OT
A MUST Read.
Europe’s Inverted Morality
By David Harsanyi
FrontPageMagazine.com | April 19, 2002
ANTI-SEMITISM IN EUROPE? What a surprise.
Make Comments
View Comments
Printable Article
Email Article
Last week, six European Union countries endorsed a United Nations document that condones violence as a way to achieve Palestinian statehood. They were voting as members of the UN “Human Rights Commission” on a resolution that accuses Israel of a long list of human rights violations, but makes not one mention of the murder of Israeli civilians by Palestinian terrorists. Austria, Belgium, France, Portugal, Spain and Sweden all voted in favor the document, drafted by the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference, and was co-sponsored by freedom-loving nations China, Cuba and Vietnam.
History has been kind to the Jews of Western Europe for 55 years. It appears that generosity may be coming to an end. The recent wave of violence against Jews in Europe could be a passing trend; it may abate as soon as the conflict in the Middle East stabilizes. But who can blame European Jews for getting a bit antsy? No single event during the recent escalation in Middle East violence demonstrates the necessity for a strong Israel. This time, without Britain’s immoral intervention, Jews have a home should things morally regress, as they tend to do from time to time in Europe.
Most European anti-Semites assert that their rage is not directed at Jews per se, but Zionists, who represent colonialism and the repression of the Palestinian people. They're not anti-Semitic, just anti-Zionist -- as if there were a difference. Denying the Jews a homeland is tantamount to condemning them to extinction. As Martin Luther King said: “When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews -- this is God's own truth.” Anti-Zionism has simply allowed anti-Semites to masquerade themselves under the new banner.
Can you criticize Israel and not be an anti-Semite? Of course. But when Tom Paulin, an Oxford professor, says all US Jews in Israel should be “shot dead” he’s not just concerned about a Palestinian homeland. He’s an anti-Semite. When French ambassador to Britain, Daniel Bernard, blames all the current troubles in the world on 'that shitty little country Israel,' he’s singling out the Jewish state for a reason. When the Italian weekly Panorama features a political cartoon of the Pope crucified against flames at the Church of the Nativity saying to the Jews: "You fire on the house where my God was born, you shoot at his tomb, you target the statue of his mother, you terrorize my priests and my nuns” realizing full-well that terrorists have, as usual, employed religious places, and civilians as shields -- that is anti-Semitism.
Is it anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism? Ask the nearly 360 Jewish victims of crimes that have occurred in France this past month alone. Synagogues have been firebombed in Marseilles and Montpellier in France and in Antwerp and Brussels in Belgium. Police have said they are now seeing 10 to 12 “anti-Semitic” (not anti-Zionist) incidents in France daily, crimes ranging from graffiti to assaults. To deal with the rising violence President Jacques Chirac sent for Israeli Ambassador Eli Barnavi to persuade him to better control the activities of French pro-Israeli activists. None of this is surprising in a country seeping in anti-American sentiment, where one of the best-selling books in recent weeks has been left-wing provocateur Thierry Meyssan’s L'Effroyable Imposture (The Frightening Fraud), a book that claims no plane hit the Pentagon on 9/11. A mort! A mort les Juifs! was the chant heard from pro-Palestinian marchers that marched through the streets of Paris.
Is it anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism? Ask the two rabbis visiting Germany from the United States who were beaten by a group of six in Berlin after being asked, "Are you a Jew?" Or ask the barbaric father of the little girl who was paraded at a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Berlin wearing a mock explosives belt around her tiny waist. A recent poll shows that nearly three-quarters of Germans condemn the actions of the Jewish state. Norbert Bluem, the former labor minister of Germany accused Israel of waging "a war of extermination." Despite their detailed familiarity with genocide, the thought of Germans lecturing Jews on morality is a nauseating hypocrisy.
Is it anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism when a supermarket chain in Norway boycotts Israeli products, singling them out with yellow stars? A boycott of humus and pita bread won’t bring about a huge dent in Israel’s economy, but trading with a country where the second largest political party is the neo-Nazi Progress Party probably isn’t a good idea anyway. Is it anti-Semitism when members of the Norwegian Nobel Prize committee launch an unprecedented assault on Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres? Apparently, the Norwegians regretted that Mr. Peres' prize could not be recalled, as Mr. Peres had not “lived up to the ideals expressed when he accepted the prize.” While many Jews agree with that assertion for far different reasons, it is curious that co-winner Yasser Arafat, was immune to condemnation. Especially since his Fatah organization’s goal is the “complete liberation of Palestine, and eradication of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence.”
Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Europe is "twisted" because their Middle East experience was colonialism. They see Israel as practicing a new colonialism, no different from French Algeria or the Belgian Congo. Whatever the case, Jews no longer need tolerate European repression, thanks to the existence of Israel and the United States.
David Harsanyi has written for the Associated Press, CNN/Sports Illustrated as well as numerous magazines and is based in NYC. Visit his (LINK: website dharsanyi.blogspot.com) or email him at David_Harsanyi@yahoo.com. |
