The ill winds that have been gathering over
Europe descended with a tornado last week in Paris with the barbaric Charlie
Hebdo massacre, followed by the horrific terror attack at a kosher supermarket
– a total of 17 dead in three days. But alas, the horrors will in all
likelihood soon recede and life will continue as usual until the next attack.
Let me say at the outset that, while obviously
condemning the murders and unequivocally defending freedom of expression, I do
not associate myself with the “Je suis Charlie” movement. In condemning these
barbaric acts, we are not obliged to identify with the racism and vulgarity of
the victims. Charlie Hebdo was obscenely offensive to Christians and Muslims
and promoted vulgar anti-Semitic satire. On the other hand, some Mormons were
presumably outraged by the satirical musical “The Book of Mormon” but that did
not grant them license to embark on a killing spree of the producers.
Western governments have yet to internalize the
reality that what happened in Paris was not merely another instance of
“terrorism” but a classic manifestation of the “clash of civilizations.”
Aside from murderous attacks primarily directed
against Jews in Europe over recent months, there have been ongoing massacres
and atrocities committed by Islamic terrorists throughout the world. To name a
few: the butchering of 2,000 Nigerians this week in the wake of the Boko Haram
enslavement of 300 schoolgirls; the murder of 130 schoolchildren in Peshawar,
Pakistan by the Taliban; the barbaric videos broadcast of hostages being
decapitated; ongoing mass murder in Syria and Iraq; oppression of women; and
gruesome persecution, expulsion and murder of Christians in the Middle East.
Today, as the global impact of Islamic
fundamentalism with increasing manifestations of brutal terrorism grows
exponentially, Western leaders lack the courage even to identify the enemy. It
has ominous parallels to the struggle with Nazism. Then as now, Western
governments initially sought to avoid conflict by appeasing the barbarians –
which only served to embolden them.
This originates in 9/11 when U.S. President
George W. Bush, in his call for concerted military action against global
Islamic terrorism, sought to placate his Arab allies by describing Islam as a
“religion of peace.” This absurd mantra was repeatedly chanted whenever Islamic
terror was mentioned and has become an overused term of the political lexicon.
But it was President Barack Obama and his
administration that, despite the dramatic mushrooming of Islamic terrorism,
must be held accountable for systematically denying its existence, even
avoiding the term “Islamic terrorism.”
The same obstinate refusal to face reality and an
effort to appease their increasingly radicalized Muslim communities motivated
all European governments – in particular the French – to repeatedly state,
despite all evidence to the contrary, that these acts of terrorism were
unrelated to Islamic radicalism and were the actions of “lone wolves” or
demented individuals. Even now, when the massacres were accompanied by calls of
“Allahu akbar” and “We are avenging the Prophet Muhammad,” French President
François Hollande refused to use the word “Islam,” merely referring to
“obscurantist” forces. However, in stark contrast to Obama, Hollande at least condemned
the kosher supermarket attack as a “dreadful anti-Semitic attack.”
Throughout the world, jihadist mullahs and
preachers promote hatred and extremism. In European cities, second-generation
homegrown Muslims and converts are indoctrinated to endorse and in some cases
participate in jihad and the murder of infidels. Those who convert are not
necessarily from the underprivileged, but “ideologues,” many of whom belong to
comfortable middle class families and are university graduates.
But worse has been the unspoken acquiescence of
most governments and the media, preventing any meaningful discussion of the
threat from Islamic extremism. Apart from downplaying and often even denying
the overriding Islamic element in acts of terror, governments and media have
disgracefully branded as “Islamophobic” any serious effort to discuss and
analyze the problem, even promoting “hate speech” legislation to stifle any
such public discussion. The 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference
has attempted to make blasphemy (i.e., criticism of Islam) a crime in
international law.
They have been further emboldened by the failure
to immediately prosecute Islamic extremists who threaten violence against those
who express criticism or dishonor Islam. What is truly ironic is that many of
those on the Left who normally endorse the crudest outbursts against
Christianity and Judaism, are the first to accuse any critics of Islam of
Islamophobia and they display far greater concern for the sensitivities of
Muslims. In many instances, Obama and European leaders have apologized and even
groveled every time some crude outburst against Islam was expressed by
individuals, many of whom were of marginal importance.
Of course not all Muslims are terrorists. But the
number of radicals is dramatically increasing and like al-Qaida in the previous
decade, Islamic State is providing them with a sense of empowerment and imbuing
them with a willingness to die in pursuit of their objectives. The Paris
massacres exemplify what we can expect from the thousands of well-trained
indigenous battle-hardened assassins imbued with a fanaticism to sacrifice
their lives to promote Islam and terrorize infidels, especially Jews, after
returning from Middle East conflict zones.
While local Muslim leaders and heads of Islamic
states condemned the massacres, it is chilling to witness the extent that
popular public opinion, especially in the Arab world, supports terrorism. We
should remind ourselves that it originated with the Iranian ayatollah’s fatwa
to murder novelist Salman Rushdie, which was overwhelmingly endorsed in the Islamic
world.
Even if only 20 percent of the Muslims are
considered pro-jihadist – and there are in all probability more than that –
this would represent two or three hundred million potential terrorists. To
persist in denying the existence of such a huge Islamic terrorist presence is
utterly delusional.
Above all, this undermines the moderate Islamic
forces striving to stem or isolate this poisonous fanaticism that has arisen
from within. Yet the Obama administration has mollycoddled the Muslim
Brotherhood (a more nuanced but nevertheless direct extension of the terrorist
network) and condemned the leader of the largest Muslim Middle Eastern country,
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.
Ironically, in a historic and critical New Year
address, largely ignored by the mainstream press, Sissi publicly expressed what
Obama and Western leaders have been denying. He stated explicitly that jihadism
and terrorism were linked to “the corpus of texts and ideas that we have
sacralized over the centuries.” He warned that this was “antagonizing the
entire world,” that “this umma is being torn, it is being destroyed … by our
own hands,” and that “we are in need of a religious revolution.” (click
here for video link)
Clearly, now that all parties engaged are no
longer committed to democracy, this is a time to review our multicultural
policies. Western governments must cease their groveling, impose draconian
measures against Islamic extremists and intensify pressure on Muslim
communities to purge themselves of these elements.
Issues of civil liberties must be considered
secondary when the safety of innocent civilians is at stake. If that requires
special surveillance and interrogation of suspect Muslims, so be it. It is
common sense, not bigotry, to racially profile and concentrate on those from
whose midst 99 percent of terrorist outbreaks originate.
It will require intensified penetration of
mosques and Islamic community centers to identify and deal with those mullahs
and fanatics promoting jihadism, including the Saudi financed Wahhabi outlets
in the immigrant ghettoes. It will necessitate a rigorous monitoring of Muslim
schools and Internet outlets to eradicate and prosecute the extremists who are
transforming youngsters into beheaders.
Failure to act will intensify the prevailing
massive swing toward parties opposed to immigration and parties of the far
Right like the National Front in France, whose leader, Marine Le Pen, is now
the frontrunner in presidential polls.
Jews have reassumed the role of the canary in the
mine and are the first to be targeted, but the world would face the same threat
if Jews did not exist. Israel has been at the frontlines confronting Islamic
extremism but has received scant support. Indeed, until recently Western
governments ignored the carnage in Syria, Iraq and other countries, preferring
to concentrate on condemning Israeli housing construction in the Jewish
neighborhoods of Jerusalem and regarding Israel as the major lubricant to
Islamic extremism. French support of the PA application to the U.N. Security
Council on December 30, obviously designed to curry favor with local Muslims,
did not deter terrorists from committing their massacres in Paris a week later.
For Jews, the writing has been on the wall for a
long time. The virulence of the anti-Semitic hatred closing in on Jews in
Europe (and elsewhere) is horrifying. Robert Wistrich, the world’s leading
scholar on anti-Semitism, says that anti-Semitism in France is now in “an
advanced stage of disease” that cannot be reversed. There were a series of
anti-Semitic murders in France and Belgium preceding the Paris massacre but
they failed to raise the same level of outrage as the Charlie Hebdo murders.
There were no popular campaigns saying “Je suis Juif.” Indeed there seemed to
be greater concern about “Islamophobia” than the targeted Jewish victims.
Europe is today facing a crisis as serious as the
confrontation with Nazism. If Western leaders continue behaving like
Chamberlain and fail to stand up to this global threat, it could usher in a new
Dark Age in which the Judeo-Christian culture is subsumed by primitive
barbarism. The writing is on the wall.
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