Suicidal Empathy, European Style

Is he serious?

On the return flight from his visit to Lebanon late last year, Pope Leo XIV said the West should be “a little less fearful” of Islam (Dec. 2). This “fear,” he said, is “often generated by people who are against immigration and trying to keep out people who may be from another country, another religion, another race.” Instead, the Pope said, “we all need to work together” to “look for ways of promoting authentic dialogue.”

Not two weeks later, police in Germany arrested five men suspected of plotting to drive a vehicle through a Christmas market near Munich “with the aim of killing or injuring as many people as possible.” The men were not from Germany, not Christians, and not Germans. They were, in fact, from another country, another religion, another race. Three were from Morocco, one from Syria, and one from Egypt — all were Muslims. The Egyptian was an imam at a nearby mosque. The quintet, said Bavaria’s state interior minister, had been planning an “Islamist-motivated attack.” They were working together to send a message to their host nation, expressed in the language of murder, mayhem, and terror.

Thankfully, German law enforcement was on high alert at the time and prevented the Islamists from making their macabre statement. That’s because a year earlier, a Saudi Arabian man had done just that, driving a car through a Christmas market in Magdeburg, killing six and wounding more than 300. Christmas markets have become popular targets of jihadist Muslim migrants in Germany since 2016, when a Tunisian man, whose asylum-seeker status had been denied, drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 and injuring 56.

Germans have good cause to be fearful while visiting Christmas markets — so much so that local authorities have had to implement extra safety measures for their protection. According to the Federal Association of City and Town Marketing, German municipalities have increased spending on security for public events by 44 percent over the past three years. Berlin’s Christmas market this past season was surrounded by concrete barriers (to stymie vehicular attacks) and featured enhanced video surveillance and expanded private-security details.