The world stands in stark horror at the appalling events in France over the last few days. The sheer barbarity of the murders of innocent people; the terrorising of a nation and beyond; the despicable attempt to silence the press and thinkers – all of these are beyond words despicable. We are right to be heartbroken, outraged and concerned about the future. But what should we now be thinking and doing in its aftermath? Let’s start with a few things we should not be doing.

First, the attempt to make party political capital out of the tragedy, by Marine le Pen in France, and some elements of our own political spectrum, is a disgrace. Any increase in Islamophobia is exactly what these terrorist murderers want. They would love a crusade by the infidel against Islam if that can possibly be triggered off. We must not give them that satisfaction. These murders were carried out by a few mad fanatics, not by Islam. You could not blame IRA atrocities on the Roman Catholic Church. No more can you blame this on the Muslim faith. All but a very small minority of Muslims are decent, honourable, peace-loving people and must not be demonised.

Second, the pen-waving crowds at those superb marches on Sunday, led symbolically by Presidents Mahmud Abbas of Palestine and Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel arm in arm, were demonstrating against the blatant attempt to censor our free press. ISIL do not like the cartoons that Charlie Hebdo was carrying. They should have countered with words or with cartoons of their own, not with the bullet and the bomb. Equally, we must not allow their crimes to lead to interference in our freedoms. We may be uneasy about the intelligence services monitoring our electronic data, but I will go along with it if it makes significant difference to our security.

And third, we must realise that what happened last week is but a symptom of the much greater evil across the Middle East. ISIL, Al Qaeda, and other extremist jihadists have a generational plan, which moderate and true Muslims must find a way to thwart. Only long-term peace and stability can hope to eliminate this wickedness.

It must be an Arab and Islamic solution. Yet we in the West must be ready to do whatever we can to help them find that solution. The Middle East today is like the Balkans in 1912, or Western Europe in 1938 or so. Unless we can help to find a way through it, we will be facing a military catastrophe.