You Wish to Fight Terrorism? Join the
Alliance of Western and Democratic States (AWADS)
By Raphael Israeli
[Professor - Departments of Middle Eastern and East
Asian Studies Hebrew University]

[Provided to IMRA by Prof. Israeli for distribution]

Coexistence between the West and the Muslim world, if
not peaceful then at least non-belligerent, cannot
exist or last unless a system of unilateral measures
of self-defense is adopted by the West, but advertised
and made clear to all, on the one hand; and another
system of reward and non-lethal punishment is put in
place, as a menu for every Muslim country or
organization to choose from, if it elected to enjoy
the goodies of the West, on the other. Both do not
require any agreement on the part of the Muslim
countries, but do assume a united and uniform policy
of Western countries, who are willing to participate
in the effort and also to benefit from its fruits,
those who belong there today, or prove in the future
that they respond to the cumulative criteria, set by
the West itself, for joining in, such as a certain
per-capita income, a certain GNP judged necessary to
maintain Western norms, a regime of liberal democracy-
elected, with pacific transfer of power, accountable,
a-personal, non-hereditary; a free press, transparency
of government, human rights and freedoms; free
enterprise, freedom of property, transaction of real
estate and funds; freedom to create in the arts, the
humanities, literature, and protection of one¡¦s
creation; and a strong and independent judiciary to
oversee all this. Such countries that would be
accepted to the AWADS (Alliance of Western and
Democratic States), at the center of which will be the
US, Canada, Australia and Western Europe, will add
other applicants as they prove their adaptability to
its rules and their willingness and capacity to live
by and up to them. This system may sidetrack the
chaotic situation in the UN today, where politics and
shifting majorities, composed of dictatorships for the
most part, determine the moral and other standards of
behaviour in the world body. Durban 2001, should
remain for ever a warning to the level of hatred and
bigotry that the UN today is capable of stooping to.

Rules of Co-existence -AWADS will announce that it is
organized to fight in unison terror , but is open not
only to cooperation with Muslim countries who so
desire, as long as they meet the two criteria of
renouncing violence externally and enhance human
rights domestically, but would even consider co-opting
them into the organization if they should wean
themselves from terror and develop political systems
acceptable to it. Thus, without threats,
recriminations, forced reforms and all the rest, a
powerful incentive is introduced in the international
arena for change, the Western way, if a country so
elects, or stay in the putrid marsh of UN politics.
The West will then determine whom to get into AWADS,
and once there what sort of obligations every country
has to meet, proportionately to its strength,
population and wealth, in contrast to the universality
of the UN, which permits that any group of evil
terrorist countries, such as Algeria, Syria and Sudan
can determine the agenda and resolutions of, for
example, the Commission on Human Rights in Geneva.
Handing public order and morality to the heads of the
mafia, is not exactly the most efficient way to
achieve peace and equity. It is important to
emphasize, that in order to come across the most
horrendous incitement, libel and hatred , one does
not need to look for the fundamentalists¡¦ discourse.
It is there across the board, in mainstream and
opposition newspapers, among the populace and amidst
students and intellectuals, in official chanceries and
in Arab and diplomatic missions abroad
Before anything else, however, an iron-clad
definition of terror has to be adopted unilaterally
and announced by AWADS, as there is no chance that
Muslim countries would agree to any Western definition
or abide by it. For them, things are clear :the US and
Israel are terrorists, while the Arabs and Muslims are
either ¡§freedom fighters¡¨ or they ¡§fight back¡¨ out
of ¡§frustration¡¨ and ¡§despair¡¨ . Even should the
West agree unanimously on the formula of the State
Department, there will remain the problem of who are
the states which support terror and that President
Bush pledged to regard also as terrorists. For
example, Lebanon¡¦s government does not support terror
openly, but it lets the Hizbullah operate in its
territory, in conjunction with Iran and Syria who do
support it. Or Saudi Arabia and Egypt, who are
supposed to be aligned with the Americans, not only
for fear of their wrath, but mainly because they are
themselves threatened by domestic terrorism which
jeopardizes their regimes; so, while they do not
strictly encourage terror of give it shelter, Saudi
Arabia does finance the Hamas and Islamic centers
around the world which spawn terror, and both she and
Egypt have permitted such a high level of home-grown
incitement and hatred against the West and Israel,
including in their state-controlled media, that it is
doubtful whether they can be released from
responsibility. We have seen above the furious
rank-and-file American reactions to that incitement in
the press of those ¡§allies¡¨, but those who lodged
the protests were unaware of the venomous anti-Western
and anti-Jewish sermons in the Saudi mosques, and of
the violent student demonstrations in Egyptian
universities where not only support was voiced for the
Palestinian Islamikaze, but horrendous scenes of
massacres of Israeli civilians were re-enacted on
campus while the police was looking.

Thus, only after having arrived at an internally
agreed formula, fine enough not to let anyone slip
through, and being aware that even though the West did
not declare war on Islam, Muslim fundamentalists did
vow to wage war on America and Israel, AWADS can then
announce its rules of engagement with the Muslims, and
the rest of the world for that matter:

1. Immigration from those countries to AWADS, will be
strictly curtailed, in view of the Muslim undergrounds
that have been festering in the past years in Europe
and America, due to the extremely liberal policies of
the West, which have been abused, right and left, by
terrorist Muslim organizations. Control must not rely
on the countries where immigration originates, not
only because they are unwilling to stem the tide of
the reconquista of Europe and of setting a Muslim foot
in all continents, but even had they been willing to
arrest the immigrants, their chaotic and corrupt
systems would be incapable of implementing the
decision. Therefore, only stringent defensives around
AWADS countries, interception of illegal immigrants
and their repatriation without ceremony, and expulsion
from their territory of operatives who assist them,
will slow down the invasion.
2. Immigration, tourism and study by Muslim aliens in
the West will be allowed only to nationals of Muslims
countries which themselves allow such an unhampered
flow of Western immigrants, students and tourists,
without discrimination towards other races, faiths or
nationalities.
3. Economic aid, food grants, technical assistance,
health and education, and development projects outside
AWADS will be offered only centrally by the
organization if certain conditions are met by the
applicants/recipients, such as : accountability,
progress in democratization and human rights, a
tangible effort in population control, renouncement of
force in dealing with others, monitoring and taking
steps against their centers of incitement in the media
and the mosques, and the like. The central choice of
programs by the organization will not only eliminate
the current competition between member-states, which
generates a waste of funds and a disruption of
priorities, but will act as a positive incentive on
candidates for aid to improve domestically in order to
qualify.
4. No military assistance or sales of weapons will be
permitted by AWADS to non-member states, experience
having shown that armed dictators are more lethally
equipped to perpetuate their brutality and to divert
their national wealth to undesirable ends; AWADS will
also announce that any weapon-manufacturing third
party which sells or transfers weapons to those
regimes, will itself be disqualified from dealings
with AWADS members.
5. Muslim assistance, especially by Saudi Arabia to
building mosques and other Muslim institutions in the
West, and their continued funding thereafter, will be
made contingent upon parallel permission to build
religious institutions for other faiths in Muslim
countries, including the Arabian Peninsula, and on the
contributor and the recipient¡¦s commitment that no
incitement and no hatred would be propagated therein.
6. Import will be allowed to the West of Muslim
cultural assets, in the form of books, movies, art
shows and exhibits, performing art groups,
missionaries and clerics, newspapers or tapes , only
from countries that allow a free flow of the same
Western assets to their territory, forbid by law the
dissemination of hate and act upon that law..

Rules of Confrontation- AWADS ought to be the main
world body to fight terrorism, when the rules of
peaceful engagement have been violated, or in
preparation to such an eventuality. The struggle
against terror is a continuous, never-relenting
process, involving governments and populations, overt
and covert means, punitive and preventive measures,
legal and political, diplomatic and military
initiatives, national and international efforts,
education of the population to help avert catastrophe,
and to deal with it when it strikes, morale, combat
tactics and an overall strategy, intelligence
gathering and analysis, and sometimes plain luck or
sharp intuition can make the difference between
disaster and relief. If AWADS does not establish, lead
and operate an integrated system of this sort, the
world efforts against terror will remain diffuse,
un-coordinated and inefficient; every country,
organization and intelligence machine will remain
suspicious of the others and jealous to preserve its
own gathering networks and analysis staff, and every
operational unit will be continue to elect its
reputation and glory over the general good of the
Western world. The very joining of AWADS should be a
sign by its members that they are willing to
surrender some national pride and resources for the
sake of eradicating terrorism and neutralize its
causes. It is understood that the West has little
patience for the tremendous waste in human power and
resources which terrorism forces on it collectively by
compelling it to spend so much energy and attention to
prevention and watching. But it is exactly the
challenge to the West to show to the terrorists that
their goal of sagging Western strength into submission
will not happen. As we have said before, a succession
of three dichotomic concepts will have to be
addressed: prevention and deterrence, punishment and
reward, coping and eradication.

Prevention and Deterrence ¡V When AWADS is
established, its goals stated and the necessary
resources, chains of command, operational tools and
organizational frameworks wielded together, that in
itself will signal to the Muslim terrorists that the
West has taken up decisive steps to eradicate terror,
and will no doubt act as a deterrent and preventive
measure. But the list of deeds only begins :
preventive arrests of suspects worldwide, not only in
the US; concerted intelligence efforts to penetrate
terrorist rings, by all the means that human,
electronic and communications intelligence can afford;
stringent monitoring of AWADS countries borders, less
generous visas, eviction of students originating from
countries who support terrorism, and more difficult
access to those in doubt; a blanket prohibition of the
use of weapons and explosives by non-governmental
agencies; outlawing operations and fund-raising for
terrorist, or otherwise ¡§charitable¡¨, Muslim
organizations and freezing/confiscating their funds; a
total ban on importing foreign money to build mosques
for AWADS countries Muslims, or to finance their
activities or other Muslim activities, unless the same
is allowed to other faiths in Muslim countries. Also,
the special forces trained to battle terrorism or to
curtail its activities, should be given high
visibility, and the AWADS budgets for that purpose
should be advertised, both to explain to its own
population the burdens it is asked to bear, and also
for the sake of deterrence of the prospective
terrorists, who should know that they face an
impregnable wall if they want to penetrate AWADS
countries, and if they do succeed, their bodies would
be returned in bags to their homelands, with great
fanfare to deter others. Select pre-emptive operations
could also be held against bases of terrorists prior
to their setting out for action against the West or
its allies.

Punishment and Reward- Deterrence works only when a
credible and devastating force of punishment (not
revenge, as the Muslims would have it) is ready to be
unleashed every time an identifiable act of terrorism
is perpetrated. Naturally, since the Islamikaze
themselves are likely to perish in own blasts, the
rapid detection of their sponsors, dispatchers,
financers, supporters and trainers is crucial for
swift and deadly retribution. No terrorist
organization should escape unscathed by hiding under
the apron of its sponsor state : just like the Taliban
in Afghanistan, so the Hizbullah in Lebanon, the Hamas
in Jordan or in the Palestinian Authority, the Tanzim
and Aqsa Brigades under Palestinian rule, or the
Islamic Jihad in Damascus, all should be aware that
any terrorist activity emanating from their territory
would bring destruction and devastation to their
sponsoring country. This is the only way to make those
countries responsible for eradicating terrorism in
their midst or to signal to them that they cannot
escape economic and political pressure to conform, in
addition to military strikes, unless they relent.
Conversely, if those authorities battle terrorism
themselves, which for them may amount to domestic
insurgency that they are unable to control, like in
the Philippines, AWADS would step in to help, to
allocate generously equipement, funds and expertise,
and to assist the self-purging society to make its
steps towards even joining AWADS itself, if it meets
the requirements.

Coping and Eradication - While total eradication of
terrorism is apparently impossible, bringing it to
manageable levels, like in the 1960¡¦s, is quite
feasible, if the pressure on terrorist organizations
keeps escalating to the point that their own societies
would have to eject them from their midst. The irony
may be that, while Muslim countries may be willing and
able to adopt the requisite steps to eradicate terror,
if only to allow their regimes to survive, it may be
that European countries themselves, who had allowed
for years al-Qa¡¦ida bases to thrive on their turf,
would have difficulties to invoke the necessary legal
and political steps to wipe out would-be terrorists
in their lands. In any case, no program of long-term
eradication is possible if the citizenry of AWADS is
not taught to cope with the new situation in the long
haul. It is not only a matter of patience in long
security lines, alertness to suspicious people or
parcels, precautionary steps entering a building or
exiting from it, night-watching in urban areas against
terrorist mischief under the cover of darkness; but
also training to be calm in the face of adversity and
not to panic, how to assist the injured after a blast,
how to block off a disaster area, to identify
non-conventional blasts, to self-inject anti-dotes and
to self-administer treatment, how to evacuate to
hospital oneself and others, and how to accept
placidly additional outlays that are not usually
anticipated. A well-prepared, well-rehearsed and
determined citizenry has proven, as in the unfortunate
case of Israel, that it can not only reduce the panic
and face up to the disaster, but also as a deterrent
in the final analysis, when the terrorist enemy knows
that his initial scheme of sowing terror and fear had
been a-priori aborted.

These measures seem harsh, even inhuman and
undemocratic to the squeamish and faint-hearted among
us. But they are needed by democracies to defend
themselves in this hour of emergency. Other optimistic
minds believe that by explaining and apologizing, the
West¡¦s righteousness shall prevail and the bad
spirits that have been threatening all of us shall be
soothed and mitigated. Still others are expecting
¡§other interpretations¡¨ of Islam to emerge, which
will be more enlightened, accommodating and modern.
Such interpretations do exist, but in the underground,
they are based more on apologetics than on moral
grounds, and their authors have been attacked, killed,
maimed or disgraced. The masses of the Arabs are not
exposed to free speech and to liberal media with
contradicting opinions, they are subjected to the
uniform and repetitive message of hate and illusion
that is hammered into their heads, day in day out, in
the form of incitement, therefore they do not know any
better. No enlightenment can be expected to emerge
from a conservative Islam, which does not even possess
the humanity of compassion to victims of terrorist
massacres, and no liberal Muslim individuals will have
the courage, let alone the power and stamina to
enforce their dissenting marginal views on the
terrifyingly deluded and incited masses. Therefore,
the West has no much choice but to go all the way all
alone in thinking, planning and implementing its
measures of self-defense and survival.