A recent BBC Newsnight broadcast (below) illustrates how, despite the faux-sentiment displayed in Western capitals this past week, the West were well aware of the Srebrenica genocide. At least two security council members knew about the the impending massacre before it happened and US intelligence reports charted the daily killings, yet no intervention came. In all 7000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered when Dutch UN peacekeepers handed them over to Serb militias. Yet the West still remains ambivalent over why it was allowed to occur, putting it down to ‘strategic failure’.

The matter is different. On the video Richard Holbrooke (US envoy) said to a Bosnian reporter “I was under initial instructions to sacrifice Srebrenica”. A French journalist sought clarification, Holbrooke suggested he was instructed to sacrifice the people and territory. He later claimed he had misspoken and muddled up the facts. President Clinton speaking in 2013 revealed the true reasons, he claimed European fear of Islam had a part to play in the lack of European urgency. He said,

“Some European leaders were not eager to have a Muslim state in the heart of the Balkans”, 

President Mitterrand of France, in particular, could not tolerate an Islamic foothold in Europe, albeit a weak one. Reflecting upon these 20 years, Muslims must recognise  the deep-seated and irrational hatred European civilisation has for Islam. A hatred so deep, it was willing to allow its fellow Christian brothers massacre the defenceless.

Our history is yet to be written.

قَدْ بَدَتِ الْبَغْضَاء مِنْ أَفْوَاهِهِمْ وَمَا تُخْفِي صُدُورُهُمْ أَكْبَرُ

Hatred has already appeared from their mouths, but what their breasts conceal is far worse.