Clearly – though Mrs Obama’s appeal today gives zero hint of it – there are some powerful religious forces at work in the unfolding Nigerian tragedy which no amount of reportorial spin or speech-writing acrobatics can fully hide. That however doesn’t stop them trying.
We’re certain Mrs Obama would agree that the killing of our daughter in August 2001 at the hands of another overtly-Islamist terror group – Hamas – was unconscionable. And yes, it cheated Malki of her education. And certainly it destroyed her hopes and dreams. But it was principally about murder and especially about hatred. Did it bring anguish into our lives? Yes, and it’s an anguish that grows as we see well-informed people who fail to comprehend the nature of attacks like the one that targeted Jewish children in a Jerusalem pizza store, and like the one that targeted Nigerian girls in their school.
Excising the Islamist dimension from their understanding of what is happening dooms some of the most influential people in our societies to continue seriously misapprehending the goals of Hamas, of Boko Haram and of the rising tide of terrorism-addicted savages with Islamist passion in their hearts. Ultimately, we all pay a price for this, and it’s unconscionably heavy.
Visit This Ongoing War. / Frimet and Arnold Roth