Mistakes can happen. Suspects can always slip through the net. But the sheer volume of would-be Islamist terrorists in Europe has made these tragedies almost inevitable. In 2015, Europe’s deadliest year for Islamist terror, an estimated 10,000 Islamist radicals had been identified as potential security threats, appearing on France’s Fiche S database. At least 5,000 Islamic extremists are currently believed to be at large, according to Le Figaro. Clearly, the task of tackling Islamist radicalism is so vast that it cannot be left to security services alone.

Yet despite the terrifying scale of the threat, and a new wave of Hamas-inspired terror potentially in the offing, we seem less willing than ever to reckon with it. In Europe, politicians are reluctant to discuss the scourge of Islamist terrorism. They refuse to say anything too confrontational about an ideology that has claimed the lives of so many innocents. Some fear being labelled racist or Islamophobic. Others fear that condemning Islamism too harshly could embolden the far right. Even to express solidarity with the victims, it seems, is now considered too provocative. It is this moral cowardice, more than any security failing, that has allowed Islamist extremism to spread, to thrive and to continue to wreak havoc.

[And no one’s talking about it because they refuse to admit there’s a big problem in the EU. Earlier, an Irish journalist not only admitted to this but claimed that the truth had to be suppressed to promote peace. That’s nonsense on stilts, but it’s why these attacks have indeed become a new normal. — Ed]