On the recordNovember 18, 2015
This past Friday, the world watched in horror the unfolding of the deadliest attack on French soil since World War II. The attacks in Paris killed 129 people from 26 countries, including one American, a young student from California. To all those affected by these terrible acts, I offer my deepest sympathies. Around the world, tragedies of this scale have become distressingly familiar, but to see one happen in a country at peace, a country with which the United States has shared such a special relationship since our founding days, hits particularly hard. Those who carried out these horrific attacks want us to react with divisiveness and hate; in fact, they depend on it. They know they cannot survive in a world that stands united against them. We must, of course, respond to this threat with strength. But we cannot forget our compassion toward those in France and those in the Middle East fleeing the very same dangers. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once said: ``Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.'' ____________________
