The almost total absence of public mourning for an 85-year-old Christian priest whose throat was slit by Islamist terrorists while he led prayer in a small church in Normandy, France, is a scandal.

Even the French have demonstrated less feeling for this horrendous deed than one would expect from an event which took place in the village which once hosted the trial of Joan of Arc, France’s national heroine and a saint of French Christianity.

There was no moment of silence in the U.S. Democratic Convention, not unexpected given its total avoidance of the worldwide terrorist threat. One could have expected that Pres. Barack Obama, too, would have made a special effort to acknowledge this incident, so gratuitously evil as to be virtually indescribable. But that might be charged to his continuing effort to obscure the terrorist threat by refusing to name its origin in Islam and his elaborate courting of the terrorist mullahs in Tehran.

Searching for the answer to our question is the general concern above all others of the American and European political elites to avoid any hint of criticism or Islam. To be accused of Islamophobia now is an accusation in the Establishment, which ranks above all others by the moral standards of those believers in “bien pens” (being politically correct), bans any negative reference to Islam.

Not only is this errant nonsense but it is a continuing impediment to the forceful pursuit of a worldwide campaign to end Islamic terrorism. Muslims, above all, must concede that the terrorists now among us who pledge their loyalty to Islam as a religion must be confronted on that ideological score. As the crude phrase has it, not all Moslems are terrorists, of course. But all terrorists are Moslems.

What is it, indeed, that however twisted in the history and practice of Islam, which can be misinterpreted, if you will, into a rational for the kind of killing of innocents that took place in Etienne-du-Rouvray, in an almost empty church, involving three parishioners, two nuns, and a very old priest. Knife-wielding ISIS terrorists interrupted the service and slit the throat of Father Jacques Hamel and recorded their crime to use to attract new followers.

The truth is that much of the rationale which is constantly mouthed by our leadership about Islam simply is not true. It is not one of the three Abrahamic religions. It is a totalitarian concept which demands total adherence on the part of its believers for whatever its tenets as expressed by its largely uneducated clergy. The test of Greek knowledge which early was applied to Judaism and was a part of early Christianity was rejected almost a thousand years ago by Muslim theorists. The few Muslim voices who oppose Islamic terrorism are nevertheless reluctant to take on the problem of the political movement Islam represents. Since its founding in the Arabian deserts, Islam has not been a religion of peace is so often stated. It has, in fact, from its origins been spread largely by the sword with the death of “non-believers” and those Moslems who have rejected its principal tenets.

The history of Europe shows how since its founding 1500 years ago, organized Islam – when it has existed – has challenged the political status of the European states. At its high points of strength, it has come near overpowering European armies and putting the West to the sword of forced conversion.

Yes, it is true, that Islam has absorbed – after its initial brutal and primitive organization among the Arabs – some of the rich philosophical background of its conquests such as from the Persians. But it remains, largely, a religion of conquest wherein now reside many, perhaps a majority, of supposed adherents who reject this concept. But it is also true that often through intimidation and intellectual confusion this vast majority refuses or fears to publicly oppose its ignominious concepts.

Until this problem of the fundamental relationship between Western societies and the peaceful Buddhist societies of Asia and the Muslims is addressed, there is no hope of defeating the continuing worldwide terrorist threat.

*This commentary has been posted on yeoldecrabb.com, on July 30, 2016