The new normal for Europe.

ISIS has claimed responsibility for the deadly December 19th truck assault on an outdoor Christmas market near a landmark church in Berlin, which killed 12 people and injured nearly 50 other victims. ISIS called the attacker “a soldier of the Islamic State.” The “soldier,” ISIS claimed in its self-congratulatory statement, “carried out the attack in response to calls for targeting citizens of the Crusader coalition.”

The prime suspect, who managed to escape from the scene of the carnage and is being pursued by the police, is said to be a 24-year-old Tunisian man named Anis Amri. The suspect had traveled to Italy from Tunisia in 2011 and spent time in an Italian jail before arriving in Germany in 2015.

Anis Amri is not a so-called “lone wolf.” He has connected with members of the ISIS jihadist network. Once in Germany, he was reportedly investigated in Berlin for his possible involvement in preparations for a terrorist attack, but the case was dropped. He also is said to have been in contact with a jihadist preacher, Abu Walaa, who recruited for ISIS and was arrested by German authorities last month. In mid-2016, Amri reportedly spoke to two ISIS fighters. Denying Mr. Amri the asylum he was seeking was a no-brainer. Nevertheless, Germany did not deport him immediately after rejecting his asylum application because of bureaucratic roadblocks.

Just weeks ago, a terror manual was issued that instructed ISIS jihadists on using trucks as deadly instruments to turn outdoor markets and other public gatherings into bloodbaths. The manual was undoubtedly available for the would-be asylum seeker, Anis Amri, to read.

Within half an hour of the deadly Berlin Christmas market attack, ISIS supporters were exchanging messages calling for more such attacks. One jihadist urged on his fellow Islamists with the following exhortation: “With Allah these operations shock and terrify the enemy. Who will step forward to hit the next Christmas market? The kuffar will never forget this Christmas market, oh lions of Islam.”

The U.S. State Department had warned last month that ISIS and al-Qaida were focusing “on the upcoming holiday season and associated events” in Europe. But Europe is not alone. ISIS also has its eyes on targeting churches, markets and public places in the United States during the holiday season. We must remain vigilant and learn from Germany’s mistakes.

Running for a fourth term amidst growing criticism over her fateful decision last year to open Germany’s borders to nearly a million migrants and refugees from terrorist ridden regions, particularly the Middle East and Africa, Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned the Berlin Christmas market attack and promised punishment for those involved. However, she cautioned against giving in to fear. “We don’t want to do without Christmas markets, without nice outings together,” she said. “We do not wish to let fear and angst take away our freedom to live.”

Merkel may well be too late to save her country from more deadly attacks, some perpetrated by the refugees and migrants she allowed to enter Germany in the first place, such as Anis Amri. Islamic terrorism is becoming the new normal in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. A leaked government document published by Die Welt last year highlighted the problem of trying to integrate hundreds of thousands of Muslim migrants into German society: “We are importing Islamic extremism, Arab anti-Semitism, national and ethnic conflicts of other peoples, as well as a different understanding of society and law. German security agencies are unable to deal with these imported security problems, and the resulting reactions from the German population.”

In short, “freedom to live” in a pluralistic, open democracy like Germany, which values freedom of religion, is under constant Islamic assault. Waging war on core Christmas holiday traditions, symbolized in Europe by the widely popular outdoor Christmas markets, is part of the jihadists’ religious war against Christianity and the West. Their intent is to turn what Westerners have long been accustomed to celebrating as the season of peace and joy into a season of carnage and grief.

ISIS directed and inspired massacres represent the terrorist side of jihad. Civilization jihad is in some ways more sinister, because it infiltrates Western institutions from within and coopts them.

Earlier this month, before the terrorist attack on the Berlin Christmas market, Berlin also fell victim to civilization jihad. Berlin Mayor Michael Müller announced the appointment of Sawsan Chebli, a Muslim of Palestinian descent, to serve as Berlin’s Senate Secretary of State for federal and state affairs. In a previous job as spokesperson in Germany’s foreign ministry, Ms. Chebli defended the foreign minister’s remark that the prospect of Donald Trump becoming president was “frightening.”

Ms. Chebli presents herself as a modern, independent-thinking Muslim woman whom has supposedly integrated into German society. However, in claiming during an interview last August that Sharia law is “absolutely compatible” with German law, Ms. Chebli has engaged in the Muslim practice of taqiyya (lying to infidels), which Sharia law fully condones. (e.g., Hadith 4:271)

There are actually two parallel legal systems in parts of Germany today, Germany’s secular law and Islamic law based on Sharia. They are totally incompatible. As Robert Spencer observed in commenting on Sawsan Chebli’s Sharia falsehood: “Stonings, amputations, warfare against non-Muslims, institutionalized subjugation of women and non-Muslims, denial of the freedom of speech — what do you mean, incompatible with German law? This is the new, Merkelian, multicultural Germany.”

The lesson from Germany could not be clearer. Enough with multiculturalism and political correctness. To save our freedoms, we must fight jihad and Islamism in all their ugly forms. President Obama has utterly failed in this respect. Indeed, during the waning days of his administration, Obama is putting Americans in more danger by further accelerating the admission for resettlement in the U.S. of Syrian and Somali “refugees.” Obama has also laid out a welcome mat at the White House for the jihadist Muslim Brotherhood. Finally, starting on January 20, 2017, America has the opportunity to stop such madness before we start going over the cliff like Germany.