Turning to the “secular” branches of the genealogical tree of evil, I place the word secular in quotation marks because, as this chapter shows, the two groups under consideration – the Baath Party and the Palestinian Liberation Organization – do not, in fact, situate themselves outside of any religious affiliation: both strongly identify themselves as Muslims. The usual labeling of the two as secular, then, can be misleading. What distinguishes them from “religious” Islamic Jihadists is the absence of a firm insistence that Sharia be the law of the land, not a rejection of Islam. In the words of Michel Aflaq, the Baath Party's foundational ideologue, “religion, as it appears to us when reviewing the history of mankind from the most ancient times to the present day, is fundamental in the life of humanity.” The religion fundamental to the Baath, he affirmed, is Islam. There we have the secularism of the Baath Party.