Tragedy in Toulouse

I intended to do this post last week, but I was plagued by technical issues. This may no longer be breaking news, but it still bears careful examination.

Once again, a tragic shooting has rocked Europe. On March 19th, a gunman started shooting at a Jewish school, resulting in the deaths of three children and one adult male, the father of two of the young victims. Investigators discovered that the same weapon was used in the murders of three French paratroopers in two previous attacks, both quick hits in which the attacker used a motorcycle to escape into traffic after the shooting. Authorities closed in on the man, Mohamed Merah, believed responsible for the murders. This led to a 32-hour standoff between Merah and the police which ended with a police assault on his apartment. Two police officers were wounded in the firefight and Merah was killed by police while trying to flee the scene. Attention has shifted to Merah's brother Abdelkader, who police accuse of assisting Mohamed's rampage.

This incident has brought attention to two related phenomenon in Western Europe: the increasing radicalization and self-imposed isolation of Muslim immigrant communities and the drastic rise in anti-Semitism. As the Muslim populations within countries like France and England have exploded (no pun intended) over the past few decades, they have grown increasingly bold in their interactions with their fellow countrymen. From Sharia courts in London to the so-called "Sensitive Urban Zones" of Paris and other major French cities, the idea of Islamic superiority is on the march. Islamic "civil rights" groups have been popping up like crazy in the West, primarily to distort the media message and label anyone seeking an honest examination of the facts as a hate-monger. One of these groups, the Forsane Alizza group, has faced intense examination from French law enforcement because of alleged connections to Merah's attacks. Nineteen members were taken into custody, and the interior minister reported that stockpiles of assault rifles were found while searching these suspects' houses. This suggests that further attacks, possibly coordinated strikes by multiple gunmen, were planned. Counterterrorism experts have also warned that more so-called "lone wolf" attacks are on the way.

As ethnic tensions increase, anti-Semitism has rocketed in popularity. A recent report by the Anti-Defamation League found what they called "disturbingly high" surges of anti-Semitism in Austria, France, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Poland, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The study shows that high percentages of the population, in many cases the majority, believe that Jews are not loyal enough and that they have too much power, particularly in business and finance. Please don't misunderstand, I am not saying that Muslims are the perpetrators of this. Far from it, many non-Muslim groups actually use Muslim militancy to call for crackdowns on Jewish populations. One French schoolteacher aroused controversy when she asked her class to pay respects to the murderer, saying his connection to al-Qaeda had been fabricated to frame him (I don't know what excuse she has for his armed standoff with police). As various evil factions, whether Communist, fascist, or Islamist, gain power and create chaos, we will see a sharp increase in assaults against European Jews. As popular novelist Andrew Klavan says, the nice thing about anti-Semitism is "it lets you know exactly who the dirtbags are." By observing such a rapid rise in anti-Semitism over the last few years, it shows a disturbing trend toward dirtbag-ism that cannot be ignored.

The loss of life in these attacks is tragic, but it would be even more tragic to simply observe such violence and then return to our lives believing that it is an anomaly that will not be repeated. Also, be on the lookout for a violent response of some kind like the Norway murders last year by one of the other major groups of bad guys trying to take power. The game is being rigged as we speak. Innocent, ignorant people will find themselves forced to take sides in a conflict between different sides of the same totalitarian coin. To quote the supercomputer from WarGames, "the only winning move is not to play." Look out for anyone trying to present you with a false choice, and ask the questions they don't want to answer.