The French daily Le Monde has a piece vigorously comdemning terrorism (link is en français). A selection:
Qu’il s’agisse d’une opération directement menée par l’une des cellules de la nébuleuse Al-Qaida ou conduite par des terroristes de l’ETA ayant importé le modus operandi des islamistes, le résultat est le même, la désespérance identique et le défi terrifiant : l’Europe est entrée ce terrible 11 mars dans l’ère du terrorisme à grande échelle. Rien, évidemment, aucune cause, aucun contexte, nul objectif soi-disant politique, ne justifie une quelconque forme de terrorisme.
No matter if the operation was directly carried out by one of the nebulous cells of al-Qaeda or conducted by ETA terrorists copying the modus operandi of Islamists, the results are the same, the identical hopelessness and the terrifying challenge: Europe entered on this terrible March 11 the era of large-scale terrorism. Nothing, obviously, no cause, no context, no supposedly political objective, justifies this indifferent form of terrorism. (Translation and emphasis mine)
My first reaction is exactement! This is the way in which all terrorism must be treated – as a barbarian action that should not be given any countenance and must be fought with all our strength as a united and civilized world.
My second reaction is darker – bienvenue à Tel Aviv. This is what the Israeli people put up with month after month, day after day. When Israelis are killed by Palestinians, Le Monde doesn’t write that "no supposedly political objective justifies this indifferent form of terrorism". For years each action by terrorists in the Middle East have been met with at best indifference by Europe, and quite often support for those responsible for such horrific acts. It is unfortunate that such a horrible and inhuman act was required for the European intelligentsia to finally make such an argument.
Now the Europe has stared into the face of the abyss, I would hope that Le Monde would honor its stand against terrorism – regardless of where those insufferable acts take place and who they are targeted against. To argue that Spanish victims of terrorism are somehow morally more valuable than Jewish ones is clearly anti-Semitism. We are all at risk of such horrible events – and we must all stand together to stop terrorism wherever it chooses to strike.
This quote from NRO’s Denis Boyles’
http://www.nationalreview.com/europress/boyles200403120833.asp
seems in keeping:
“Gérard Dupuy, writing in Libération, explained that the Madrid attack had moral collaboration from terrorists elsewhere, but worried that the bombings would cause even more people to flock to “antiterrorism’s banner;” Germany’s liberal Suddeutsche Zeitung offered only the hope the Spaniards wouldn’t use “Spain’s 9/11” to emulate Bush’s “blind campaign” against terrorism.) ”
The sad fact is that practically all of Europe’s media have been supporting the terrorists in some way or another. In this quote from Haaretz:
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/404093.html
“Israelis can empathize with the horror and anguish experienced Thursday by residents of Madrid. The irony is that the Spanish media has for the last several years shown “understanding” for Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians in public places, on buses and in railway stations, and has even justified such attacks.
But no political demand, however justified it might be, justifies such acts of mass murder.