(CNSNews.com) – A new survey gauging Muslim attitudes indicates that backing for suicide bombings against civilians, while generally down from earlier years, remains significant in some Islamic countries – challenging the assertion that Muslims supporting terrorism constitute a “tiny minority.”
In the Pew Global Attitudes Project poll released on Thursday, 68 percent of Palestinian Muslim respondents said suicide bombings against civilians were justifiable “to defend Islam from its enemies.”
That view was shared by 43 percent of respondents in Nigeria and 38 percent in Lebanon, where 51 percent of Shi’ites held the view compared to 25 percent of Sunnis.
Elsewhere, the proportion of Muslim respondents supporting suicide bombings against civilians was 15 percent in Egypt, 13 percent in Indonesia, 12 percent in Jordan, seven percent in Israel (Muslim Arab citizens), five percent in Pakistan and four percent in Turkey.
Of the eight countries polled, support for suicide bombings increased since last year in five of them.
On the other hand, this year’s results show a decline over the period since 2002.
Pakistan recorded the most striking drop: In 2004, 41 percent of respondents justified suicide terrorism, whereas the number recorded this year was five percent. Terrorism has surged in Pakistan since 2007, and this year alone, at least 750 people had been killed and 2,276 injured in 365 bombings inside Pakistan as of the end of August, according to figures compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal in New Delhi.
The Pew survey also found although majorities in Nigeria (54 percent) and the Palestinian territories (52 percent) expressed “confidence in the al Qaeda leader [Osama bin Laden] to do the right thing regarding world affairs.”
In the other countries surveyed, the Saudi terrorist enjoyed the backing of 28 percent of respondents in Jordan, 25 percent in Indonesia, 23 percent in Egypt, 18 percent in Pakistan, 16 percent in Israel, four percent in Lebanon and two percent in Turkey.
The biggest drop in support for bin Laden was measured in Indonesia (down 34 points since 2003), Jordan (down 28 points) and Pakistan (down 28 points). The trend in Nigeria was in the opposite direction – up 10 points since 2003.
The proof is in the pudding is in the eating.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/53865
