By David Singer ——Bio and Archives--December 19, 2014
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"It is pretty obvious that the perpetrator was a deeply disturbed individual, a long history of crime, a long history of mental instability and infatuation with extremism. It's interesting that the ISIL death cult seems to attract people like that. I refuse to use the term Islamic State and I would strongly caution anyone, anywhere, from using that term, because that exults a movement which has nothing to do with any real religion and is a travesty of a true and just state. It is very wrong to identify the death cult that the individual concerned tried to associate himself with; it is very wrong to identify that death cult with any community or with any faith. The phrase that I like to refer to, uttered by my friend, Prime Minister Najib of Malaysia, of the ISIL death cult: it's against God, it's against religion, it's against humanity."The Prime Minister's description of the perpetrator - self-styled Islamic cleric Man Haron Monis--failed to mention his involvement - with his partner Amirah Droudis--in a long running legal battle defending charges arising from letters sent in 2007 to the families of Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan. Their cases and appeals have so far progressed through eight separate court hearings and appeals in which Monis and Droudis were separately represented by two different legal teams.
"We are a very united society. Yes, we have amongst us a few deranged individuals who may choose to try to wrap their psychoses in a political ideology. But the point I keep making is that the ISIL death cult has nothing to do with any religion, any real religion. It has nothing to do with any particular community. It is something to which sick individuals succumb and sick individuals exist in all communities and in all societies. This idea that ISIL is somehow spawned by any particular religion, frankly it's probably even less true than saying that Catholicism spawned the IRA. They're just completely separate things."Islam was clearly visible at the Lindt Chocolat café when Monis forced hostages to hold up a black flag that declared in Arabic script: "There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah." "Islamic State" was also certainly at the forefront of his thinking. In a video - shot while the siege was ongoing and posted to Facebook - Westpac executive and fitness business owner Marcia Mikhael relayed three requests by Monis including: "One is for him to get an IS flag and he will release one hostage." New York Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counter Terrorism - John Miller--had no reticence in stating that the Martin Place siege had the hallmarks of Islamic State orders--telling the Daily Telegraph on December 16: "You have to go back to September when ISIS put out the call through its official spokesman for people to attack in their own countries with what they have at hand." Viewing Islamic State as purely a death cult and not a well-armed and run State already occupying an area larger than England denies the reality of what this group poses. The bogeyman in the Lindt Chocolate Café won't go away because Australia's Prime Minister wants to put the term "Islamic State" out of sight and out of mind.
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David Singer is an Australian Lawyer, a Foundation Member of the International Analyst Network and Convenor of Jordan is Palestine International—an organization calling for sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza to be allocated between Israel and Jordan as the two successor States to the Mandate for Palestine. Previous articles written by him can be found at: jordanispalestine.blogspot.com