It’s easy to see why Americans during World War II understood the phrase, “You can’t do business with Hitler.” The German dictator slaughtered millions in his quest for world domination. It was tragically obvious that there was no negotiating with him, because he would stop at nothing to achieve his goals.
The same can be said of modern-day radical Muslim terrorists, yet we in the Western world have been slow to understand that.
The nation of Sweden, for instance, is famously tolerant and welcoming toward immigrants from Muslim nations, and in fairness, most of those immigrants do not commit terrorist acts.
But Sweden’s tolerance and openness were for naught when two explosions hit the streets of Stockholm recently. Authorities believe that an Iraqi-born man left explosives in a car, which soon exploded, then blew himself up in a shopping district. Miraculously, the bombs were far less destructive than they might have been, killing only the suicide bomber himself and injuring two other people.
But a message received by news organizations just minutes before the explosions said Sweden had brought the attacks on itself, in part because a Swedish artist published derogatory cartoons of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad in 2007. Chillingly, the message told other terrorists in Europe “and especially in Sweden” that now is “the time to strike even if you only have a knife to strike with, and I do know that you have more than that,” The New York Times reported.
The attacks puzzled Swedes. “The blasts have caused widespread consternation in Sweden. The country has long prided itself on having created a tolerant and peaceful society at home,” the Times said.
But that is the thing about terrorists: They abhor peaceful coexistence with those with whom they disagree. They want to conquer or kill them, not live beside them as equals. They do not respect nations that are tolerant or that permit free exercise of religion.
Now Sweden, too, is learning that painful lesson.