Same terror, same origins

In the latter part of the 11th century, an order of Nizari Ismailis, operating mainly in Persia and Syria, founded an extremist cult that began to pose a military challenge the Seljuq authorities within the Persian territories. The members of this cult were known as the "Hashishin" ("users of hashish"), and were renowned for their brutality. They assassinated their political and religious enemies -- Muslims included -- without mercy. They were, if you will, the al-Qaida or Islamic State group of their time.

In his wonderful book "Samarkand," Lebanese author Amin Maalouf tells the story of renowned Persian philosopher and poet Omar Khayyam, who was enchanted by the city of Samarkand and was forced to struggle with a reality of violence and Islamic terrorism. In the book, a member of the Hashishin stabbed Persia's most prominent wazir (Muslim cleric), Nizam al-Mulk, who funded Khayyam's magnificent work in several fields, from poetry to mathematics. The Hashishin did not appreciate progress, nor anything or anyone different, and adopted a lethal code of zero tolerance.

Even Europe in the Middle Ages, which was not a particularly wholesome and saintly place at the time, saw the Hashishin as a dangerous cult of radical extremists. Over time, the Latinized word "assassin" became used across Europe to describe a professional killer. Incidentally, in Europe at that time, the first blood libels accusing Jews of using the blood of Christian children in religious ceremonies were born in England, first in the city of Norwich (1144) and then in Gloucester (1164). This libel spread across Europe, making it only a matter of time until the first pogrom.

Hundreds of years have come and gone, and what has changed? Islam (an important monotheistic religion) continues to produce radical extremist groups which seek to harm the West and anything they perceive as moderate Islam, while in Europe there are still those who insist on finding the devil in the Jews, of all people. So what's new? In two separate incidents this week, two Canadian soldiers were murdered by Islamists, one in a hit-and-run attack near Montreal; the other, on Wednesday, shot near the Canadian parliament building in Ottawa. At almost the same time in Israel, an innocent baby was murdered in Jerusalem, the victim of a hit-and-run attack. Welcome back to the 11th century.

But the West, of course, would rather appease the terrorists today, in the form of reasoning. Let us explain why they do this and provide them with excuses. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the cause of the killing in Syria, the terrorist attacks in Canada, the shooting from Gaza, and, as long as we're at it, my washing machine, which has stopped working. At least we no longer have to wonder whether the leader of the assassins, Hassan-i Sabbah, created his cult and perpetrated his crimes due to construction in Jerusalem.

As long as the West fails to internalize that the attacks in Ottawa and Jerusalem this week were the same terror from the same origins, we will not be able to make strides in the war on terror, despite the 50-country coalition currently fighting the Islamic State group. Understanding the root of the problem is no less important than dropping a thousand bombs in Syria and Iraq.

And for those who still insist on connecting the Palestinian problem to Islamic State, we will ask them, for the sake of fairness, not to forget the Hashishin, who in their genius sought to pre-empt Theodor Herzl. After all, who if not we, the Jews, have starred in libelous tales throughout history.