It's the Civilizational Jihad, Stupid

Europe is likely at the point of no return

By Monica Crowley
WashingtonTimes.com

A memorial to the Belgian attack victims outside the stock exchange in Brussels. (Associated Press)

Like every other civilized human being, I was horrified by the Islamic State terror attacks that rocked Brussels this week, killing and wounding dozens of people.

But pardon me if I’m unmoved by the latest flurry of outrage and condemnation that has predictably followed.

We’ve heard it all before: the pronouncements about being “at war,” calls for “solidarity,” the feel-good, meaningless hashtags and sad cartoons and signs saying “terrorists never win.”

Spare me the self-indulgent claptrap.

Terrorists do win. They are winning — because for all of the gnashing of teeth we get after each attack, the West does nothing meaningful to stop it. And by “stop it,” I don’t just mean acting militarily to halt violent jihad. I mean stopping every aspect of the civilizational jihad being waged against the West.

Unless and until we are willing to fight this war the way it must be fought, please quit the crocodile tears and pointless hashtags that accomplish nothing except make their re-tweeters appear “sensitive.”

Really fighting this war means acknowledging some hard truths. Islam is no mere religion. It is an all-encompassing ideological system that dictates everything from law (Shariah) to personal relationships which also have religious elements. Conquest and subjugation of the infidel lands are integral to this totalitarian ideology, by the sword, if necessary.

It therefore requires that we fight this war the way we fought the Nazis in World War II and Soviet communists during the Cold War: comprehensively and strategically, with every available military, economic, ideological, diplomatic, cyber- and religious lever. We must stop this threat before it metastasizes further and fully consumes Western Civilization.

After the Islamic State attacks in Paris, French President Francois Hollande rightly declared them “acts of war” deserving a “merciless” response.

And yet, not much has changed. Borders were tightened and states of emergency remained in places like Paris and Brussels, but they obviously won’t deter committed Islamists. Meanwhile, Muslims who have been born in Europe and those new to the continent courtesy of the latest “refugee” tsunami continue to infiltrate the West.

This latest act of violent jihad stems directly from another form of jihad, one that has been underway in Europe for decades but has ramped up dramatically over the past year.

Hijra is a core part of jihad going back to the Prophet Muhammad that involves Islamic conquest through migration. The objective is to overwhelm non-Muslim territories with Muslim populations until they achieve domination through sheer numbers. No weapons necessary — until they gain enough control.

For decades, the author Bat Ye’or has written extensively on Islam and dhimmitude (enslavement of the infidel by Muslim overlords who force them to “accept a condition of humiliation”). Her seminal work, “Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis,” described — in 1985 — the deliberate Islamization of the continent with the encouragement of European leaders who desired cheap labor.

Sound familiar?

Many Islamists were born and raised in Europe, and many others are coming in with the fresh wave of “refugees.” But they are all part of the relentless hijra, which began decades ago and about which Ms. Ye’or warned. They have long used the European Union’s open doors-open borders policy to reach the West for social welfare and the longer-term goal of spreading Islam.

The waves of Muslim “immigration” have constituted an occupation of sorts, which has now reached critical mass. It was only a matter of time before the chaos turned far more convulsive and violent.

The European Union is apparently intent on committing continental suicide — largely because of misguided World War II guilt concerning “displaced persons” and the old, familiar desire for cheap labor. Paris and Brussels show us exactly how “cheap” that price really is.

Despite the latest round of terror and the rising national security risks, the invasion — in Europe and here as well — continues unabated.

Europe is likely already at the point of no return. We have more time to prevent such a transformation here, but that time may be shorter than we think.

The most committed Islamists — the networks of which are in every corner of the globe — cannot be contained. The civilizational jihad is more diffuse and even tougher to turn back.

The truth is that while Mr. Obama talks tough about “degrading” the threat, he will never execute a sustained and serious strategy to actually do it. And without his leadership, don’t expect it from the rest of the Western world, which is made up of cowardly, craven leaders so soft, so weak, so bound by political correctness that they will not act against the obvious threat.

Unfortunately, we’re not the only ones seeing the weakness. The enemy sees it, too. So they continue their advance, knowing full well that the only power that can truly stop them — a united West led by a determined U.S. commander in chief — does not exist.

So vacuous hashtags replace action, and the West hangs by a thread.

• Monica Crowley is editor of online opinion at The Washington Times.