Like the leaders of other Western countries targeted by Islamist terrorists, French President François Hollande has insisted that the recent attacks in Paris are not a product of Islam. In a press conference immediately following the atrocity in the offices of Charlie Hebdo, Hollande stressed that “Islam has nothing to do with the terrorist attacks.” A week after the 9/11 attacks in the United States, President George W. Bush made the same argument, telling an audience of American Muslims that “Islam is peace.” So too did British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who asserted that though his own capital city’s transport system was methodically attacked in 2005 by Islamist terrorists, “there is no doubt about its [Islam’s] true and peaceful nature.”
