Western countries have generally been ineffectual in stopping Islamic terrorism. Actually, they haven’t tried very hard. So is there a case to be made that the  jihad by means of terrorism which has been pursued by Muslims through the last three decades, needs now to be met by similar acts of terrorism against them?

That seems to be the case made by the terrorist, Brenton Tarrant – a fervent environmentalist and anti-conservative despising President Trump and admiring Communist China (see here and here) – who attacked the mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, yesterday (March 15, 2019).  

The answer is no.

Above all else, because all acts of terrorism are wrong.  Terrorists kill anyone anywhere – that’s why terrorism is terrifying. You or your child could be the victim of it in any public place at any time. Civilization, the rule of law, moral good sense, all forbid the random taking of life. There is no cause, actual or conceivable, that justifies or excuses it. None.

And furthermore, it would not work. By far the most victims of Muslim terrorism are Muslims (as you can read every day at the website ironically named “The Religion of Peace”). Islam is not civilized; the law that Islam obeys is barbaric; Islam does not have any tradition of moral good sense.While individual Muslims close to the victims suffer for their loss, Islam as such does not.

Unkind as it is to entertain such a thought, a murderous attack like Tarrant’s on the mosques in New Zealand can be positively useful to Islam.

Islam likes to claim that it is irrationally hated and victimized by the rest of humankind, in particular by Westerners, and an act of mass murder perpetrated against them because they are Muslims, “proves” it. “Proves” “Islamophobia” is real and widespread. “Proves” Muslim victimhood.

Al-Jazeera reports these statements from Islamic leaders:

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the deadly attack on the mosques, describing them as “the latest example of rising racism and Islamophobia. With this attack, hostility towards Islam, that the world has been idly watching and even encouraging for some time, has gone beyond individual harassment to reach the level of mass killing. It is clear that the understanding represented by the killer that also targets our country, our people and myself, has started to take over Western societies like a cancer.”

Erdogan’s spokesman separately condemned what he called a “racist and fascist” attack. “This attack shows the point which hostility to Islam and enmity to Muslims has reached. We have seen many times Islamophobic discourse against Islam and Muslims turning into a perverse and murderous ideology. The world must raise its voice against such discourse and must say stop to Islamophobic fascist terrorism,” he said.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan blamed the New Zealand attacks on rising Islamophobia after 2001’s September 11 attacks. “I blame these increasing terror attacks on the current Islamophobia post-9/11 where Islam & 1.3 bn Muslims have collectively been blamed for any act of terror by a Muslim. This has been done deliberately to also demonize legitimate Muslim political struggles.” .

The Jeddah-based Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) said the attack “served as a further warning on the obvious dangers of hate, intolerance, and Islamophobia“.

Al-Azhar, the world’s foremost Sunni Islamic institution and university, said the attacks reflects an “escalation of the discourse of hate, xenophobia and Islamophobia” in Western countries.

Worst of all, the terrorist act of revenge perpetrated in New Zealand can and almost certainly will be used to justify Islamic terrorism against us, not only in the future but even in retrospect.