Recently in Milan, a vacationer from New York City discovered the harsh realities of the new Europe. He wasn’t the first to do so, and will by no means be the last.

Staten Island native Nick Pellegrino, according to a Saturday report in the New York Post, “was attacked on a train Tuesday by a pair of North African migrants, who stabbed him in the neck with a 5-inch knife before making off with his luggage and jewelry — leaving him to die in a pool of his own blood in his family’s homeland, which has experienced a surge in criminal migrants over the past four years.”

It is not an incidental detail that Pellegrino was stabbed in the neck. The Qur’an tells Muslims, “When you meet the unbelievers, strike the necks” (47:4). Neither Italian authorities nor the New York Post have any interest in the fact, but it actually could illuminate a great deal not only about the motivations of those who attacked Pellegrino, but of Muslim migrants to Europe in general. Are European Union officials really wise to invite into the continent a large and ever-growing number of migrants among whom are many who see the natives as prey to be attacked?

Pellegrino, speaking from his hospital bed, observed: “With these very loose, lefty immigration laws, these immigrants come into these countries and they’re running amok, trying to murder people. It’s a playground for terror, for the vicious. It’s f**ing crazy. I know America has a big immigration problem, but it is worse here.”

Pellegrino recounted that he was minding his own business when the attack occurred. He was “looking down at his phone as the train from Melegnano to Milan Bovisa rolled into the San Giuliano Milanese station.” Then, “when the train doors opened, his mid-20s, Arabic-speaking attackers darted towards him, stabbing him in the neck, nicking his jugular vein.” Said Pellegrino: “They looked like the 9/11 hijackers. I remember looking at the floor in the train and just seeing the blade of the knife, and the most frightening amount of blood I have ever seen.”

The Post notes that “before stealing his luggage and leaving him for dead, Pellegrino’s homicidal attackers snatched the gold crucifix from around his neck.” Now, why would they want that? Maybe only because it was gold. Still, it was unlikely to get them any significant amount of money. If, however, they were indeed believing and observant Muslims, they may have found it particularly offensive that Pellegrino was wearing a symbol that Islam teaches is an insult to Allah.

The Qur’an claims that Jesus was not crucified, or even killed (4:157). Islamic theology holds that the very idea of a crucified prophet (which is what the Qur’an considers Jesus to be) is absurd; Allah would have protected his prophet from such a humiliating death. Islamic tradition holds the idea of the crucifixion to be so offensive to Allah that when he returns to earth during the end times, Jesus will “break the cross.” (Bukhari 46.37.2476)

How long can Europe survive this growing number of migrants who hold its religious and cultural heritage in violent contempt? It is telling that the Post makes no mention of the Islamic character of the behavior of the North African migrants who attacked Pellegrino, and there is no doubt whatsoever that the Italian police made no mention of it, either. Can Europe survive a challenge that its authorities, as well as the international media, refuse to notice or name? Can Europe withstand an onslaught from a group of people while simultaneously insisting that those people are entirely benign, and that anyone who suggests otherwise is a racist “Islamophobe”?

“We’ll always have Paris,” Rick assures Ilsa at the end of Casablanca, and it was true then, but now it isn’t even clear that we’ll always have Europe in general. While denial and indifference are still all-pervasive, not just France, but Italy, Germany, and Sweden, as well as Britain, are rapidly becoming unlivable for their natives, as Muslim migrants continue to pour in and grow more assertive and aggressive by the day. We won’t always have Milan, or Paris, or Berlin, or London, or Stockholm. In fact, we hardly have them now, and their end as delightful outposts of a grand civilization is nearer than most anyone imagines.