Islam is not open to reform or interpretation and doing either is punishable by death as mandated by the Qur'an and expounded by Mohammed in the Haddith and other writings. There is no such thing as "moderate" Islam, only lapsed Muslims who know full well that the "pick and choose" observance they engage in is rejected by their clerics and scorned by the orthodox as akin to apostasy. It is bizarre that non-Muslim so called experts on Islam are so rarely speakers of Arabic. Understanding the language of Islam leaves one in no doubt of its aspirations and those of its adherents and the West faces far more danger than will ever be estimated based on adherents' statements in English will ever disclose!

Gawd awmitey!

This piece comes down to an argument that the response of people in Middle Eastern countries to a perceived threat from the Israeli/US alliance must be due to their Islamic religion!

Sheesh, talk about confusing correlation with causation...

Islam itself does not do anything because Islam is not an entity with volition. It is people, who happen to be Muslim, who do those actions. Muslims are not a monolith and the Quran is read and interpreted in a variety ways, and this had been the case from the very beginning as is evidence from the copious amount of Islamic scholarship throughout the past 1400 years. Those who say that Muslims are not open to reform and discussion have not read much of Islamic history and scholarship.

Sheesh Antiseptic
Old son you have not got a clue how about reading up on history before you start talking. Islam has been using terror since it started it did not start fifty years ago

Actually, old son, Islam was the most enlightened religion in the world for a very long time, until the fearful self-interest of a bunch of illiterate thugs who controlled the backward, squalid, oppressive slave-based feudal pseudo-Christian Europe lead them to do all they could to destroy the centres of that enlightenment.

It never ceases to amaze me that people are so willing to blow smoke out of their nether regions in public.

However, none of that has anything to do with the basic flaw in the article, which is that the writer concentrates on the religion rather than on the more basic cause, which is territorial aggression against the countries that happen to be Islamic.

The main aggressors against Muslims are other Muslims! Assad #1 killed 50,000, Assad#2 has killed 70,000, Gaddafi killed 50,000 during his last months, Iraq-Iran war killed 1million Muslims, then add the Sunni-Shia killing spree with daily car bombs in Iraq and don't forget Yemen and Tunisia and Egypt. Then why not add 2million killed in Sudan and 2million Christian Armenians!
So who is the problem? Israel? I don't think so!!
Since 1948, Israel killed 6000 Syrians in 4 wars. Assad can achieve that in a week now that he's firing missiles into Syrian suburbs. Get some perspective! Muslims are at war with each other all over the Middle East and are killing each other with unparalleled brutality.