Who are the jihadists and what do they want

Zerocalcare's personal decision not to present himself at Lucca comics and games due to the patronage of the Israeli embassy has reignited feelings regarding the topic of jihadism.
But what does it have to do with it? To understand what is happening, however, we need to take a small step back and explain who the jihadists and jihadism are.
read also What is the difference between Isis and Hamas? What is jihadism and what does it want? The term "jihadism" identifies the Islamic fundamentalist movement and the various groups that have a common purpose: the support of the holy war against the infidels.
Consequently, "jihadist", which derives from the common jihād ("holy war") refers to Islamic fundamentalists and supporters of holy war.
However, the concept of jihād has been strongly influenced by Western interpretation, which today sees this term only in a conflictual sense.
This is due to the events of September 11, 2001, or the attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.
Yet the term jihād in the language of Islam has a wide spectrum of meanings.
It literally means effort and conveys the idea of a spiritual internal struggle.
In Islamic doctrine the "effort" is made intellectually through the study and understanding of sacred texts or law.
This is understood as "higher jihād", on the contrary "lower jihād" is the expansion of Islam outside the Muslim world.
What has just been described is an extreme summary of the concept of jihād and does not claim to explain the interpretation of the term either from a religious point of view, or from a cultural and historical point of view.
However, we can focus on the first meaning of jihād, that is, non-violent and personal struggle and internal effort to understand the divine mysteries.
What comes next is interpretation, because it is precisely by interpreting the passages of the Koran that Islamic movements have introjected the meaning of "armed struggle" and therefore "holy war".
There are many Muslims who promote jihād not as an armed struggle.
After all, the Koran uses the term jihād only four times and never with explicit reference to armed struggle, even if the Koran contains the concept of "Islamic war" in other passages – which refer to specific historical events.
Jihād in the Western world: the role of terrorism The reason why Islam and jihād are most often associated with terrorism is contemporary history.
In the West the term arrived thanks to the media account of the events that preceded and followed September 11, 2001.
The attacks that hit the United States in 2001 were not in turn episodes that occurred on a blank page, but consequences of relationships and conflicts born to maintain a presumed balance, even in an anti-Soviet perspective, on the other side of the world from during the Cold War period.
The West has therefore come together more or less compactly against Islam, often identified as extremist, fundamentalist, jihadist and therefore terrorist.
Today jihadism appears patchy throughout the world, in so-called terrorist cells or jihadist organizations.
read also Transferring money without leaving a trace: here is the terrorists' method Zerocalcare's accusations: participation canceled due to the patronage of the fair The cartoonist Zerocalcare has published his personal decision to cancel his presence at the Lucca comics fair, because the patronage of the Israeli embassy for him "represents a problem and this is because in Gaza, at the moment, 2 million people are trapped".
For the author, celebrating would mean a short circuit that he cannot manage.
Zerocalcare then explained the reasons for this discomfort, in addition to the fact of the ongoing bombing by Israel on the Gaza Strip; he writes that he has been to Gaza and knows people who live there.
The symbol of the Israeli embassy represents for him and his loved ones the fear of not seeing the sun rise.
However, many responded to Zerocalcare's personal and motivated choice by attacking him both as an artist and as a person, pointing to him as a friend of Islamist groups and as an anti-Semite.
Yet Zerocalcare was in Syria several times when ISIS was there and "I did it to support the Kurds who were fighting jihadism".
He told it in his stories.