The attack on the offices of the satirical magazine “Charlie Hebdo” in Paris represents the clearest example possible of the aims of Islamism, it is to silence and destroy the freedoms of the western civilized world.
Jack Cohen
These Islamist thugs shot dead the editor and four cartoonists as well as other journalists and the police guards that were supposedly protecting them in a professional, calm and efficient manner. This is deliberate execution of those thought guilty by many Muslims of insulting the prophet Muhammed by publishing cartoons of him some years ago. The message is, anything can be the satirized, Judaism, Christianity, politicians, etc. except Islam. If you satirize Islam we will kill you. These kind of attacks are an effective way to ensure intimidation and self-censorship. These gunmen don’t think that they are cowards for shooting unarmed cartoonists – it would be laughable if it were not so tragic.
This is the latest in a series of attacks, including the murder of Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam for producing a film about the treatment of women under Islam, the attacks in Denmark and Sweden on papers that published similar cartoons, and the fatwa against the British-Pakistani author Salman Rushdie for publishing the satire of Islam “The Satanic Verses.” Although many mainline Muslim organizations will criticize this act of murder, nevertheless you can be sure that throughout the Muslim world, including the favorite Muslims of the French liberals – the Palestinians, there will be celebrations for this terrible act. The feeling will be that they deserved what they got for insulting our prophet Muhammed.
France was shown to be incompetent in either intelligence about or effectively responding to such an attack. Their policy of attacking the Islamists, for example in Africa and Syria, and at the same time trying to buy Muslim sympathy by voting for the Palestinians at the UN, simply does not work. They need to take off the gloves and get real. If the center of Paris is not safe, when will France fall to the Islamists. In another sense it couldn’t happen to a better target, now they know a little of what it is like to be an Israeli.
Jack Cohen: Born in London, UK, lived in suburban Washington DC area for 30 years, moved to Israel in 1996. He has a web site: Jack’s Blog
Jack Cohen
