Thomas Wictor

On March 20, 2015, the Islamic State used three suicide bombers to kill about 137 Shi’ite worshipers at their mosques in Sanaa, Yemen. Initially I was horrified. That sense of outrage has diminished somewhat. I want to tell my Muslim brothers and sisters that you’re making it hard for me to care about you.

This is what the worshipers were chanting when their fellow Muslim murdered them.

“Death to America. Death to Israel.”

No. Death to you. At the hands of a Sunni Muslim. You don’t seem very happy after the bomb goes off. I hear a lot of high-pitched wailing.

Guess what? Before I saw this video, I felt bad for those people. Now I don’t.

Before I saw this video, I would’ve supported American and Israeli military intervention in Yemen to stop the Islamic State. Now?

Eventually. Maybe. But only if things get bad enough to threaten American and Israeli national security.

Let them fight it out for a while. After all, they want to kill me and Jews. Why should we save them?

Or how about this?

26 arrests after mob beats, burns Afghan woman

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) Grieving women carried her coffin high on their shoulders in scenes many said they had never witnessed before in the Afghan capital.

Men are traditionally pallbearers in Kabul, where days earlier a mob of male attackers beat and kicked 27-year-old Farkhunda before tossing her off a bridge, setting her body on fire and throwing it in the river. Like many Afghans, Farkhunda used only one name.

Early reports suggested that Farkhunda was mentally ill, but her tearful father, Nadir, told CNN affiliate TOLO News she was a religious teacher who taught the Quran to children. He said there was no way his daughter would burn pages of the holy book, which has been cited as the motive for the horrific attack.

I watched the video. Men braced themselves on a metal fence so they could jump up and down on her face with all their weight. CNN is downplaying the violence, of course. The men used sticks, clubs, bricks, paving stones, and every other heavy object within reach. They didn’t do it because they thought she burned some pieces of paper; they did it because they wanted to murder someone and film it with their cellphones.

Muslims murder simply because they like it. Burning the Koran or insulting Mohammed is the rationale. The real reason is that these people come from a culture that adores violence, the more ghastly the better. Islamic State terrorists are issued cocaine, which the religion explicitly considers haraam or forbidden. Muslim nations are among the top consumers of online pornography. You can bet that most of the men who murdered Farkhunda are porn addicts. The strictures of the religion are selectively followed.

For thirty-six of my fifty-two years, the United States has been fighting Muslims. If you count the hijacking of TWA Flight 741 by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine on September 6, 1970, it’s actually been forty-five of my fifty-two years that Americans have been targeted by Muslims.

“Death to America!”

Fine. I say, “Good luck defeating people even worse than you are.”

The Yemeni Shi’ites shouting, “Death to America! Death to Israel!” weren’t terrorists. Neither was the mob that murdered Farkhunda. These are just everyday Muslims. Plenty of Muslims have condemned the murder of Farkhunda, but the arrests don’t mean anything. Nobody will be punished. The police stood next to Farkhunda and let her be murdered.

What the world must accept is that Islamic countries embrace a level of savagery that isn’t found anywhere else. In the US, those who decapitate multiple people are called “serial killers.” When was the last time an American cut off a woman’s nose and ears? It happens in Afghanistan all the time. How about acid attacks? “Honor” killings?

Here’s where the US ranks in terms of intentional homicides per 100,000.

Eighty-ninth in the world.

Honduras is number one, with an intentional homicide rate eighteen times higher—1800 percent higher—than that of the US. The US doesn’t even have the highest intentional homicide rate in the developed world. That prize goes to the Russian Federation. Bermuda is number two, Barbados number three, Lithuania number four, Moldova number five, and Albania number six. The US is number seven in the developed world.

But we don’t murder people over paper, cartoons, and words. We don’t stomp them to death in the middle of the day and then set them on fire. The major factors contributing to mass murders and spree killings in the US are anxiety disorders, dysthymia [chronic depression] major depression, bipolar disorder, and drug and alcohol abuse.

In the Middle East, mass murder and spree killings are committed in the name of religion, but I don’t buy it. Nobody actually believes that “God the merciful and compassionate” smiles down at beheadings, suicide bombings, and stomping women to death. The religion allows for claiming that these crimes are carried out in praise of God, but nobody looks out across a street of body parts or a field of decapitated corpses and thinks, “God is sure happy today!”

Too many Muslims are violent because it’s the tradition. That’s all.

Since I began defending Israel publicly, I’ve been engaged by thousands of people who either actively support Muslim terrorism or rationalize it. This is the usual level of discourse.

Mr. “Higher Up” has no factual knowledge about the Middle East. We determined that in the utter waste of time I spent with him. The people exploding themselves and stomping women to death are like the brainless social media users who know nothing but are intensely passionate. I can’t reach Mr. Higher Up, under any circumstances. He told me that he doesn’t read things that challenge his preconceived notions.

I can’t reach the “Death to America! Death to Israel!” crowd either, but I can become indifferent to their fate.

My indifference isn’t permanent. If they change, I’ll change.

But in the meantime, I can’t waste any emotion on them. My concern is reserved for those who understand that the Jews and I are not their enemies.