We Must Learn from, and Respond Appropriately to, Jihadism

Ten years ago today, jihadists launched coordinated and murderous attacks against civilians across Paris. The experience deeply traumatized France – but will be commemorated by a country that has, if anything, become over the past decade even more vulnerable to such Muslim terrorism. 

So, unfortunately, is ours. 

That’s because, in the intervening years, both France and America have allowed in large numbers of young men who practice the supremacist Islamic doctrine known as sharia. It obliges them to use violence to impose Muslim rule worldwide. 

In France, civil war between such immigrants and the native population seems increasingly inevitable. And here, following sharia-adherent Zohran Mamdani’s election in New York, emboldened Islamists are insisting that their rule must replace our constitutional republic. 

Failing to learn, and respond appropriately to, the lessons of past jihadism is an invitation to much more of it. 

This is Frank Gaffney.