The Stages of Conquest

"I went to the window and there was this guy with a kalashnikov firing. It was at the corner and he was firing in all directions. Then a car came and he entered the car and it went away. There were three guys who were not killed by this killer. I did not expect such a terrifying situation. I saw... people going to a body on the ground and I called the police. I went down to the street and realised that in a bar there were four or five more bodies. There were cars where the driver and the passenger were dead. The police told everyone to go home. I stayed at home without lights. A few minutes later there was a knock on my door and the police asked if they could use my apartment. I stayed in the bathroom because it was the safest place and I did not want to distract the police. I think they stayed at the window, they were fully armed."
Paris atrocity eyewitness as told to the BBC

Paris is under attack. So too is Jerusalem under attack. French citizens targeted for slaughter because they are French citizens, and likely their attackers are other French citizens. The difference between them is that the assailants are Islamic jihadists and the victims are not. In Israel, Jewish citizens have become a target because they are Jewish Israelis, and their attackers are often Muslim Israelis. As Palestinians they have been taught from the cradle that the Jews are their oppressors.

Israel has become an 'occupying' power over the West Bank and the Gaza strip for the simple reason that terror stalks Israel out of the West Bank and the Gaza strip. Palestinians would far prefer to live in an orderly, civil environment with a state representing their interests. The problem for them is that no leaders have yet arisen that comfortably fit the task of engaging civilly with the Jewish state to bargain for the land that will represent them.

This problem is of long-standing. Back when the United Nations offered their plan for partition of Palestine. Even the claims of Arabs to be "Palestinians" is false, just as their claims of always having lived in the region are false, since they originate from Egypt and from Jordan. During the Second World War years when Jews were being rounded up for extermination in Europe and before, epithets from Poles identifying the Jews who had lived among them for a thousand years were that they should 'return to Palestine'.

When Israel leaped at the opportunity the United Nations offered, the surrounding Arab neighbourhood launched a collective military assault to drive them out of the Middle East, and it failed, and so did the succeeding military assaults over the years from allied Arab armies. Until finally in the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel proved conclusively that it meant to stay and no force on Earth would budge it from its historical heritage.

And that included Jerusalem. When the Palestinians spurned the offer to establish their own state, they set the stage for the 65 years of declared victimhood as 'refugees' whom the world has since supported, unwilling to themselves muster the energy to embrace the dignity of independence. They dreamed of destroying Israel, of pushing the Jews out of the Middle East, and that dream solaced those who hated, and never questioned the motives of their leaders.

One wave of violent hatred after another led the Palestinians to 'demonstrate' and 'resist' the occupation, an 'occupation' that results from a need to defend against carnage. Another 'resistance' is currently taking place with random episodes of young Palestinians, nurtured on murderous hatred, attempting to kill Jewish men, women and children in surprise knife and vehicular attacks. The world is silent.

But the world comes alive when the issue of settlements arise. And when, from within those settlements, consumer products are produced for sale on the world market, the issue of provenance arises. The Palestinian penchant for slander and their skills in manipulating European public relations within a background of anti-Semitism works wonders for them. The European Union has ruled that goods produced in places Israel gained after 1967 be labelled as coming from Israeli settlements.

This is an 'administrative' and not 'political' issue the EU hastens to add. Certainly not discriminatory irrespective of the fact that many other countries also have jurisdictional disputes very similar to Israel's, yet no such action is taken to distinguish them in similar fashion. Of course, there is the issue of a large and steadily growing Muslim population in Europe, and their growing political influence.

So Gaza, administered by a terrorist organization dedicated to destroying Israel, is looked upon with favour, and Israel with disfavour. Arabs may be Semites, but Jew-hatred is pointedly special. From labelling to boycotting and divestment is no great distance; it's a start, and one led by a smug sense of righteousness.

After all, goods such as fresh fruits, vegetables, cosmetics, wine, honey, olive oil, eggs, poultry and organic products are all singularly contaminated and as such must present a threat to the health of those consuming them outside of the Jewish community, since they're produced on land that the international community condemns Israel for winning in a series of wars, enabling them to settle on their ancient Biblical lands.

Europe, which appears to have little sympathy for Israel's plight of being encircled by Arabs who have such a low regard for Jews -- and for the incessant attacks that Israel's Jews are exposed to, while absorbing into its population Palestinian Arabs among other non-Jews, all with entitlements not given them elsewhere in the Middle East -- has absorbed quite a population of migrant Muslims. And among that demographic there are those who espouse violent Islam.

And it is from among that finite number of violent Islamists that Europe finds itself under siege, its culture and heritage disappearing down a wormhole of the black hole of sucking energy representing Islam's prioritization of conquest. And when matters do not move sufficiently rapidly and the Islamist jihadis become impatient, they take matters into their immediate hands by staging atrocities in places like Paris.

What do jihadi violence, Allahu Akbar! and the labelling of Israeli West Bank products have in common? Everything.