For Three Frenchmen, Three Corrections

by Hugh Fitzgerald

In a short piece that appeared at the Times of Israel, French President Emmanuel Macron, the Chief Rabbi of Nice, Daniel Teboul, and the Mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi, all had something to say about the latest Muslim atrocity – the killings of three people in Nice by a Tunisian who had arrived in the country just a few weeks ago and wanted to express his devotion to the Prophet in the best way he knew how. “After 3 killed in Nice church, Macron says France under Islamist terror assault,” Times of Israel, October 29, 2020:

Here is how President Macron responded to this most recent decapitation in France, which took place at the church of Notre-Dame in Nice::

“Quite clearly, it is France that is being attacked,” he said. “If we are attacked, it is because of our values. France will not give up on our values.”

Yes and no.

Yes, France is “being attacked because” of the value it places on free expression. That is why Samuel Paty was killed – for showing an example of that right of free expression in a class on that very subject, by displaying the Charlie Hebdo cartoons of Muhammad. The boycott of French goods by Muslim states – Bangladesh, Turkey, Pakistan among others – and by individual Muslims worldwide is meant to punish France for Macron’s spirited defense of freedom of expression. It is meant to bludgeon France into abandoning its own values and instead submitting to Islamic views on blasphemy. Freedom of expression is one of the freedoms held most dear by the Western world’s Infidels, one that Islam fails to honor or respect.

No, France is being attacked for more than these two events – the showing of the Muhammad cartoons by Samuel Paty to his class of middle-school students, and then President Macron’s ringing declaration that freedom of expression would not be sacrificed, that it would continue to be defended. France is being attacked not only because of its values, as Macron says, but because the country is an Infidel land. The French are Infidels; they are the people whom the Qur’an commands Muslims to “fight” and to “kill” and to “smite at the necks of” and to “strike terror in the hearts of.” The Qur’an says nothing about their “values,” because those values do not matter. The Muslims, who know they are the “best of peoples,” (3:110), also know that the French, like all Infidels, are “the most vile of created beings” (98:6). That is enough. That is more than enough to put them permanently on Islam’s Enemies List. “They attack us,” Macron might have said, “not for this or that act on our part, but for who we are, and for what we believe, and for what we refuse to believe.” Everyone will understand to whom he is referring.

Macron offered condolences to the country’s Catholics after the killing [of a church warden, and two parishioners, at the church of Notre-Dame in Nice], and urged people of all religions to unite and not “give in to the spirit of division.”

Why return to this interfaith outreach business, urging “people of all religions to unite”? The Muslims don’t, and won’t, “unite” with Unbelievers, except in order to deceive them. Islam is founded on the “spirit of division” that Macron claims can and must be overcome – that division of all mankind between Believers and Unbelievers and, in territory, between Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb. Instead of suggesting that there exists a sympathy among people of “all religions” – an entirely specious notion — and a desire to “unite,” Macron should have said something along the lines of “all decent people have to fight against these forces of ideological darkness that are attempting to frighten the world into submission.” “Forces of ideological darkness” points directly at, without naming, the ideology of Islam.

The chief rabbi of Nice said all synagogues in the southern French city would be closed after the attack.

Terrorism doesn’t differ [differentiate] between religions and all of us feel threatened,” Daniel Teboul told Channel 13 news. “We made a decision to close all schools tomorrow. Synagogues will be closed and kosher shops will be on alert.”

Rabbi Daniel Teboul is wrong. Of course the kind of terrorism that has been responsible for the many attacks in France, including that which killed Samuel Paty and the Catholic worshippers in Nice, does most certainly “differ [differentiate] between religions.” Think of the Boko Haram terrorists in Nigeria, who have hijacked buses and demanded that the Muslims among the passengers identify themselves – and recite a Qur’anic prayer as proof – so that they might be spared.

It is Muslims in France and across the globe who have attempted to terrorize non-Muslims. It’s not true, pace Rabbi Teboul, that “all of us feel frightened.” Muslims are not frightened. Why not tell the truth? Could Rabbi Teboul bring himself to say something like this: “Terrorism – Islamic terrorism – threatens many of us, and we Jews, given so many attacks — the killings at the HyperCacher, the murders of Rabbi Sandler and his little boys in Toulouse, of Sara Halimi and Mireille Knoll, of Ilan Halimi, who over three weeks was tortured to death – feel especially threatened. That’s why we decided to shut down our schools and synagogues tomorrow.”

The assailant was shot and wounded by police, Nice’s Mayor Christian Estrosi said.

“He kept repeating ‘Allahu Akbar’ (God is Greatest) even while under medication” as he was brought to the hospital, Estrosi told journalists.

How many times must we endure the dreamy misinformation that when a Muslim killer keeps shouting “Allahu akbar” during or after his atrocity, those two words mean “God is greatest”? Mayor Estrosi thinks that’s what those words mean. The BBC, CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and every other media outlet in the Western world all agree that “Allahu akbar” means “God is great” or “God is greatest.” They will never tell you otherwise. But you and I know better, and we also know how useful it would be if the correct meaning were supplied – “My God is greater [than your god]” — so that everyone could understand it’s not a mere observation — “God is greatest” — but rather, it’s a supremacist war cry of Muslims. How salutary and bracing to have that grim truth be repeatedly told.

First published in Jihad Watch

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