Agreed that more of these stories need to make headlines.
We still need to understand, however, that Islam as a political reality is currently a problem. The moderates and true reformers like in this story need to be propped up. I'm not saying all followers of Islam will blow themselves up in a crowded market, but saying it has nothing to do with Islam is wrong. It obviously has something to do with Islam. Islamic doctrine still holds views on homosexuality, women rights, and free speech that are still antithetical to western values and basic human rights. It is not an unsafe assumption that even those in this story hold to those views in varying degrees. The first step to solving the problem is admitting there is one and we need to be able to discuss this on a public and intellectual level without generalizations and labels before that true reform can take place.
We "westernized" islam just before and during WWI.
Ataturk, London educated and westernized, abdicated the caliphate of the Ottoman Empire about 1920 and a secular government was installed. That was supposed to be the westernizing and improving of Christendom's relationship with islam. It's not working.
While I applaud and hope for ever more and more examples of compassion and acceptance, don't get your hopes too high.
Is it akin to correlation and not causation?
Being born Muslim and in the ME carries with it a high probability that you will be born into poverty, that education will be sparse, and that culturally, at least for some, violence is a hop skip and a jump from faith.
That is correlation, not causation.
We know its not causation because 1) we see repeated acts by Muslims in direct contravention of acts of religious based terrorism, i.e. raising money for a Jewish cemetery; and 2) the vast majority of the world's Muslim population is not engaged in and does not support terror attacks; and 3) other disaffected groups also commit terrorism, including people of Christian faith.
So no, its not that there is no connection at all. Rather, it is that there is a correlation between terrorism and Islam, not causation.
If you had a society where Muslims felt safe and poverty was not rampant, and there was education, and young people had achievable goals for success, don't you agree that we would not have the radical Islamic terrorism we have now?
Maybe over the Israeli issue, but it would be confined and would not be international like this.