Steven den Beste:
There was a lot of pretty rhetoric in editorials from Europe. Some of it sounded suspiciously like the rhetoric we heard after 9/11, so much so that it almost seemed like deliberate irony. When I read "We're all Spaniards now", I cringed. When I read a translation of an editorial in Le Monde which suggested that Europeans might be forced by this to accept that there's actually a war being fought and that they're part of it, I hoped that it was more than just lip service, but I suspected it wasn't.
And I said to myself, If there's really been a sea-change in Europe regarding Arab/Islamic terrorism, the way to tell will be to watch European reaction to the next Palestinian attack in Israel.
So, here it was; an attack yesterday in Israel which killed ten people. Two of them were French nationals. And the government of France "condemned" the attacks, as it were:
Terrorism is unacceptable and unjustifiable. It only makes a solution to the conflict more elusive.
We once again call on the parties to resume political dialogue without delay. The violence must urgently be stopped and the path to a political solution found through the implementation of the roadmap.
And to prove how tough they are on terrorism, especially when French nationals getting killed, exactly what is the government of France doing to try to bring pressure on the Palestinians to stop making terrorist attacks? Apparently nothing. It's the usual; a perfunctory pro forma general condemnation and an equal exhortation to both sides to cease killing one another and engage in dialogue.
They don't even seem to think there was any reason to indicate which side made this terrorist attack. No, there has not been any sea-change.
There's another thing coming up to watch for as a bellwether: as part of their "My God! We've got to do something which doesn't involve deploying troops!" response to it all, the Europeans are going to formulate an official common definition of the word "terrorism". I expect the result to be quite amusing. Will it be categorical, or will it be complicated and nuanced? You get one guess.
Will it be written in such a way as to exclude "freedom fighters" like Hamas and Hizbollah suicide bombers? And will it end up including a lot of things which are not normally considered "terrorism"? You don't need a subspace crystal ball to answer that.
Given the way that the Europeans ended up warping the term "war crime" in the ICC charter, at this point I'd be willing to bet big money this definition will end up excluding Palestinian explosive belts detonated in buses full of Israeli school children, but will cover use of cluster bombs during major combat operations between significant armies. Or if not that, then it will include use of land mines, or use of depleted uranium munitions, or failure to ratify the Kyoto accords, or the planting of genetically modified crops, or something else which would permit them to scowl at the US and suck up to the Arabs. There's only one thing which is absolutely certain: whatever it might end up saying, it won't say anything that will raise howls of protest from Arab capitols.
After 9/11, there was an outpouring of sympathy from Europe for the US. Most of that sympathy was, shall we say, magnanimous condescension. "See? This is what you get for being unilateral and for not shafting the Israelis. But now it's gotten serious, and it should be clear to you dumb cowboys that we Europeans were really right all along. We thus graciously hold out our hands to you: we will be most happy to have you realize the error of your ways, apologize, make amends, and to join us in postmodern bliss where all disagreements can be solved with diplomacy and bribery."
After about three weeks, once it became abundantly clear that Americans weren't asking themselves why they were hated, but rather intended to go out and find and kill all those involved in the attack, the sympathy largely dissipated and the criticism and carping began. It's never let up since.
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