GATESTONE
by Shoshana Bryen
February 19, 2015

A Jordanian, 21 Egyptians and 4 Americans – sounds like the start of a bad joke, but it is not. They, along with thousands of others, have been murdered by the Islamic State (IS, ISIS, ISIL, or Daesh) in the Middle East, and by Boko Haram in Nigeria. The victims are Muslim, Christian (Nigerian Christians, Egyptian Copts beheaded in Libya, plus Yazidis, Chaldeans and 45 members of smaller sects in Iraq burned alive), and others (Japanese hostages and some who professed no religion). They are killed in places where governments have lost control of their territory to bands of increasingly well-armed Islamic radical forces. There is a war going on in a far part of the world, and increasingly IS finds fellow travelers — thus far in France, Britain and Denmark — willing to attack in the West. The U.S. has had citizens killed at home — kudos to Congress for finally making it possible for the Army to award Purple Hearts to the casualties of the jihadi attack at Ft. Hood — but a connection to IS is not established. On the other hand, at the same time, 300 graves in a Jewish cemetery in France were desecrated, and more than 30 homes in Madison, WI were spray-painted with anti-Semitic graffiti. READ MORE