Standing Up to Terrorists
During their attack Wednesday on the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, terrorists armed with AK-47 rifles murdered 12, wounded 11. “Allahu Akbar,” horrified witnesses recorded them saying. “We have avenged the Prophet Muhammad.”
Charlie Hebdo had published cartoons mocking the prophet. Some news outlets had republished them, to show support for free speech and solidarity with the victims. Most of the bigfoot media did not.
The New York Daily News wouldn’t publish the Muhammad cartoon, but it did publish a Charlie Hebdo cartoon featuring a hook-nosed Jew. Which suggests the decision not to publish was driven more by cowardice and hypocrisy than consideration for the feelings of those mocked.
“Time’s up for denial and hypocrisy,” said French National Front leader Marine le Pen. “The absolute rejection of Islamic fundamentalism must be proclaimed loudly and clearly.” France should rethink its policy with regard to Muslim immigration, she said. Since the two suspects were children of immigrants from Algeria, Ms. le Pen may have a point.
Business Week fretted her “far right” party may benefit from “Islamophobia.” (Tens of thousands throughout France attended vigils for the Charlie Hebdo victims.) If so, it’ll be because the other parties are derelict. No nation in Europe has been more hostile to Israel, and more friendly to Palestinians, than France.
When Islamists take French citizens hostage, French governments often pay ransom, points out Amir Taheri, an Iranian who lives in Paris. “Wednesday’s horror is a bitter lesson on the limits of this strategy of appeasement,” he said.
Appeasement encourages violence and aggression. History has taught this lesson over and over, but liberals never seem to get it.
President Barack Obama condemned “terrorism.” After babbling nonsense about France “giving birth to democracy,” Secretary of State John Kerry condemned “extremism.” Neither mentioned in their initial statements what motivated these particular terrorists/​extremists.
Most Americans would have preferred a more robust response, like that tweeted by journalist Claire Berlinski: “We will kill you. Every one of you. Believe it.”
The Obama administration won’t seriously confront Islamist terror. Nor will the president of France, the chancellor of Germany, the prime minister of Britain. One world leader is.
More despicable than their unwillingness to publish the Charlie Hebdo cartoons was the news media’s virtual blackout of the remarkable speech Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi made at al-Azar University in Cairo on New Year’s Eve.
“It’s inconceivable that the thinking that we hold most sacred should cause the entire umma [Islamic world] to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world,” he told an audience comprised chiefly of Muslim clerics.
“That thinking … is antagonizing the entire world,” Mr. al-Sisi said. “We are in need of a religious revolution. This umma is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost — and it is being lost by our own hands.”
In a speech Dec. 5 that the news media also ignored, the crown prince of Bahrain, an al-Sisi ally, said: “We are fighting theocrats” with a “twisted, barbaric” religious ideology.
On Tuesday, Mr. al-Sisi attended Christmas Mass in the largest Coptic Christian church in Cairo (for Copts, Christmas is Jan. 6), the first Egyptian ruler ever to do so.
That same day, under pressure from Egypt, Qatar, the most terrorist-friendly Gulf state, expelled leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Little would be of more benefit to the world, and to Muslims, than a “Reformation” in Islam. Let’s pray Mr. al Sisi’s security detail is better than Anwar Sadat’s.
The Charlie Hebdo massacre will be forgotten within a month, predicts British journalist James Delingpole. Perhaps, but liberals may find it harder to drop this Islamist atrocity down the Memory Hole.
After two police officers were murdered in New York City last month, an engaged and enraged public sent racist demagogues scurrying for cover. The mammoth crowds who gathered for Charlie Hebdo vigils all over the world could be a sign another Rubicon in public opinion has been crossed.
