The beginning of the jihad in Europe?

Our World: The Paris fall
By CAROLINE GLICK
[Print this Article] [EMail this Article] [Subscribe] [SMS Alerts] [JPost Toolbar] [JPost ePaper]The French are in serious trouble. They have a home-grown insurrection on their hands. In some ways - mainly in the intensity of the violence - the current insurrection recalls the 1968 student rebellion. But there is a major difference between the spring of 1968 and the autumn of 2005. In 1968 the rioting students - at least those who weren't receiving their orders from the Soviets - felt they had a stake in France and its future.The firebombers and marauders in today's riots do not feel any significant commonality with the people they are rioting against. As Theodore Dalrymple explained in his Autumn 2002 City Journal essay, The Barbarians at the Gates of Paris, the Muslim youth rioting today feel nothing but nihilistic or Islamic hatred and alienation from their country and their countrymen. In his words, "They are of France, but not French." Dalrymple explained that the bloated French welfare state houses, clothes, feeds and pays its unassimilated immigrant communities in a manner that enables disaffected youth to "enjoy a far higher standard of living (or consumption) than they would in countries of their parents' or grandparents' origin, even if they labored there 14 hours a day to the maximum of their capacity."At the same time, he observed that in the ghetto housing projects that ring the major cities of France where these rioting young men live, "The state, while concerning itself with the details of their housing, their education, their medical care, and the payment of subsidies for them to do nothing, abrogates its responsibility completely in the one area in which the state's responsibility is absolutely inalienable: law and order." Today both the absence of law and order and the total alienation of the burgeoning Muslim immigrant population of France have coalesced in a manner and an intensity that has motivated some observers to write of the violence of the past week and a half as "the fall of France." France has fallen, these mordant observers tell us, because the multicultural overlords of the French chattering and governing classes are unable to muster the will to contend with either the problem of violence or with the problem of social alienation.News reports of the violence quote police commanders who define the insurrection as "a state of war." On Saturday night, as the firebombers and violent mobs spread to Normandy, Philippe Jofres, a deputy fire commissioner from the area, told France 2 television, "Rioters attacked us with baseball bats. We were attacked with pickaxes. It was war." Some fire chiefs and policemen are asking for the army to be brought in to quell the violence. Law enforcement officials and French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy have noted that there is coordination among the militants. People have been seen passing out petrol bombs and other ordnance from their cars to militants on the streets. Instructions are given by cellular telephones and Internet sites. French Prosecutor- General Yves Bot told Europe 1 he could see "organized actions, a strategy" informing the militants in the streets.For their part, law enforcement commanders seem not to have any strategy to speak of. Their actions to date call to mind the image of feckless cat herders. The militants - at least those who are found - are chased from place to place with uninspiring results. On Saturday night, when some 1,300 cars were torched and businesses, schools and stores were ignited throughout the country, only 200 arrests were made. In light of the constant increase in the scope and volume of attacks, one can assume that those arrested were expendable foot soldiers.
It would seem that the French authorities need a two-pronged approach to dealing with their mini civil war. First they need to take control of the violence. In order to do so, they have to stop chasing the rioters and have the rioters come to them. This is necessary in order for them to gain a basic understanding of the command structure of the rival they face. There are people giving orders. There are people deciding where and what to attack. These people need to be arrested and either sent to prison or deported.Were the police to choose tactically significant locations within the ghettos where these militants live and simply take them over, they would force the militants to confront them in an area they can control. The locations they choose should afford them geographical control over a discrete area - say one square block. As the militants attack them, reinforcements can enter the area from pre-planned routes and easily take control of the area.In the arrests that will ensue, the police will be able to see, after confiscating the militants' cellular phones, where their orders are coming from, and move swiftly to arrest the lieutenants, who will lead them up the feeding chain. In acting in such a manner, the authorities will induce systemic shock on the militants, who will suddenly be forced to contend with a previously unfamiliar situation - French government control over "their" territory. By thus gaining the initiative, the authorities will be able to eventually achieve control over the violence.One of the notable aspects of the violence thus far is the absence of murder. The militants have apparently decided to limit their campaign to property damage. No doubt this is because their objective is political, not military. As some Muslim leaders have explained, what they want is autonomy in their ghettos. They seek to receive extraterritorial status from the French government, meaning that they will set their own rules based, one can assume, on Sharia law.If the militants are able to achieve this goal, even on an informal basis, then those declaring that France has fallen will be proven right. The only way for France to save itself is to prevent such a reality from occurring. If the French government accepts the notion of communal autonomy, France will cease to be a functioning state.As Francis Fukayama argued in The Wall Street Journal last week, the French government must embrace the American notion of the immigrant "melting pot." As Samuel Huntington, quoting Hector St. John de Crevecoeur explained the term in his book Who are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity, the product of the melting pot leaves behind him "all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds." In his previous stint as interior minister, Sarkozy attempted to bring the Muslim immigrants into the mainstream French national culture by forming official French Muslim bodies. Once the violence has been quelled and the leaders of the insurgency imprisoned or deported, the leaders of these official bodies - or alternative leaders - must be vested with the ability to bring French Muslims into French society. These efforts may involve ending the French welfare system as it is presently constituted and shifting subsidies from government handouts to job training. It must certainly involve consistently asserting law and order in the immigrant enclaves.One could ask why Israel should care what happens in France. Given France's traditional and rather obscene hostility towards Israel, a certain level of good old-fashioned schadenfreude would seem justified. But the fact of the matter is that Israel has two reasons to care about the future of France. First, five years into this global jihad we see that while Muslim terrorists or militants in Ramallah, Paris, Jakarta, New York, New Dehli, Tikrit, Amsterdam, London, Teheran, Umm el-Fahm and Beslan may not speak to each other directly, they are certainly aware of one another's actions and successes. And were France to fall, all of us would feel the aftershocks.Secondly, if France begins to assert its authority and responsibility for unassimilated Arabs and Muslims in France, perhaps Israel will be inspired to do the same for our Arab minority in Israel and Judea and Samaria, and thus move our country from a position of policy paralysis and defeatism to one of movement and strength.

You're quite right that the background of these people should have been mentioned. While many are Algerian as you say, and came to France after the frech left Algeria, many others are from different former french colonial states, like Tunisia and Morocco.But I think it's wrong to blame the state for their economic and socila ills. First, the state has provided very, very generous social programs and subsidized housing. So they have not been neglected. Second, other visible minority groups have done very well economically. So, their inferior status cannot be attributed to pervasive discrimination. As i posted earlier, the state's job is not to provide jobs. It is to run the economy in such a way that people and corporations create jobs. France's socialism deters job creation, but it is also Capitalist enough such that, despite being economically sluggish, nor is the economy moribund. All of which means the individual is responsible for himself, not the state. These kids have the same access to education as other french kids. But theya re not availing themselves of educational possibiliites nearly as much as other immigrant groups. They can start businesses as can others, but do so far less than other immigrant groups. (This is also true of Muslims in other European countries as well.) The explanation for their being disadvantaged is not found in either discrimination or state policies.So where is it?Far too many Arabs and other Muslims came in too short a time. This prevented assimilation. There is also that, despite their not being Islamists as you note, and many not even religious, their culture and Islamic civilization preaches strongly against assimilation into non islamic societies. Non assimilated Muslims maintain terrible abuse of women. Unveiled women, even non Muslim women, are subject to gang rape and slashed faces. Women are not allowed by their Muslim society to attend post secondary school, and sometimes not high school either. They are not allowed to work. While this is a blatant factor in why these immigrants are failing, there are other, more subtle, cultural reasons as well. If you check my links in previous posts, perhaps especially to an essay written by the psychiatrist, Dalrymple, you'll read what these are.

I agree that faith per se cannot be the basis of legislation. However, the judeo-Christian moral ethic is consistent with, and often the the basis of, our legal foundation. This goes not only for fundamental laws, like those against theft and murder (from The Ten Commandments), but also in that everyone, irrespective of power and wealth, is subject to the same laws. That is, the Ten Commandments applies to all, including monarchs - and so do our secular laws.Similarly, many views attributed to faith are, in fact, consistent with human nature. People as individuals and society itself are emotionally healthier when practising sexual modesty, for example. Thus, laws and regulations enforcing standards serve the psychological health of society and individuals, rather than just serving religious standards.For these reasons I, a very liberal Jew and a career counsellor, find much in common with evangelical Christians.

It appears we've come to the point where tolerating intolerance is a virtue. Of course, that is rationalized in various ways, such as:* we're responsible for the violence committed against us;
* it's only a few criminals, so what's the big deal?;
* let's understand the root causes (which is a variation of we're responsible and favourite leftist explanations about poverty being the source of all social ills and criminality).You might find this essay interesting. I did.Terrorism: the Root Cause
Inside Every Progressive Is A Totalitarian Screaming To Get Out - David Horowitz

Those are good points, as are those in your post above.StevePS We can agree on some things, I'm glad to say.

I think you and Yaro are both making good points and, as Jazzns says, talking past one another a fair bit.

I largely agree with you:Gay marriage is not strictly a religious issue. Children for innate psycho-developmental reasons need both a mom and dad. Gay marriage will inevitably mean legal and social sanction for gay families to be seen as any other. This is acase of children's rights, the right to a mom and dad (aside from when tragedy strikes). Bear in mind that couples can divorce, but both parents remain involved with the children.I oppose school prayer, because that is faith being obligaed of kids. Excusing kids from prayer marks them out. Perhaps, instead, there can be religion classes for kids whose parents request them.Yes, the left does ram its agenda doen our conservative throats. But it does that, usually, through elected officials. If we want that chAnged, we'll just have to keep electing more and more conservative electors. However, and as you are likely thinking, what about activist courts pushing a left wing agenda? That is a problem. The solution: elect enough conservatives who will appoint non activist judges.I have mixed feelings about the Ten Commandments being posted at court houses. They are, as yiou say, part of our cultural heritage. And more, they are the root of our legal sensibilities, even, perhaps, laws. And yet, there are also religious, and, specifically, of judaism and Christianity. Can the courts be seen as neutral and representative of all if a major Judeo=Christian religious statement is posted at court houses, where justice is to be blind, where non religious and those of all faiths are subject to our secualr laws? Put differently, what if Iraq arises a true democracy...Would Christians and non religious Muslims trust in the impartiality of the courts if the Koran is prominently displayed at the courthouses? (Yes, the Koran has many serious flaws with respect to justice, but the point remains in principle regardless.)As for this excellent question: "Can churches, pulpits, church busses, ministers of the gospel and religious values and sermons all be acceptable things to be injected into the political arena or not?"...Yes. But only because they are consistent with the popular will as expressed through elected reps, not because they are religious per se. For example, evangelicals may object to gay marriage and lax standards for public sexuality for religious reasons. I support them, but for secular and psychological reasons. No matter our motivation, the key is that the public agree in the majority to these objections and pass whatever laws and regulations are consistent with these contrary views and values.

Yes! In fact, it's not as if many churches have not gone left wing, even far left wing. Ever hear the left object to their participation in the political process? Not I.

The equivalence argument I speak of, is your equating fundamentalist Christians with islamists, and that you do so seeminly always and in all ways. It is apparent that Islamists are world wide and are perpetuating incredible violence around the globe. Christians are not. Whereas Islamists want the world terrorized into accepting islam, Christians attempt to convert peacefully. Whereas islamists want to rule the world under a Caliphate, Christians support democracy. Are there exceptions? Of course. But they are that, exceptions. Therefore, to equate evangelicals and islamists is to employ reflexive and non critical equivalence argumentation.As for Israel, it is, indisputably, a liberal democracy. truly, it is absurd to say otherwise. Were you to live there, you'd pretty much feel as if you were in the US. Were you to live in an Arab country, you'd feel very much a foreigner, and one at risk at that. Thus, the Israel of today is radically different from the Israel of 2,000 years ago. In contrast, the Arab nations are far less different than then, and the islamists want to largely get rid of even that much difference.Israel last fell to the Romans soon after Jesus. But jews remained along with Christians until Islam was created in the 7th century, and mohammed led battles to conquer the land for the invading Arabs. In other words, invaders ethnically cleansed the land of Jews, after a continual presence of about 2,700 years. But not entirely. Some Jews remained. Some returned over the years.Not long after the Arab conquest, the land fell to general disuse, because it is desert. There were few permanent Arab towns, with most people beng nomads there temporarily or passing through to and from egypt. That is why no Arab state was ever created there. That is why jerusalem was just about never visited by important Arabs through all those years, not in the way that, say, mecca has been. When the ottoman empire formed about 500 years ago, it gained control of the land. The Ottomans treated it as the empire backwater it was. That is why they were only too happy to sell land to jews in the 19th century, often thinking them stupid for buying useless desert and swamp. But these Jews, being westerners, created industry, irrigated, and created services. That brought Arabs back, for jobs and other conveniences and opportunities.After the fall of the ottomans, the empire was divided into 22 Arab states and the Jews were to get one tiny sliver, comprising less than 1/2 of 1 per cent of the ottoman empire. This was sanctioned by The League of Nations. But the british, official stewards, reneged on their obligations to the jews and league of Nations, because they were currying favour with arabs. So the land the Jews were to get got smaller and smaller, and then there was none.As Israel was finally being formed after WW 11, the jews invited the Arabs there to create democratic state with them. Instead, they obnly too happily joined in with the 5 invading arab armies at Israel's birth. Some were expelled by Israel, as the 5th column enemies they were. Others left in advance of the invaders, as advised. But some stayed. That is why Israel has one million Arab citizens, who are in parlimant, in the media, even on the supreme court - which has often heard petitions from palestinians in the territories and ruled in favour of them.essentially, Israel acted from the beginning like the liberal democracy it was born. It acted as would you, being the liberal democrat you are. Moreover, Israel was born a socialist democracy, given the leftward leanings of most Jews, especially then. Which may mean it may have been even more like you than realize.

PS: Ever notice that ISraeli Arabs (Israeli citizens, not those of the territories) have never rioted like french Arabs are? You might want to consider why...real reasons, not reflexive contrarian ones.

Have I ever said that "Muslim Arabs have an instinctive hatred for liberty and freedom and will not be able to control their violent opposition to it?" If you believe that, please provide the quote. In fact, what i have said many, many times, is that democracy will moderate Arabs and their practise of the faith. That is one reason I have defended the war in iraq against many posters here and elsewhere. That Arabs are, generally speaking, peaceful citizens of israel is evidence for my thesis. What is instructive is this: Israeli Arabs are more assimilated as liberal democrats than are french Arabs. Israeli Arab women are, therefore, not nearly as repressed as are french Arab women, for example. Accordingly, they are not only better educated, but their birthrate is much lower.

In fact, the crusades were an effort to win back for Christians the land that arabs had successfully invaded and taken over. and more, much more. By that time Arabs had invaded and were occupying Spain and had been in france, from which they were eventually turned back. Moahmmed began an imperialist march that had stretched far and wide and was ongoing. It was in response to this imperialism that The Crusades were about.

You're truly so irrational that it's pretty much impossible to carry on dialogue. You insult, then act hurt when there is any reciprocity of attitude. You misinterpret, then pretend that away when corrected. You attribute, then get angry when the truth of my position is stated.The war verses are clear: have you not been lsitening to the worldwide Zislamist movement, including the governments of irana and Sudan? But there is a good side to Islam too. That is the side which is amenable to democracy. In a sense, democracy will mean Islam having to accept its peaceful message, while going into denial as to the martial Jiahd message. And that, i believe , will happen.You do not object to what i say, but to what you imagine I say. But you are angry because i dare challenge idealistic and naive equivalence notions, and challenge denial about the truth of Islam's dark side and history. So be it; I'd rather not see my wife or daughters fitted for a Burkha.

It is simply fact that Mohammed had set islam on a imperial march at its birth. That is how Arabs got, in very short order, to Israel, North Africa (including Egypt) and Spain, until tuned back in france in the 8th century. Most of these lands had been largely Christian. The crusades were about winning back these lands and stopping Islamic imperialism. In fact, not only did Arabs make it that far west, but they also made it north (land that is now Syria, Lebanon, Tukey - all formerly Christian as well) and east. India was under siege for over 100 years. Ever wonder why pakistan is Muslim and not Hindu? It isn't because of peaceful conversion. A Muslim belief is that any land once Islamic can never leave Islam. That is why Muslim minorities always demand a separate state, and is one reason for Islamic aggression (including terrorism) against the Phillipines and other Asian nations. That is why the war against Israel is far more religious than is generally realized, and why the palestinians have refused, over and over and over a land for peace deal. That is why when India won independence from GB, The Muslims insisted on a separate state, Pakistan. It is also why some Islamist groups in France want to make of themselves an intermediary between the state and the rioters, and want strategic peace for now. It is also why many of the rioters are calling French police presence an indication of "occupation."Islamism is not new. It is as old as the faith, based on the Koran's Sword Verses. The west knew through most of its history that it was at civilizational war against Islam. When we became so militarily powerful that we no longer were concerned, we also forgot about that war. But the Islamic world never did. And it has now forced us to remember.

What you actually need is not more buzzwords, but more civility.