Islamic extremists to the world: "Shut up or else..."

"Do you know anything about what's happening in Israel and Lebanon right now?" I asked my good friend Nadia, the executive director of the American Chamber Foundation of the Philippines, the first Amcham Foundation in Asia.
Let me tell you, Nads is very smart, articulate, well-travelled, and political--well, political about local issues atleast. How can she not be, she's the executive director of a non-profit organization and a former MCP of AIESEC.
But her reply to my question was a shake of the head, "Nope."

I turn to Juvy, the head of Fundraising for AmCham, "What about you Juvy?"

She shakes her head as well,"Nope, but I do know Israel is a beautiful place to visit. My friends who work there say its amazing to be in the place where Jesus walked and lived."

Thus, the gist of what most Filipinos think of when you mention Israel. For majority of the population of the predominant Catholic nation, Israel = Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Jesus. For the small group that can afford to tour, Israel is a place for pilgrimage of the Christian faithful, a place everyone is afraid might be destroyed before they have the chance to visit Jesus' birthplace.
For me, the tiniest of the minority, Israel is not a destination for work or for pilgrimage, Israel is a place where men from different religion through the centuries and till the present, die and kill for.

This just came in:

Southeast Asian jihadis dispatched for global war on Israel
Natalie O'Brien and Stephen Fitzpatrick
August 04, 2006
The Australian

HUNDREDS of Southeast Asian suicide bombers have been dispatched around the world with a mission to attack Jewish interests in countries that support Israel such as Britain, the US and possibly Australia.
The radical Jakarta-based Asian Muslim Youth Movement gave The Australian details of the plot yesterday, claiming it was being funded in part with cash donations from two unnamed Australian-Indonesian businessmen.
The leader of the AMYM, Islamist author Suaib Bidu, warned that thousands more jihadis were preparing to join the resistance against Israel and die as"martyrs".
Mr Bidu said a "passing-out" ceremony for more than 3000 jihadis would be held tomorrow in the Indonesian city of Pontianak on the large northern island of Kalimantan.
But only about 200 would be sent immediately to targets aboard, with the remainder being active supporters...read more here

Now we have a possible theory as to why Europe either supports or remains silent on the issue of Islamic extremists all over the world. I suppose their plan is, as long as they don't provoke the martyrs and wanna-be martyrs, their corner of the world is safe from these jihadists. Israel is considered western, and western countries work on the presumption that Israel operates by western rules. Even if Europe and the UN condemn and criticize Israel, they are assured that Israel or the Jews will not send a suicide bomber to the UN office in Belgium or to a chic Parisian cafe in Champs Elysee, in retaliation to their support or tolerance to Islamic extremists.

As a footnote, fighting is once again intesifying in the Southern-most part of the Philippines between the military and the Islamic extremist group Abu Sayyaf.