In the West Bank, another more widely publicized mosque massacre occurred a year later in

Hebron when a Jewish settler killed 30 in a group of praying Muslims before the survivors
could beat him to death. This litany of anti-Islamic violence is recognized and recited by
Muslims everywhere. The situation is exacerbated when Muslims incredulously find
themselves labeled as terrorists and when Western governments encourage their secular
Middle Eastern allies to confront Muslim populist movements with brute force. One result of
these Western perceptions and policies, of course, is that they begin to radicalize the huge
mass of moderate Muslim believers. Meanwhile, the extremists on the fringes become more
active and militant.

A vicious cycle of misunderstanding, misguided policy and increasing violence has been set
in motion. Before this vicious cycle begins to spin wildly out of control, it is essential that
non-Muslims make a major effort to slow it down. Such an effort will, as the very first step,
require that stereotypes be discarded.

Second, recent history shows that the application of force is not always an effective way of
countering a system of deeply held ideas and beliefs. The steady flame of resurgent Islam
will not be extinguished by the breeze of bullets or the blast of missiles. A recently published
report in Washington Post, confirms Islam to be the fastest growing religion in the United
States despite hostile government policies and negative media stereotyping, only goes on to
prove the truth of this statement. It is time for everyone to take a crash course on Islam.
More recently, CNN too published a report, first of US kind ever done in this part of the
World, titled as: Islam in US - Growing and maturing.