The Fruits of Cowardice and Appeasement
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.
For Jews, the Zionist vision has once again been tragically vindicated.
Isi Leibler’s website can be viewed at www.wordfromjerusalem.com.
He may be contacted at ileibler@leibler.com.
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