Victims of Symbiosis

First thought: Hand it to the Muslims of France – after two years of terrorizing the French Jewish community, they cry “victim” and the entitlement to vandalize the larger French populace because they are unhappy and repressed.

First thought: Hand it to the Muslims of France – after two years of terrorizing the French Jewish community, they cry “victim” and the entitlement to vandalize the larger French populace because they are unhappy and repressed.

Second thought: The jokers say the French should respond to their “intifada” by taking the advice they give Israel – “withdrawal from territory” in the name of “land for peace.” It would be funny if the French government hadn’t already been doing it for years. The media is focused on the inability of French society to assimilate the minority, but has failed to note that the Muslims not only do not want to assimilate, many have deliberately withdrawn from the French mainstream and created small Islamic dominions in the places the authorities have abandoned. Who or what triggered the disaffection of Muslims with French society is to some degree poulets et oeufs, but the number of young adults interviewed who do not speak French is clearly a sign of the problem.

European Muslims, particularly the local religious “leaders” in the mosques and religious schools are party to a mutual, if unspoken, agreement that permitted them to live under their own rule with their own culture and permitted mainstream European societies happily to ignore them. Until now. The same way the international “oil-for-repressive-stability-in-the-Arab-world” bargain had to fail, the internal “keep-your-own-repressive-culture-in-my-liberal-country-just-keep-quiet-and-I’ll-give-you-welfare” bargain had to fail as well. And so it has.

Third thought: America has made no such bargain with any minority group and we have seen little of the European-type disaffection of Muslim immigrants – first, second or third generation. America’s open, entrepreneurial system and healthy job creation work to give immigrants a stake in their communities and their new country. But we run the risk of disaffection if we don’t pay attention to what children are taught in schools – particularly Saudi funded “academies” that are not accredited by local or state Boards of Education to ensure a full American curriculum is taught alongside the religious one. If non-secular schools turn out graduates who are not versed in American civics and culture, and who are at the same time filled with anti-American propaganda or even incitement against American society or some element within it, we run the potential of producing people who treat American society as Muslim rioters do the French.

Parenthetically, no, we are not worried about Jewish Day Schools. Check the college matriculation and be reassured that a full secular curriculum – including civics – is taught. Yes, there are Amish and Hassidic schools removed from the mainstream, but the number of their graduates who have blown up themselves and others speaks for itself.

And finally: At issue in France is both acculturation and uncontrolled immigration. The problem is mostly homegrown but with imported elements and there is evidence of leadership cadres and coordination among gangs with preplanned weapons and bombs. In this regard, the U.S. must do more to ensure that our borders are secure and our domestic intelligence and law enforcement services have the tools they need.