12% of American Muslims think that killing of civilians can be justifiable to further a religious cause
21% of Republicans think that killing of civilians can be justifiable to further a religious cause.
9% more Republicans believe that terrorism can be defensible.
"21% of Republicans think that killing of civilians can be justifiable to further a religious cause."
That religious cause would be what exactly?
You would have to ask Republicans that.
But that is the exact same data point that the OP used to claim that 12% of American Muslims approved of terrorism.
By his sketchy 'logic' that means that 21% of Republicans approve of terrorism.
Yes but approve of targeting who? It could be targeting the Radical Islamist Extremists who conceal themselves very often among civilians eg. Hezbollah, ISIS, the al-Nusra Front.
If they are assembling suicide vests in a predominantly civilian and very built up area and you have concrete intelligence that they are, what do you do?
Do you not target them because you are going to kill civilians, or do you shell the area with mortars etc?
Conversely with the percentage of Muslims who say they approve of targeting civilians in Western nations, the threat from civilians is what exactly? There is no threat. They are referring to approving of targeting civilians in Western nations by an Islamist strapping a suicide vest to themselves in the name of Islam and walking into a theatre or a restaurant or whatever and blowing up innocent people who are no threat and/or an Islamist walking into a theatre or a restaurant or whatever and shooting everyone in the name of Islam.
So there is a fundamental difference between having to target a civilian area and have Collateral Damage in order to save many other lives and targeting a civilian area that poses absolutely no threat to anyone.