Friday, December 23, 2016
A deranged assailant did his best to poison the spirit of Christmas earlier this week as he plowed a truck through a festive holiday market in central Berlin, mowing down dozens – including two Americans – and killing at least 12.
In response, Germany and all freedom-loving nations of the world must not take the bait. Instead, they must double down in their resolve not to accept such terror as the new normal and not to let the attack usher in a retreat from their noble principles of inclusion and tolerance for all cultures, all races and all religions.
As of Thursday, German police in concert with European law enforcement and intelligence authorities, continued an intensive manhunt for the prime suspect in Monday’s vehicular attack, Anis Amri, a 24-year-old Tunisian considered to be armed and dangerous.
Germany’s interior minister Thursday confirmed that fingerprints of Amri have been found in the cab of the wrecked vehicle. Officials have labeled Monday’s carnage a terrorist attack, and the Islamic State group was quick to claim responsibility for it. As such, it stands as the first large-scale terror attack on the Federal Republic of Germany in the post-World War II era.
Though new to Germany, the attack continues a long string of assaults linked to ISIS that have tested international stability, resolve and cooperation all year. In the Western world alone, memories remain fresh of the ambush in an Orlando nightclub in June that killed 49, of the roadside slaughter of 86 during a Bastille Day celebration in Nice, France, in July and of the vehicular attack and stabbing spree on the campus of Ohio State University just last month.
TIMING AND TARGETING OF ATTACK
The attack’s timing amid the height of the holiest of Christian holidays and its targeting of a hallowed and traditional Christmas event accentuate the clearly malevolent ISIS aim of sowing seeds of hatred and division between Christians and Muslims.
Coming as it did inside the one nation in the Western world that has been most welcoming of refugees from ISIS-inspired warfare and violence in Syria and elsewhere, Monday’s mass vehicular assault also appears to punish those whose hearts and borders have been most open and inclusive to outsiders.
Many take direct aim at German Chancellor Angela Merkel. For example, Marcus Pretzell, a leading member of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, tweeted after Monday’s attack: “The deaths are Merkel’s responsibility!”
Such finger-pointing is misdirected. Though Merkel has tightened her nation’s controls on immigration and open borders in recent months, her ideals for openness and inclusiveness are the wrong targets to attack. Such inflammatory rhetoric does little but incite fear and chaos in civilized society, precisely what the extremists seek.
As Peter Wittig, German ambassador to the United States, told National Public Radio on Thursday, “There is the desire to drive a wedge between Muslims and Christians, and we should not fall into that trap.”
Wittig is correct. Once again, Germans, Americans, the French and others who have been in the crosshairs of ISIS in recent years, must steel their resolve and recognize that an entire religion cannot and must not be condemned for the abominable actions of an infinitesimally small fraction of its adherents.
Recent surveys show that most people in several countries with significant Muslim populations have an unfavorable view of ISIS, including virtually all respondents in some Middle East nations as Lebanon.
As such, the U.S., Western Europe and our allies must resist any temptation to racially profile Muslims as terrorists. We also should continue to muster up greater cooperation in preventing terrorism via toughened policing and thorough joint intelligence work.
In the U.S., that means the incoming administration of Republican Donald J. Trump should take its cues from the reasoned yet productive policies of the current presidential leadership. Inauguration Day should not be opening day for a season of exclusion and intolerance in revisionist American foreign policy.
Doing so could hand victory to the extremists and incite even more terror. It could also grease a slippery slide toward the disintegration of civil liberties for all, the very bedrock foundation of our prized American way of life.