Your first sentence is a fair one and I can only offer my opinion based upon what we read and witness as to the motivations expressed by these killers. I think you need to examine the motivations of those who explode car bombs in the midst of crowded markets and those who behead their fellow humans to the droning intonation of “Allahu Akbar”.
I would say ideologically, at the root of the conflict and hatreds that cause people to commit these atrocities are the religious perspectives pulsing away. There are many on this board who will seek to define who is, and who is not a “real” Moslem and what “real” Islam is.
I would propose to you, for example, that the 19 highjackers who flew commercial airliners into mega buildings were in fact Moslems and were acting on behalf of an Islamic belief which was to exact retribution on the evil “Great Satan” and was an ideologically sanctioned act of Jihad. I believe that a very large percentage of the Moslem populations’ perception of the West is couched in religious terms and that is, in part, made manifest in our support of Israel. The Moslems hate them and therefore hate us by proxy. This hatred is founded in a religious blood feud dating back centuries.
