Convert or else. It is finally coming down to this. Each side needs to decide whether Islam evolves into the future or dies in a failed vision of a failed past. On one side you have the Al Quaeda, Wahabi, man is god-women is property view. On the other side, you have this [hat tip Viking Pundit]

The July 7 London bombings did it for me. Perhaps it was because my parents moved us from Cairo to the British capital when I was 7 years old, and so London was my childhood “home.” Or maybe it was because our route to work and school every morning crisscrossed those same Underground stations that were targeted.

I’m sure it was also those dog-eared statements that our clerics and religious leaders read out telling us that Islam means peace — it actually means submission — and asking us to please forget everything they had ever said before July 6, because as of July 7 they truly believe violence is bad. Their backpedaling is so furious you can smell the skid marks.

Some are not even bothering to put their feet on the pedals, such as the 22 imams and scholars who met at London’s largest mosque to condemn the bombings but who would not criticize all suicide attacks.

Sayed Mohammed Musawi, the head of the World Islamic League in London, insisted “there should be a clear distinction between the suicide bombing of those who are trying to defend themselves from occupiers, which is something different from those who kill civilians, which is a big crime.”

In a classic example of laying blame everywhere but at our own door, Musawi actually criticized the Western media (for supposedly confusing frustrated young Muslims) rather than those scholars who had blessed suicide bombings as long as they targeted Israelis.

Just a reminder of a point I have made before: As long as the bombers can decide what is valid or not, verses international and local laws, there will always be rationalizations available to kill. And anyone who tries to split the difference is a fool or a sympathizer (is there really a distinction?).

But most of all, the London bombings rid me of all patience with the excuse that “George Bush [or Tony Blair or take your pick of Western leaders] made me do it.” We don’t know who was behind Thursday’s explosions, but an Arab analyst told a satellite channel that if Blair hadn’t learned the mistake of the Iraq war, these new attacks were a firm reminder.

I never bought the explanation that U.S. foreign policy had “brought on” the Sept. 11 attacks, and I certainly don’t buy the idea that the Iraq war is behind the attacks in London. Many people across the world have opposed U.S. and British foreign policy, but that doesn’t mean they are rushing to fly planes into buildings or to blow up buses and Underground trains in London.

I was against the invasion of Iraq and would not have voted for George Bush if I were a U.S. citizen, but I’m done with the “George Bush made me do it” excuse. We must accept responsibility for this mess if we are ever to find a way out.

And for those non-Muslims who accept the George Bush excuse, I have a question: Do you think Muslims are incapable of accepting responsibility? It is at least in some way bigoted to think that Muslims can only react violently.

To answer this – yes it is bigoted. Welcome to the down-their-nose views from the leftward elites. Muslims cannot strive for democracy – it is beyond them. Muslims cannot respond to oppression with the dignity of a Gahndi – it is beyond them. Muslims cannot retain their culture and religion in the face of Western (read liberal) decadence – it is beyond them. Muslim men cannot respect women as equals – it is beyond them. While the right side of the westerrn political spectrum will broach no such excuses, the leftward fringes bathe in them.

I raise these questions because London might have done it for me, but I’m not done with Islam. The clerics and the terrorists will not take it away from me. God belongs to me, too.

Those of us on the right pray with you as well. Because the right side of the political spectrum believes in morals, honor and pride. Not excuses.