Rally in memory of Toulouse terror victims
The murders committed by Mohammed Merah
have not engendered much serious debate in France about the sources of the major Muslim incitement against the West, Israel
and the Jews. For that to happen there will apparently have to be many more victims. This cynical statement truthfully expresses the current reality.
What occupied the media, however, were often secondary questions such as whether Merah was mentally sane and what led this one person to kill three soldiers – symbols of France – a Jewish teacher and three children.
Global Terror
Shaul Rosenfeld
Op-ed: Despite Muslim murderousness, West refrains from admitting Islam is the problem
The aftermath of the murders demonstrates once again Western mainstream resistance to put key issues of the widespread ideological criminality and violence in Muslim societies on its agenda. The main question to be asked here is why do these phenomena in the Islamic world exceed those in any other major religious environment?
There are other important issues as well. One is the need for a detailed description of the main hatemongering Muslim associations and their characteristics, how they spread their incitement, as well as how potential murderers are recruited or induct themselves.
Another prime question is how significant is the division between Islamists and more moderate Muslims? While intelligence services know a great deal, far too little reaches the general public. There is a population of one and a half billion Muslims, parts of which threaten the future of the entire world. Without systematic exposure of the perpetrators of incitement, it is impossible to start fighting them effectively.
Merah murders could not be handled by the French authorities as inconsequential incidents. This was the more so as a presidential election campaign is under way. Government reactions, however, concerned secondary issues. The authorities forbade the entrance of several Muslim hate clerics to France for an upcoming conference and will expel several other inciters. One of those prohibited entry is the Egyptian Yusuf-al-Qaradawi, who has declared that every Jew is an enemy of Muslims. He condones suicide murders and is considered by many as the world’s most influential Sunni theologian.
The UOIF, one of the largest federations of French Muslims, intended to host Qaradawi and other inciters. The message is clear. Prominent hate mongers are invited to speak by a leading Muslim organization.
While France may bar such entries, this hardly resonates elsewhere in Europe. Qaradawi was embraced and feted in 2004 in London by Ken Livingstone, then mayor on behalf of the Labor Party.
Racist, genocidal incitement
In February, there was a Dutch parliamentary majority to block the arrival of anti-Semitic imam Haitham al-Haddad. The minister of Justice could not refuse this British passport holder entry into the Netherlands due to European rules, as he was not considered an immediate and major threat.
Also in February, it became apparent once more about how difficult it is to state the truth in the present French societal climate. French Minister of the Interior Claude Guéant remarked that not all civilizations are equal. President Sarkozy supported him by saying that this declaration was common sense. Guéant was heavily attacked by several Socialists and others on the Left who prefer to perpetuate the lie that underpins Western multiculturalism – that all cultures are indeed equal.
Already 20 years ago, Dutch liberal politician Frits Bolkestein – who later became a European commissioner – courageously wrote that “judged by the standards of the universal declaration of human rights, the dominant civilization of Europe at present is superior to Islamic civilization. All civilization is based on making judgments. I believe that the civilization of Rome was superior to that of Gaul. I also consider Unionist America superior to the slave-holder Confederacy and democratic post-war Germany superior to Communist East Germany.”
The above is highly relevant to European Jews and Israel, in view of the dangers threatening them. Massive exposure of the violent, often racist and frequently genocidal sources in the Islamic world is a necessity in order to diminish these threats.
Once this is sufficiently known and accepted, one can confront Westerners with the profound decades-long anti-Semitism promoted by many in the Muslim world. This expresses itself through turning texts from the Koran into actual mantras of hate toward Jews, the frequent import of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion from the Western world to the Islamic one, denial of the Holocaust, promotion of blood libels and other extreme anti-Semitic stereotypes, as well as the publication of Nazi-inspired anti-Semitic cartoons.
One can also expose ample and readily available data which reveals that on the average, Muslims in the West are more anti-Semitic and disproportionally turn to violent verbal and physical extremes than autochthonous Westerners.
In the meantime, the aftermath of the Toulouse murders confirms that the truth will not necessarily be triumphant. Those who manage to dominate public debate, even if their lies are transparent, have a realistic opportunity of becoming the likely victors.
Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld has published 20 books. Several of these address anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism