Paris Shootings and Explosions Kill Over 100, Police Say

I don't think it's "pure scapegoating". It's very much a relevant part to understand the mechanics behind thing like this. The French ban on anti-Isreali demonstrations might very well have helped radicalization and recruitment of young people with non-french backgrounds. So might the last years worsening conflict in Palestine. It shouldn't be a particularly controversial statement to say that there are things that Isreal do, like settlements, that is not good for the security of EU/US.

  Actually the truth is even messier... most of these young men committing 
  atrocities are merely indoctrinated pawns who know very little of 
  their own religion and instead defer to their "emir."

How can you claim that these young men know very little about their own religion? The Koran and Hadiths are full of hateful texts. Muhammed himself beheaded a tribe of jews according to the Hadiths. Most (all?) Muslims think Muhammed is the most perfect human being ever created - akin how Christians think about Jesus.

  That said I'm fortunate that the muslims I meet daily don't appear to know 
  "their own religion" - or at least don't follow the example from which it 
  started - and instead are peaceable and as virtuous as one would expect 
  of anyone in UK society in general. They seem much like those who 
  call themselves Christians: following a generally moral code 
  without a deep understanding of what being a true adherent entails.

I fear that when shit hits the fan and it's time to choose sides (e.g. in a civil war), most "peaceful" (or perhaps just passive) Muslims will choose the Muslim side.

I expect civil war in a relative short term in Europe (< 10 years), since politicians seem passive (afraid to offend muslims by making some drastic choices) or too politically correct and the populace is still too divided. I just hope I'm able to emigrate from Europe before all this happens.

>I fear the overreaction coming, of both citizens and governments. I fear the Europe will split, or start a war with someone, or draconian security measures will be introduced by the government.

so... As an American who is old enough to very clearly remember America both before and after the 9/11 attacks? to the extent that America is like France, I can speak some to those fears.

We did several of those things. We massively overreacted; I mean, we didn't split, but we did pick a war with a country who's people kind of looked like the people who attacked us (and another war with a country we had some evidence that they had something to do with the attack) - and yes, both wars were pretty costly in terms of money, geopolitical power and credibility, commodity prices and world stability, but it didn't break us, and it didn't spill out into a major war between industrial powers. It didn't turn into Vietnam, or even something as bad as the CCCP's experience in Afghanistan. I'm not saying it was a good experience, just that it's survivable, and not as life changing as you seem to think. This isn't a war of the 19th or 20th century between major powers. This is a 21st century asymmetrical war, and while that's still pretty bad for whoever ends up getting blamed for these attacks, it's not the end for Europe.

Yes, the security measures were very costly. Airplane travel is dramatically less convenient, which means more traffic. Lots of lost productivity. We've lost so many human-years standing in line, waiting to be groped... or driving instead of flying; that has caused who knows how many extra deaths. (re-reading this... while I logically stand by the idea that we've lost more to the security measures than to the original attacks... on an emotional level, I feel shame for saying so out loud.) Personally, my perception is that this is slowly getting better with the pre-groping of the 'tsa pre-check' or the straight up money check of the "CLEAR" program. I mean, air travel is never again going to be as easy as it was when I was 19 during my lifetime, but it's not as bad as it was when I was 22, let me tell you, and it's getting better.

But... even at it's worst? This wasn't world war two. This wasn't even the Crimean war, at least on my side of the conflict. I mean, I don't want to diminish the sacrifices of our soldiers, it's not a job I would want to do, but being deployed in the wars we engaged in after 9/11 was less dangerous than delivering pizzas, if you only count the chance of getting killed or maimed, rather than harder to quantify mental traumas associated with fighting a war (which personally, I find to be a much larger deterrent to becoming a soldier than the danger. I was... just about at prime recruiting age on September 11th, 2001.

And for the rest of us? Yeah, 9/11 was a big deal. A bigger deal than I understood it to be at the time. A much bigger deal. but... it wasn't the end of life as we know it.

That was the weird thing about my 9/11 experience. So I had a dot-com job, and my boss was watching the news on a very early live-streaming website. (I want to say it was CNN or something, but I don't remember) I was mildly annoyed with her for not working and instead subjecting me to, you know, video news.

My thoughts at the time were the opposite of yours. It did not occur to me that this was going to change my country; It took me quite some time to understand that this was hugely impactfull.

So far Israel hasn't featured high on Isis' agenda, and there have been no significant isis attacks on Israeli targets. This is despite the fact that they almost share a border. Neither are Palestinians' rights a top priority for isis. What's left of the the residents of Yarmouk refugee camp will testify to that. In short, Isis is not about israel vs palestine, it's about a deeper social/religious clash of ideas. So maybe before you try to ratonalize isis, you actually read up on their core beliefs. You might find out that this is one murderous organization whose actions you can't blame on israel.