Global

‘Crimes’ Jihadists Will Sentence You to Death For

The massacre in Paris, which France’s president has called an act of war by ISIS, is a reminder that Islamist militants find so much of modern life unbearably provocative.

By Jeffrey Goldberg
Mourners outside Bataclan concert hall in Paris on November 14, 2015. (Christian Hartmann / Reuters)

Militant Islamism’s war on all of us appears to be accelerating. Christians, Jews, Hindus, atheists, women, gays, and millions upon millions of Muslims who reject the Islamist template—all of us are considered to be Quranically sanctioned targets for elimination by a demented and determined enemy. We can continue to make believe that jihadists are merely reacting to intolerable provocations by the perfidious West, or we can credit them with possession of a well-developed supremacist theology of global expansionism, and with a desire to resuscitate medieval values. Militant Islam’s war on pluralism and modernity has a thousand fronts, and, in the minds of  jihadists, the crimes of their enemies are limitless. Here is a partial, and only partial, list of activities for which Islamists have imposed the death penalty recently:

  1. Vacationing in Egypt
  2. Shopping in Nairobi
  3. Going to work in New York
  4. Flying in an airplane in the U.S.
  5. Riding a train in Madrid
  6. Riding a bus in London
  7. Attending a wedding in Amman
  8. Guarding a Canadian memorial
  9. Praying in an unapproved mosque
  10. Being Jewish
  11. Visiting a nightclub in Bali
  12. Going to school in Russia
  13. Going to school in Peshawar
  14. Drawing cartoons
  15. Being a Wall Street Journal reporter in Pakistan
  16. Practicing free speech in Bangladesh
  17. Being a French engineer in Pakistan
  18. Working in a bank in Istanbul
  19. Riding a ferry in the Philippines
  20. Drinking coffee in Mumbai
  21. Making a movie critical of the treatment of women in Islam
  22. Publishing bibles in Turkey
  23. Sleeping in a hotel in Islamabad
  24. Standing outside a military recruitment station in Little Rock
  25. Praying in a church in Egypt
  26. Shopping for Christmas presents in Sweden
  27. Buying fish in Nigeria
  28. Making a pilgrimage in Iraq
  29. Watching the Boston Marathon
  30. Being a Christian girl in Nigeria
  31. Sunbathing in Tunisia
  32. Practicing journalism

And the crimes of the people who were murdered in Paris on Friday include: Liking music, eating, and drinking.