Mikhail CHLENOV, Secretary General of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress, about the terrorist attacks in Paris and the reaction of the world community.

Why has the terrorist attack on the caricaturists of “Charlie Hebdo”, a French satirical magazine provoked such a strong reaction in the Western world? During the past few years several outrageous incidents took place including the barbaric murder of a military man in London, shootings in the Jewish Museum in Brussels, the attack on the Jewish school in Toulouse and other tragic events. Islamists had already attacked correspondents and writers prior to the “Charlie Hebdo” tragedy. However, this horrendous attack brought everything together: it occurred in the center of a European capital and took over ten lives. The victims were not random people, since the terrorists knew whom to kill. The journalists personified one of the main of European liberties, the freedom of speech.
The Parisian tragedy has become a hammer rather than a straw that broke the back of the long-standing European patience. The Western world decided to clearly demonstrate that terrorism became the main threat to the European values and the civilized humanity. Before this threat the concept of Russia posing a main threat to the European security on one hand and the concept of NATO as a main threat to the Russian statehood slide to the periphery. Our main enemy is the international Islamist terrorism. Leaders of many countries and hundreds of thousands of people throughout the world clearly announced it.
The bloody events in the kosher grocery store that followed the massacre in the “Charlie Hebdo” office introduced the Jewish aspect into the tragedy. Hence, the organizers of the Parisian march pointed out that the problem of terrorism could not be downplayed to the Arabic-Jewish conflict. Numerous attacks of Islamic terrorists on the European Jews and their property as well as the rise of Anti-Semitism heated by Islamic extremists prove that Jews are not a neutral side in this conflict of civilizations. Naturally, Europe does not see the situation from a Jewish point of view and has attempted to take the Israeli-Palestinian conflict out of the international terrorism problem. The main slogans of the anti-terrorist marches "I am Charlie! I am a Jew! I am a Muslim!" take root from this vision.
The terrorist attack took place at a time of the rise of Anti-Semitism in the Western Europe. That trend has already been in place for the past few years. The Jewish world warned about the dangers, but European elites avoided the analysis and action-taking against that evil. The state authorities began to react to that threat only last year when the mass rally against Anti-Semitism was organized at the Brandenburg Gates in Berlin. There, it was acknowledged that Anti-Semitism in Europe stepped over the border.
Anti-terrorist marches went under the slogans of the European unity over democratic values and freedoms. However, there, also, was a reaction of another sort. Islamophobic calls after the Parisian terrorist attacks were a direct result of the long-term appeasement of the radical Islam that produces terror.
The Jewish communities in the Euro-Asian region are not infected with the Islamophobic ideas. We understand that each religion has its own extremists that place themselves out of the religious framework. We understand that most of the European Muslims are not content with the Islamic terrorists who call themselves their brothers. At the same time we realize that our concerns have not been unfounded. The Islamist threat in Europe, previously perceived as a mere reaction to the Arabic-Jewish conflict, became the main threat to the European civilization.
The participants of the anti-terrorist marches defended the Jewish presence in Europe as an element of their civilization. Manuel Valls, the French Prime Minister stated that France without Jews would no longer be France. "Je suis Charlie" slogan is, also, a call against Anti-Semitism.
The international terrorism is a common threat but it should be recognized that Jews belong to a group of high risk. The second terrorist attack in Paris proved it. The Muslim citizens of European countries have not yet become such a group of risk. Unfortunately, very soon they may become a target of the Islamist "righteous " on one hand and Islamophobes on the other hand provoked by the actions of these " righteous ". Therefore, the Islamist terrorism poses a grave danger to everyone.
The idea of a main threat to the world has appeared several times in the history of human kind. There was a "Socialist danger" in the second half of the XIX century, and those concerns had a solid ground. At the same time other threats to the world could be noticed from other points of view. Today just as in the past times local conflicts create the illusion of global dangers. However, the real common threat to the civilized world and to each and everyone is the international Islamist terrorism. The mass attendance of the anti-terrorist marches shows that we all start to realize this fact.