Something important is happening in France. The Jihadist threat to murder two French journalists if Paris doesn’t rescind its ban on head-scarves in public schools has proven one thing: these fanatics are not responding to Western excess or the war in Iraq. They are theocratic fascists using the old methods of terror and violence to get their way. You cannot appease them, although Paris is trying to get its Arab friends to help out. But the event may shift French opinion our way and reveal to them that they too are at risk and that appeasement cannot work. Here’s today’s editorial in Le Monde. It’s revealing in its hopes and its fears:
They say that every cloud has a silver lining. The kidnapping of the two French journalists Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot and the blackmailing of the French government by the kidnappers to force the government to repeal its new law against wearing the Islamic veil in school has two objectives. The first is to show that no Western country, no democracy — even one that, like France, opposed the American intervention in Iraq — is sheltered from the fanaticism of the soldiers of the “holy war” launched on September 11, 2001 by Al Qaida. The second is to show that France, despite or even because of its status as the largest Muslim state in Europe, has become a preferred target of this ideological war. . . . [But the terrorists have missed their mark.] Even if the current consensus in France remains fragile, even if ambiguities remain, even if the law against wearing the Islamic veil remains for many Muslims a strike at their religious liberty, we can do nothing but rejoice to see French Muslims on the front line of defense of the Republic.
But for how long? And how solid will French Muslim support be if France really begins to fight back?
The Dish 