In the aftermath of the deadly Paris attacks, French President Francois Hollande said “we are going to lead a war which will be pitiless.” Photo: Wikipedia.

On Friday night, French President Francois Hollande said, “To all those who have seen these awful things, I want to say we are going to lead a war which will be pitiless.”

An Israeli leader could never say that against Islamic terrorists. Such language would be used as evidence that Israel desires genocide. “Pitiless,” after all, implies that some innocent will be killed along with the terrorists.

Now:

One of the suicide bombers who carried out the Paris attacks was identified Saturday by a French parliament member as Ismael Omar Mostefai.

Police took into custody Saturday Mostefai’s father and brother and were searching their homes, a source close to the probe told AFP.

Isn’t that administrative detention, which we are told by human rights groups is a huge crime?

Isn’t that collective punishment, which we are told by human rights groups is a huge crime?

Oh, sorry. Those are only crimes when Israel does it to relatives of Arab terrorists. When it isn’t done by Israel, these moves are a strong signal to the terrorists that we are taking the threat seriously.

But when it comes to sheer hypocrisy on how to respond to terror, you must look past France to the New York Times‘ Roger Cohen:

The only adequate measure, after the killing of at least 129 people in Paris, is military, and the only objective commensurate with the ongoing threat is the crushing of ISIS and the elimination of its stronghold in Syria and Iraq. The barbaric terrorists exulting on social media at the blood they have spilled cannot be allowed any longer to control territory on which they are able to organize, finance, direct and plan their savagery.

Oh, so terrorists must not be allowed to control territory? Cohen sure doesn’t feel that way about Gaza! No, to Cohen, Hamas terrorists simply have a “competitive narrative of victimhood.”

Even though a major campaign to destroy ISIS’ control of land will kill many innocent civilians, to Roger Cohen, “the death of a single child to an Israeli bullet seems to betoken some failure in the longed-for Jewish state,” France and the US and NATO must not fret over the certainty that they will kill children in their righteous war against Islamic terror, but Israel cannot allow a single child to die in their fight against the same Muslim Brotherhood-inspired Islamic extremism or else its entire claim to legitimacy is shattered.

Cohen’s twisted thinking is revealed by this passage:

It was wrong to dismiss ISIS as a regional threat. Its threat is global. Enough is enough. A certain quality of evil cannot be allowed physical terrain on which to breed.

Really? Then where are his columns saying to destroy ISIS before Paris? Where was his outrage at Islamic terrorists who targeted Jews at the HyperCacher market? In Toulouse? In Burgas? In Mumbai?

It shows that to Cohen and those who think like him, merely targeting Jews isn’t enough of a threat to demand that terrorists be soundly defeated. Those victims were just Jews, whose murders can be dismissed as an extension of murdering Jews in Israel – Jews who to an extent deserve being killed because Palestinians have a narrative that sounds good to Cohen. Israel can’t fight back against those terrorists except in pinpoint attacks that cannot have any chance of killing the women and children that the terrorists are hiding behind.

But when Western French are slaughtered – now we must fight back. Those victims were innocent human beings!  We must have a ground war! We must be pitiless!

Crushing ISIS in Syria and Iraq will not eliminate the jihadi terrorist threat. But the perfect cannot be the enemy of the good. Passivity is a recipe for certain failure. It is time, in the name of humanity, to act with conviction and power against the scourge of the Islamic State.

Except when the victims are just Jews and the perpetrators can be given a “narrative” of victimhood.