Group and Beth Tzedec Men's Club.

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