"'Jihad' is a personal, spiritual struggle, often misinterpreted by non-Muslims as meaning violence on the behalf of Islam."
This is a lie you hear Muslims tell the Western public quite a bit, and it's lapped up by the people you'd expect would believe it (multiculturalists, peaceniks, Leftists, college professor types).
Jihad is exactly what you think it is and it has always meant holy war against infidels on behalf of Islam and Allah. It's meaning didn't suddenly change after 9/11/01 when average people started learning and paying attention to Islam more. You can be sure Muslim clerics do not preach that jihad is a personal spiritual struggle in Muslims' hearts. The ROP realizes that the truth about their beliefs is a little unpalatable to Westerners, so they feel a need for smokescreens and PR. Another way they do this is when they say that the Koran is untranslatable, that it's true meaning can only be understood in Arabic. That's more nonsense, and again, it's meant to deflect non-Muslims from understanding what Islam is really all about.