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What’s in a name?

A whole lot, actually.

Radical Islamists deliberately blur the distinction between “Judaism” and “Zionism”, and between “Jew” and “Israeli”.

They do so as part of their focused drive to demonise the Jewish faith and Jewish ethnicity and to engender an atmosphere in which all Jews everywhere are regarded as legitimate prey. It is not because of the existence of the Jewish state of Israel that they hate the Jews – it is because of the country’s Jewish ethnicity and religion that they hate Israel. Radical Islamists are, quite simply, anti-Semites.

Either way, Jews the world over pay the price for Islamist anti-Semitism.

In the civilized world there is also a corresponding need to draw an important distinction. The terms “Muslim”, “Islam” and “Islamism” are often used interchangeably. That is inappropriate.

The term “Muslim” refers solely to a follower of the Muslim faith. The word speaks volumes about the person’s religion but nothing about his or her political affiliations.

“Islam” is the religion that Muslims follow. Here too there is no qualifier, it is simply a statement about the person’s religious adherence.

“Islamism”, on the other hand, is a political movement clothed for tactical reasons in the religious symbols of Islam. It represents hunger for worldly power and all the trappings of that power, disguised and indeed shielded behind a veneer of religion – Islam.

It is always necessary to draw a distinction between on the one hand Muslims/Islam, and on the other hand the international movement to hijack both the people and their religion for political power – Islamism.

Few countries are today immune from the parasitic outgrowth from Islam that is Islamism. It is a violent, aggressive political movement that protects itself from criticism through the tried and trusted human-shield approach, by labelling all resistance to political Islamism as “anti-Muslim sentiment” or “Islamophobia” – a word coined specifically to give a sheen of pseudo-academic credibility to the animosity prompted by Islamism itself. Nobody likes being regarded as a bigot so Islamists are largely left to get on with their agenda. Political Correctness has emerged as the new religion of the West, and it is blinding the West to the rise of Islamism, an aggressive political ideology clothed for protection in Islam.

Remarkably, few interlocutors in the West seem to question why Muslims always seem to be represented by Islamists.

Islamism has a subversive agenda whose aim is the establishment of the “Caliphate” – the global spread of a particular brand of Islam that demands forcible conversion to Islam and the utter subservience of all who at their personal peril remain non-believers. Read "The Restoration of the Caliphate" on DallasCarter.net if you want to find out more about what a Caliphate entails - this article in turn has many very useful links.

No country is immune, and no society is immune.

The view from the quiet backwater of Sweden is a case in point. What happens in Sweden today will be happening in your home tomorrow.

In fact, in many countries, it already is. Read on.

Start off by reading the following article from Islamist Watch (http://www.islamist-watch.org/blog/2010/02/muslims-confront-islamism-get-targeted-by)

Muslims Confront Islamism, Get Targeted by Islamists

by David J. Rusin • Feb 14, 2010

French imam Hassen Chalghoumi recently learned firsthand that Islamists despise non-Islamist Muslims as much as they do anyone else. Chalghoumi attracted their ire by coming out strongly in favor of a ban on face-covering veils, a prohibition that is moving closer to reality. Echoing President Nicolas Sarkozy, he described the niqab as a "prison for women, a tool of sexist domination and Islamist indoctrination" that "has no place in France." Moreover, he explained:

Having French nationality means wanting to take part in society, at school, at work. But with a bit of cloth over their faces, what can these women share with us? If they want to wear the veil, they can go to a country where it's the tradition, like Saudi Arabia.

Islamist reaction to his comments was swift and fierce, with a gang of nearly a hundred men storming his Paris mosque during a meeting of an organization focused on interfaith relations:

"They started to cry 'Allah akbar' and 'God is great,'" recounted Chalghoumi. "Then they insulted me, my mosque, the Jewish community, and the [French] republic. They left after an hour and a half."

According to a member of the Conference of Imams, the mob condemned Chalghoumi as an apostate and threatened him with "liquidation, this imam of the Jews."

Chalghoumi is not the only moderate risking "liquidation." Abadirh Abdi Hussein, a Muslim rapper in Sweden, had his head slashed by attackers displeased with his outspoken opposition to al-Shabaab, which has been recruiting young men to join the jihad in Somalia. And, as IW noted in January, Majed Moughni received a death threat after organizing a demonstration by Detroit-area Muslims to denounce the attempted Christmas Day airplane bombing.

Undeterred by this atmosphere of intimidation, many other Muslims have gone on offense against radicalism in recent months. Among them:

•The Muslim Canadian Congress called on lawmakers to ban the niqab, declaring it a "political issue promoted by extremists" that "has absolutely no place in Canada."

•A plan, now canceled, by the radical group Islam4UK to march through an English town known for honoring fallen soldiers earned the very public wrath of numerous Muslims.

•The liberal Norwegian Muslim group LIM (which stands for "equality, integration, diversity" in that nation's language) challenged fellow Muslims to rally in defense of free speech after Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard's home was attacked.

•Minhaj-ul-Quran, a Sufi Muslim organization operating in the UK, issued a fatwa against suicide bombings, labeling them "totally un-Islamic" and "violations of human rights."

As the above examples suggest, at the core of the resurgent jihad is a conflict between an authoritarian interpretation of Islam and a more spiritual, secular interpretation. The fate of two worlds — the Western and the Islamic — will be shaped profoundly by the outcome.