When I was young and innocent, I thought that giving welfare handouts to advocates of terrorism was the most perverse and disgusting way to abuse taxpayers.

Now that I’m old and jaded, I’ve learned that governments are so masochistically stupid that they routinely give taxpayer-financed goodies directly to the people who actually engage in terrorist attacks.

The U.K. government provided lots of handouts to Jihadi John, the ISIS psychopath who likes to sever heads. The French government generously subsidized Mohammed Merah, the thug who executed a little girl. The Danish and Austrian governments give welfare payments that get used to finance ISIS fighters going to Syria.

And there are plenty of other examples.

So should any of us be surprised to learn that the human scum who planned and executed the recent terror attacks in France and Belgium were mooching off taxpayers as well?

The Wall Street Journal has a very disturbing story revealing the degree to which Islamo-terrorists in Europe relied on welfare handouts as they plotted and schemed to brutally murder innocent people.

Belgian financial investigators looking into recent terror plots have discovered a disturbing trend: Some of the suspects were collecting welfare benefits until shortly before they carried out their attacks. At least five of the alleged plotters in the Paris and Brussels terror attacks partly financed themselves with payments from Belgium’s generous social-welfare system, authorities have concluded. In total they received more than €50,000, or about $56,000 at today’s rate. The main surviving Paris suspect, Salah Abdeslam, collected unemployment benefits until three weeks before the November attacks—€19,000 in all, according to people familiar with the case. At the time, he was manager and part-owner of a bar, which Belgian officials say should have made him ineligible. Many of the participants in a disrupted Belgian terror plot also had been on the dole, according to the judge who sentenced more than a dozen people in the so-called Verviers cell last month.

Unsurprisingly, government officials seem incapable of drawing the right conclusion.

Instead, we get navel-gazing exercises.

The revelations raise a difficult conundrum for Europe. On one hand, the modern welfare state is a primary tool for combating poverty as well as integrating immigrants. On the other, officials are working hard to find and stop potential sources of revenue for those bent on committing terrorist atrocities.

I’m tempted to respond with a word describing the manure of male bovines.

Instead, I’ll simply note that the welfare state is a system that subsidizes and exacerbates poverty, while also hindering assimilation.

And, as the enemies of modernity have learned, it’s a handy way to finance terrorism.

Islamic State itself suggested welfare benefits as a financing source, in a 2015 manual called “How to Survive in the West: A Mujahid Guide.” In a section headed “Easy Money Ideas,” the manual suggested “if you can claim extra benefits from a government, then do so.”

Here are some more details

In Belgium, people exiting prison often receive social benefits to help reintegrate into society. This was the case with Khalid el-Bakraoui,who served two years in prison before blowing himself up in the Maelbeek subway station in Brussels in March. Bakraoui was given jobless benefits in early 2014, after a stint in prison for armed robbery and carjacking. In total, he collected about €25,000 in unemployment, medical and other benefits, according to one of the people familiar with the case. He wasn’t shut off until last December, when Belgian authorities issued a warrant for him in connection with the Paris attacks.

Sounds like Bakraoui used his handouts to reintegrate into terrorism.

Investor’s Business Daily also weighed in on this issue, pointing out that the welfare state in Europe subsidizes terrorists.

Belgium’s government has been extremely generous toward its Muslim population. Most of its welfare goes to Muslims, and it even subsidizes their mosques and imams. Many of these young Muslim men who supposedly can’t find gainful employment don’t want to work. Why would they, when welfare checks are normally 70% to 80% of their income?

The editorial notes that generous handouts hinder assimilation.

Far from being mistreated, Belgian Muslims are one of the most pampered minorities in Western history. Lest it offend its burgeoning Muslim population, Belgium has “de-Christianized” its Christian holidays. The holiday previously known as All Saints Day is now referred to as Autumn Leave, Christmas Vacation is now Winter Vacation, Lenten Vacation is now Rest and Relaxation Leave and Easter is now Spring Vacation… .Heavily subsidized by Belgium’s overgenerous welfare system, North African immigrants have little incentive to integrate. Instead they turn inward, creating Islamic no-go zones divorced from and hostile to Western society.

The problem may be especially acute in Belgium, but it’s a problem all across Europe.

…welfare is abused by Muslims across Europe — some 80% of Muslim immigrants to Europe are on the dole, and more than half are “economically inactive.” Muslims claim disability more than any other group. In the EU capital of Belgium, as well as neighboring Netherlands, Muslims are roughly 5% of the population yet consume 40% to 60% of the welfare budget. Belgium spends more on unemployment benefits than any other country outside Denmark. European society isn’t oppressing Muslim immigrants. Far from it. It’s coddling them

If those numbers are anywhere close to accurate, the problem of welfare-subsidized terrorism is going to get worse before it gets better. If it ever gets better.

By the way, this also is a problem in the United States.

The low-life losers who bombed the Boston Marathon got handouts.

And the State Department actually has a program that takes “refugees” from countries with terrorism problems and signs them up for government dependency.

P.S. The U.K. government has decided that giving welfare to jihadists isn’t enough. It now sometimes hires them and makes them part of the law enforcement bureaucracy.

P.P.S. Though that’s not as bad as the Danish government, which persecutes people who fight back against attackers.

P.P.P.S. But officials representing the bloated Belgian government surely deserves some sort of prize for claiming that the nation’s government is too small to fight terrorism. Especially when that government is famously incompetent in thwarting obvious terror suspects.

P.P.P.P.S. Unsurprisingly, folks in Texas are smarter than Europeans about responding to terror attacks.