On October 22, a French-Chechen Muslim beheaded a schoolteacher in a Paris suburb for showing cartoons of Mohammad. Since then, there have been several other acts of terror in France. (It is not yet clear, as of this writing, whether last night’s murderous attack near a Vienna synagogue is related.) Meanwhile, Islamist leaders around the world have responded with further incitement. Jonathan Michanie urges the West to stand firm:
Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed that Emmanuel Macron’s [condemnation of Islamic extremism is] comparable to [the behavior] of the Nazi party during the 1930s and to the propaganda preceding the 1995 massacre of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica. Putting their geopolitical disputes aside, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei tweeted in solidarity: “Why is it a crime to raise doubts about the Holocaust? Why should anyone who writes about such doubts be imprisoned while insulting the Prophet (pbuh) is allowed?” It should be noted that neither of these leaders condemned the brutal murder of [the schoolteacher]—condoning and excusing terrorism is nothing out of the ordinary for these regimes.
Similar condemnations of the French government were made by the Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan, . . . and on October 29, Malaysia’s ex-prime minister claimed that “Muslims have a right to kill millions of French people,” [even if they have demonstrated admirable restraint in not exercising this right].
[Such] rhetoric is not just an assault on Western values, but [also] serves as ammunition for the atrocious human-rights violations that are being carried out by these extremist regimes.
[I]mmediate and harsh targeted sanctions need to be placed on Iranian, Turkish, and Pakistani officials. Every antagonizing action by these radical regimes will not only perpetuate the human-rights abuses they are carrying out but will weaken the West’s ability to deter the rising aggression by Islamic authoritarian regimes. Silence and complacency are not an option.
Read more on National Interest: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/french-terror-attack-sanctions-are-needed-keep-islamic-terrorism-bay-171765