OPINION:
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg believes he’s found the solution to global Islamic terrorism: love and empathy. He has announced that, essentially, all we need to do is hug it out, that perhaps one Giant Hug will overcome the global jihadist network of maniacs who exist only to murder.
On Easter, the Pakistan Taliban targeted an amusement park filled with Christians celebrating Easter. The terrorist attack killed at least 29 children and scores of others, including Christians and Muslims celebrating together.
After the Paris attacks in November, the Brussels bombings, and now this horror, Mr. Zuckerberg posted on Facebook (well, of course) his declaration that only love can defeat terrorism:
“This morning we activated Safety Check in Pakistan after a bomb targeted children and their families in a park in Lahore. Over the last two months, we have activated Safety Check several times for acts of terror — including in Turkey and Belgium — so people in the area can let their friends and loved ones know they’re safe. Each of these attacks was different, but all had a common thread: they were carried out with a goal to spread fear and distrust, and turn members of a community against each other. I believe the only sustainable way to fight back against those who seek to divide us is to create a world where understanding and empathy can spread faster than hate, and where every single person in every country feels connected and cared for and loved. That’s the world we can and must build together.”
The only thing missing is Coca-Cola’s “I’d like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony…”
The illustration of the degree to which many work to ignore reality is stunning. Mr. Zuckerberg writes about Facebook’s Safety Check which allows people to check in online to let their friends and loved ones know they’re safe. That’s a good thing, but there’s one problem with the issue at hand — hundreds of people in the last weeks alone aren’t able to use the Safety Check because, well, they’re not safe, they’re dead.
He also notes there’s a common thread in all the attacks. Yes, that would be the terrorists were all Islamists, but instead Mr. Zuckerberg asserts that the commonality is the goal to spread “fear and distrust.” Actually, no, the goal is to kill as many people as possible in the terror campaign to end resistance to a worldwide caliphate.
He then shares his epiphany that the only way to fight back is to create a world of “understanding and empathy.” Perhaps this is a news flash for Mr. Zuckerberg, but in this incredibly diverse world, humanity has done an amazing job living in understanding and in empathy. Islamists? Not so interested.
This coming together was evident in the very Easter celebration the Taliban terrorists targeted with their bombs — the community of Pakistani families, enjoying their day together, Muslims and Christians, all murdered together by a very specific, calculating, evil gang of men.
Mr. Zuckerberg’s declaration of the need for everyone to feel loved and cared for implies that the Islamist genocides are the result of someone needing a hug, a sammy and a good bowl of soup. If only we could just tuck them in at night…
I’m all for love and empathy — but mine is exclusively for the victims of zombie Islamists who terrorize and murder the innocent. Mr. Zuckerberg’s pronouncement isn’t a revelation from his cloistered liberal mind; we saw the same nonsense from the George W. Bush administration in the last two years of his second term. That’s when Condoleezza Rice joined the team and suddenly the Bush administration became fixated on “winning the hearts and minds” of Islamist terrorists.
I noted all those years ago that it would be rather difficult to win the hearts and minds of terrorists who have neither. Yet, this silly self-righteous sanctimony is based in the narcissistic belief that everything mass murdering genocidal Islamist maniacs do is because of us. If we were just better, or nicer, or more… empathic, then the misunderstood, terrorist lonely hearts would stop their global jihad and declare, in the words of Sally Field as she won her Oscar, “They like us! They really, really like us!”
We know, of course, that’s absurd. In fact, it’s dangerous. This September will be the 15th anniversary of the al Qaeda attacks on the United States, resulting in the obscene slaughter of 2,996 people, and the injuring over 6,000 others. Hundreds of thousands of innocents have been murdered globally by terrorists in the 15 years since.
Yet, to this day political correctness keeps the civilized world from being able to act on the existential threat right in front of us. Would anyone today suggest that all Hitler and the Nazis needed to see was a Big World Hug and World War II would have melted away? Six million Jews would be alive today if we simply had more “empathy” for each other and the Germans?
To have someone as engaged in the tech and information world as Mr. Zuckerberg propagate the nonsense that all the world needs is a hug, highlights the dramatic importance of rejecting this tripe, showing global leadership the door and elevating those who understand the worldwide threat. You won’t be surprised to learn the solution is actually very kind — introducing Islamists to Allah. As quickly as possible.
• Tammy Bruce is a radio talk show host.
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