Category Archives: History

History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

France

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What can they do now?

The means by which France could defeat the terrorists are obvious: To compel the majority of French Muslims to turn against the terrorists, the French authorities would have to make them fear the French state more than they fear the terrorists. That is a nasty business involving large numbers of deportations, revocation of French citizenship, and other threats that inevitably would affect many individuals with no direct connection to terrorism. In the short term it would lead to more radicalization. The whole project of integration as an antidote to radicalism would go down the drain. The effort would be costly, but ultimately it would succeed: most French Muslims simply want to stay in France and earn a living.

As I said yesterday, this won’t have a pretty ending. For the first time since the Nazi occupation, French Jews were unable to observe Shabbat in their synagogues today. Because France has imported an ideology as bad as, if not worse than, the Nazis. In the banlieues, it is a new occupation.

[Update a few minutes later]

France rounds up 900 terror suspects.

Well, it’s a start.

[Saturday-morning update]

The (latest) exodus has begun:

Hang on to the West Bank, Israel, you’re going to need the room…They will also be subject to terrorist attacks in Israel, but there they can have a gun and shoot back. I hope they all leave. They can’t do any good there, the French can’t protect them and won’t let them protect themselves, but in their new countries they can be a hard-core element to stiffen resistance. It’s time for triage and France is in the walking-dead category, although they might have a miracle revival. However that France wouldn’t be a nice place for Jews either, if somebody like Le Pen is in charge.

They’ve been leaving for years, but I think this may be (or should have been) the last straw for French Jewry.

[Update in the afternoon]

Claire Berlinski: “I am a Jew, and I am not leaving“:

…if you want to talk about odds, I’ll tell you about odds: In my grandfather’s regiment of 1,250 men, only 250 survived. So don’t tell me about the odds: It just makes you sound like a hysteric with no sense of history or proportion.

And while we’re at it: Let’s remember who won that war.

I am Jewish. I am in France. And I am not leaving–not because of a handful of terrorist swine, and not even if there’s an army of them. This family of Jews will not be driven out of Europe twice. And as far as I’m concerned, the response a Jew should have to this outrage is the one we should have had before–when up against a far more fearsome enemy. We may die, but we’ll die fighting, and you’ll be amazed how many of you we take down with us.

So let me speak personally now to anyone who thinks he’ll get me out of here: We will always have Paris. I will always have Paris. As will all the people who belong here. You, however, will die.

I have much more to say. But there is one more thing that strikes me as more important than all the other things on my mind. There are also many terrified Muslims in France right now. And yes, some of them are my friends–and close ones.

They too are the victims of these savages. They are victims in a double sense: Terrorists are as eager to kill them as they are eager to kill anyone in France. One of the cops they killed happened to be as Muslim, as has widely been reported. And they are victims in the second sense in that they this is only country they have. They will be associated forever with those animals–but they are French citizens. They have no Israel to go to. They have nowhere else to go to. So they will stay here too.

[Bumped]

History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Charlie Hebdo

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The publication faced the Islamists alone:

They offered high-handed but paper-thin excuses about not causing needless offense. Their cowardice ensured that publications like Charlie Hebdo and Jyllands-Posten stood alone and exposed, lightning rods for Islamist violence. But many others were targeted anyway — some 200 people were killed around the world in protests after Jyllands-Posten published its cartoons in 2005.

Yesterday, much of the traditional media doubled down on its shameful behavior by again refusing to show the cartoons. Many web outlets, including The Daily Beast, Buzzfeed, and PJ Media, did publish them. One of the first newspapers spotted keeping its head below the parapet was the UK’s Telegraph — its website pixellated out a drawing of Mohammed in a photograph of a Charlie Hebdo cover. The New York Daily News followed suit. CNN ordered its staff not to show the cartoons. The major networks refrained from doing so. The Associated Press claimed its policy was to “refrain from moving deliberately provocative images,” a policy which, it was quickly pointed out, hasn’t prevented it from selling photos of Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ.

Those organizations that bothered to offer an excuse fell back on the “offense” line, but it hardly needs saying that they’ve never felt compelled to extend the same courtesy to Christians or Jews.

The double standard can in part be explained by the fact that the liberals who dominate the U.S. media, and Britain’s globally influential BBC, believe that Islam is to be respected because it’s broadly the religion of brown people and victims of Western oppression, while Christianity can fairly be ridiculed because it’s the religion of white people and Western oppressors. And don’t, of course, get them started about the Jews.

But mostly, it comes down to the fact that journalists of every political hue have long been wary of provoking Muslims because they fear they’ll be murdered, while they know they have nothing to fear from Christians or Jews beyond strongly worded statements and perhaps a boycott.

They are cowards who will not defend western civilization against barbarians.

[Update a few minutes later]

Reminder: If there is such a thing as a moderate Muslim, we shouldn’t undermine them by treating the monsters who did this as Muslim.

[Update a while later]

Europe under siege: This was an attack on perhaps the greatest idea of the West.