Ugly incidents of intimidation do occur. In the days after the horrifying murder of British soldier Lee Rigby in May 2013, six British Muslims had objects thrown at them and up to 11 more suffered attempts to pull off their veils or other forms of Islamic dress, by one count. In the summer of 2013, a Muslim woman had a miscarriage after two skinheads allegedly assaulted her in the suburbs of Paris. Mosques have been damaged by suspected arson attacks in Germany and Sweden. Any and every one of them is an outrageous offense against law and the equal dignity of persons.

Yet while every crime is an offense, the aggregate numbers matter. Many of the most horrific hate crimes in Europe in recent years have been carried out by Muslim perpetrators, not inflicted upon Muslim victims. Consider, for instance, the shooting at a Jewish school in Toulouse, France in March 2012 and the deadly attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels two years later. In 2014, NPR reported that a large majority of anti-Semitic attacks in France were carried out by youths of Middle Eastern or North African origin. The deadliest of all recent European terrorists, Anders Behring Breivik, was motivated by an ideology of anti-Muslim hatred. When he opened fire in his 2011 mass slaughter, however, he killed indiscriminately, with more of the victims bearing old Scandinavian names than those of recent immigrants.

Nothing can be ruled out, but the massacre at the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo seems no more likely to incite lethal retaliation than any of the past Islamic terrorist attacks against European targets. The theme of the intensely moving rallies that have filled the streets and squares of Europe in recent days has been mourning, sympathy, and compassion. The most frequently reproduced of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons depicts the cartoonist himself in an open-mouthed kiss with a man in Islamic dress, under the title: “Love is stronger than hate.”

So let it be proved.

Yet European Muslim communities do have something to fear. Squeezed by high unemployment, frightened by violence and disorder, European electorates are turning to xenophobic and nationalist parties: anti-immigrant, anti-European Union. These nationalist parties are often described as “far right.” That’s not a very helpful description, especially for Americans who associate the “far right” with radical economic individualism. The European nationalist parties—like France’s National Front—combine a defense of the existing welfare state with attacks on newcomers whose demands are perceived as overwhelming that welfare state.

Terror attacks by European Muslims strengthen the hand of these nationalist parties, but the parties owe their success much more to the painful deflation enforced across Europe to sustain the euro currency. France and Italy are suffering unemployment over 10 percent, Spain over 20 percent. Youth unemployment soars higher yet. No respite seems in sight. As The Economist reported at the end of 2014: “There are now serious worries that the euro zone will succumb to a 'triple-dip' recession. Only Lithuania—which joined the euro zone on the first day of 2015—and Ireland are forecast to see strong growth next year.” Only outside the eurozone do things look a little better: The United Kingdom grew at a rate of more than 2.5 percent over the past year; Poland at more than 3 percent.