Reacting to the Massacre in Paris

In response to the carnage in Paris, I’ve been hearing any number of journalists and politicians say how important it is that we screw our courage to the sticking place and defend the right to free speech. I’m not convinced we mean it.

Instead, I think most of the media will now become more risk-averse than ever when it comes to anything that could be interpreted as critical of Islam — or even of Islamism. We will ask ourselves: “Do I really want to risk my life for this story/cartoon/documentary?”

The attack on Charlie Hebdo is news, but it’s a battle in a war that is by no means new. In 1989, Iranian supreme leader Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for the assassination of Salman Rushdie, British author of The Satanic Verses, a novel that, in the ayatollah’s eyes, insulted Islam. The response of British and European leaders was hardly muscular.

In 2004, Ayaan Hirsi Ali wrote a film critical of the treatment of women in Islamic societies. Soon after, her producer, Theo van Gogh, was murdered by a Dutch-Moroccan Muslim who left a note on the victim’s body — pinned there with a knife — threatening her life as well. She subsequently moved to America, whereIslamists and their leftist allies routinely attempt to block her from speaking on campuses.

In 2005, the publication of Danish cartoons satirizing Islamic terrorism led to protests, boycotts, and deadly riots. In 2010, Molly Norris, a cartoonist for theSeattle Weekly, was named a “prime target” for death by al-Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. Norris had proposed declaring “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” as a way to assert the right to free expression. She asked the FBI what to do. The FBI advised her to go into permanent hiding. That’s what she did.

I could list many similar examples. But let me move on to the fact that in much of what we have come to accept as the Muslim world it is no longer possible for journalists to report without fear or favor. More than a few of those who have attempted to do so — e.g., Daniel Pearl, James Foley, and Steve Sotloff — have been slaughtered by self-declared jihadists.

In Gaza, last summer, Hamas managed to intimidate a herd of reporters into echoing its narrative. And a few days back, French president François Hollandevoted in favor of a U.N. Security Council resolution that would have empowered and encouraged Hamas. Perhaps he thought that by so doing he would ingratiate himself with French Islamists. As he and other European leaders should have learned by now, appeasement does not satisfy appetites. It tends to whet them.

— Clifford D. May, a former New York Times foreign correspondent, is president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington policy institute focusing on national security.