The distinction between a normal Muslim who understands and believes in Jihad within the proper context, and a Jihadi is like the difference between an engineer who can design flat screen TVs and someone who thinks he can just drop an anvil on a regular TV to make it flat screen. In fact, someone who thinks he can fix any problem by dropping an anvil on it.
They believe “Jihad” is the solution to every issue, and they have a single interpretation of what “Jihad” means. It is violent confrontation in any and all forms. There was a time when Jihad was, as Abdullah Azzam called it, a “forgotten obligation”, but today we have people who have forgotten almost everything else besides Jihad.
Look, there is nothing wrong with caring about the suffering of Muslims anywhere in the world, and wanting to do something to defend and protect them. Indeed, we must feel this way, and the best of us will manifest that concern through action. But, frankly, the worst of us will be those who manifest this concern through un-analyzed action with no rational regard for whether or not it will actually be useful.
It is like the old saying “when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail”. Sometimes the problem really is a nail, but often it isn’t.