Bending Over Backward and Inside-Out

"We’ve also seen, most recently in Europe, a rise in inexcusable acts of anti-Semitism, or in some cases, anti-Muslim sentiment or anti-immigrant sentiment."
 "When people spew hatred toward others — because of their faith or because they’re immigrants — it feeds into terrorist narratives. … It feeds a cycle of fear and resentment and a sense of injustice upon which extremists prey."
"We have to ensure that our diverse societies truly welcome and respect people of all faiths and backgrounds."
"The terror campaigns between Sunnis and Shia will only end when major powers address their differences through dialogue … [when] political, civic and religious leaders [begin] rejecting sectarian strife."
"We all recognize the need for more dialogues across countries and cultures. … So let’s bring our youth together to promote understanding and cooperation. That’s what the United States will do with our virtual exchange program — named after Ambassador Chris Stevens — to connect 1 million young people from America and the Middle East and North Africa for dialogue."
U.S. President Barack Obama

President Barack Obama speaks during the White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism at the State Department in Washington Feb. 19, 2015. (REUTERS/Joshua Roberts)

"In the name of the government and the chancellor I can say quite clearly that there is no place in Germany for religious hatred, no matter which religion people belong to."
"There is no place for Islamophobia, anti-Semitism or any form of xenophobia or racism."
Angela Merkel’s spokeswoman Christiane Wirtz

ROBERT MICHAEL / AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Supporters of the PEGIDA movement, "Patriotische Europaeer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes," which translates to "Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamification of the Occident" march during at a protest rally on October 12, 2015 in Dresden.

There are a number of phrases encapsulating the connection between Islam and the world's fixation on protecting itself from manifestations of Islam's dictates to its faithful, the utterance of either in polite company assured that one will be branded intolerant at best, "Islamophobic" likely, and racist at the very worst. But it is an incontrovertible fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, yet most terrorists in today's world are Muslims.

In close association with that assertion is another: There can exist Islam sans Islamism, but not Islamism without Islam.

Wherever Islam is, there is the potential and the eventual likelihood of a pathological outbreak of hostility toward the non-Muslim world, evinced in ugly, often violent mass protests against incidents of disrespect toward the Prophet Mohammad, spoliation of a Koran, insults directed against Islam through the production of a video or a book in which someone questions the supposedly "peaceful nature" of Islam, or a newspaper publishing cartoons in questionable taste.

It is of little comfort to the kuffar detested by Islamists that Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world, currently estimated to be 1.6-billion strong in the worldwide ummah, in many countries of the world on all continents of the globe. Where once Muslims lived and thrived in the countries conquered by Islamist hordes violently converting reluctant infidels to Islam, Muslims have long since migrated from many of their countries of origin, and often because they have been tyrannies afflicting their populations.

Muslims have for quite some time now migrated and infiltrated non-Muslim countries, and in the weight of their numbers, agitate for Sharia law, even while they have altered the welcoming country's culture and social mores to suit their own imported ones, bringing with them at the same time their ancient animosities toward others, most notably expressed through anti-Semitism and a distrust and rage toward the West.

In response, Western governments, long enlightened beyond the hostile strictures of religion's clutch on society and exclusion of those from other sects and other religions, practise a patient and forgiving attitude toward any disruption in the social code caused by disgruntled entitlements not rewarded. The current president of the United States equates reactions against Islamist threats with racism, and equally finds a balance between anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim feeling.

Both he and the German Chancellor Angela Merkel in their gentle socialist idealism chastise those who practise both.

Yet it is primarily the introduction of masses of Muslims into Western geography with its scorned values that has promoted the viral return of anti-Semitism on a scale not seen since pre-World War II. Even while Mr. Obama and Mrs. Merkel are acutely aware of this, they dismiss it airily for the simple reason that one won't credit it and the other does not want to believe it.

It is indisputable that most Muslims would not dream of becoming active jihadists, although the basic tenet of their religion espouses just that. The core number of violent jihadists is relatively minuscule in comparison to the entire number of Muslims worldwide, but if there are a mere several hundred thousand, that number of people dedicated to the destruction of the West and its core values are capable of committing wholesale destruction, and they do their best to do just that.

Another factor is that even those who do not engage in terrorism can count on the presence of groups supportive of their jihadist goals, since those goals are critical in Islam. To name two of the more influential groups operating with approval by their Western hosts, there is the Muslim Brotherhood and the CAIR organization, all of them Islamists using Western politics, law and public relations to label critics "Islamophobic".

And radiating out from that inner and middle core there is the much, much wider group of Muslims who don't support jihad and are not Islamist. Their belief in cultural practices which are inimical to Western values, however, place them alongside the middle core for the simple reason that Islamic values cannot mesh with those of the West. A Pew research finding revealed that 27 percent of Muslims supportive of Sharia -- 237 million people -- feel that apostates should be executed while 39 percent -- 345 million -- support honour killings of girls and women as justifiable.

Another 281 million Muslims in Muslim-majority countries support cutting off of hands and stonings to death to be appropriate punishment for behaviours proscribed in the Koran, such as female adultery and homosexuality. Of American Muslims, fewer than ten percent feel in agreement that terrorism is sometimes justified to defend Islam, in contrast to much larger numbers among European Muslims. But that ten percent of U.S. Muslims amounts to 300,000 people.

This is what is called food for thoughtful people to ruminate on.