Islamist Terror in Paris — #CharlieHebdo

At the Wall Street Journal, "The jihadists target Western principles of free speech and religious pluralism":

Heavily armed gunmen on Wednesday infiltrated the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical newspaper in Paris, murdering at least 12 people, including its editor, before fleeing. The deadliest terror attack on French soil in more than a decade is a fresh reminder that the war on Islamist terror is far from won, and that jihadists are bent on eradicating the heritage of Western freedom.

Charlie Hebdo was founded in 1970, and the left-wing weekly has always been an equal-opportunity offender. Its politics and taste aren’t ours, but from Jesus to Michael Jackson and from 9/11 to the Pope, nothing has been off-limits.

That mocking spirit extended to Islam, and the paper drew the ire of Muslim fanatics for poking fun at the Prophet Muhammad. The newspaper in 2006 reprinted the Muhammad cartoons first published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. In response, the grand mosque of Paris and other French Muslim organizations unsuccessfully sued Charlie Hebdo for “racism.”

In 2011 terrorists firebombed Charlie’s offices after the announcement of a “Shariah Hebdo.” (See the cover nearby: “100 lashes if you don’t die laughing.”) A subsequent cover depicted a cartoonist passionately kissing a Muslim man with the headline: “Love Is Stronger Than Hate.” Charlie Hebdo moved to a new office, but police protection failed to stop the terrorists who on Wednesday were heard shouting “we have avenged the prophet!”

Wednesday’s massacre, following a long string of plots foiled by police in the U.K., France and elsewhere, is a reminder that jihadism isn’t a distant Middle Eastern phenomenon. There will be many more such attempts at mass murder, and authorities in the U.S. and Europe need broad authority to surveil and interrogate potential plotters to stop them.

This offends some liberals and libertarians, but imagine the restrictions on liberty that would follow if radical Muslims succeed in blowing up a soccer stadium or half a city. Men willing to execute cartoonists in Paris and 132 children at point-blank range in Peshawar in the name of religion won’t shrink from using more destructive means to impose mass casualties. Better to collect metadata and surveil some people now than deal with public demand for mass Muslim arrests or expulsions after a catastrophe.

Wednesday’s attack also demonstrates again that violent Islam isn’t a reaction to poverty or Western policies in the Middle East. It is an ideological challenge to Western civilization and principles, including a free press and religious pluralism. The murder of Charlie Hebdo cartoonists is merely the latest evil expression of a modern arc of Islamist violence against Western free speech that stretches back to Ayatollah Khomeini ’s 1989 fatwa calling for the killing of novelist Salman Rushdie...

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And God bless the editors for not self-censoring.