The Europe of our dreams

It's only fair to share...Share on Facebook
Facebook
Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter
Email this to someone
email

Israelis are wild about Europe. A poll carried out by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation last month showed that a whopping 69 percent of Israelis, and 76% of Israeli Jews, would like for Israel to join the European Union. Sixty percent of Israelis have a favorable view of the EU.

This poll's most obvious message is that as far as Europe is concerned, Israelis suffer from unrequited love. A 2003 Pew survey of 15 EU countries showed that 59% of Europeans consider Israel the greatest threat to world peace. A poll taken in Germany the following year showed that 68% of Germans believe that Israel is pursuing a war of extermination against the Palestinians and 51% said that there is no difference in principle between Israel's treatment of the Palestinians and German treatment of Jews during the Holocaust.

And it isn't simply Israel that they hate. They don't like Jews very much either. In an empirical study published in 2006, Professors Edward Kaplan and Charles Small of Yale University demonstrated a direct link between hatred for Jews and extreme anti-Israel positions. A recent poll bears out the fact that levels of hostility toward Israel rise with levels of anti-Semitism.

According to a 2008 Pew survey, anti-Semitic feelings in five EU countries – Spain, Britain, France, Germany and Poland – rose nearly 50% between 2005 and 2008. Whereas in 2005, some 21% of people polled acknowledged they harbor negative feelings toward Jews, by last year the proportion of self-proclaimed anti-Semites in these countries had risen to 30%. In Spain levels of anti-Semitism more than doubled, from 21% in 2005 to 46% in 2008.

Not surprisingly, increased hatred of Jews has been accompanied by increased violence against Jews. Just last week, for instance, three men assaulted Israel's ambassador in Spain Rafi Shotz as he and his wife walked home from a soccer game. They followed after him and called out, "dirty Jew," "Jew bastard," and "Jew murderer." A crowd witnessed the assault, but no one rose to their defense.

Shotz was lucky. As Israel's ambassador he had two policemen escorting him and so he was not physically threatened. The same was not the fate of Holocaust survivors who assembled at Mauthausen death camp in Austria last week to commemorate the 64th anniversary of the camp's liberation by American forces.

As Jewish survivors of the camp where 340,000 people were murdered mourned the dead, a gang of Austrian teenagers wearing masks taunted them, screaming "Heil Hitler," and "This way for the gas!" They opened fire with plastic rifles at French Jewish survivors, wounding one in the head and another in the neck.

And Austria is not alone. From Germany to France, Belgium, Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and beyond, Jewish kindergartens and day schools, restaurants and groceries have been firebombed and vandalized. The desecration of Jewish cemeteries and synagogues has become an almost routine occurrence. Jewish leaders from Norway to Germany to Britain to France have warned community members not to wear kippot or Stars of David in public. Rabbis have been beaten all over the continent.

There is no state sanction for anti-Jewish violence in Europe. But in many places it is either brushed off as insignificant, or justified as a natural byproduct of the Palestinian conflict with Israel. In at least one case, the official downplaying of the significance of anti-Jewish sentiments and violence has had murderous consequences.

In January 2006 Ilan Halimi, a French Jew, was kidnapped by a gang of Muslim sadists. For an entire week, the police ignored the anti-Semitic nature of the attack – and hence the imminent danger to Halimi's life – in spite of the fact that his kidnappers made threatening phone calls to Halimi's parents where they recited verses from the Koran while Ilan was heard screaming in pain from his torture in the background.

In the end, Halimi was tortured continuously for 20 days before he was dumped at a railhead naked, with burns and cuts over 80% of his battered body and died of his wounds shortly after he was found.

SOME HAVE attributed the rise in European anti-Semitism to the rapid growth of Muslim minorities throughout the continent. This explanation has much to recommend it. Levels of anti-Semitism among most Muslim minority populations in Europe are exceedingly high. According to Kaplan and Small's study, European Muslims are eight times more likely than non-Muslims to be openly anti-Semitic. And Franco Frattini, the EU official responsible for combating anti-Semitism, told The Jerusalem Post last year that some 50% of anti-Jewish attacks in Europe are conducted by Muslims.

But while European Muslims are a major factor in the rise of anti-Jewish violence, they are a bit player when it comes to the overall prevalence of anti-Jewish attitudes. For example, with 46% of Spaniards negatively disposed toward Jews, and with Muslims making up only 3-5% of Spaniards, we learn that nearly half of Christian Spaniards are anti-Semitic. And as the 2008 Pew survey shows, European hatred of Jews is growing at a fast clip. Indeed, it is growing two
and a half times faster than European hatred of Muslims.

In all likelihood, these negative trends for Jews are only going to escalate in the coming years. Politicians interested in being elected have already begun exploiting the rise in anti-Jewish sentiments to increase their electoral prospects. In the 2005 British elections, for instance, the Labor Party under Tony Blair depicted then Conservative Party leader Michael Howard as the hateful anti-Semitic icon Fagin from Oliver Twist in a campaign poster. Another Labor poster portrayed Howard and fellow politician Oliver Letwin as flying pigs.

This state of affairs bodes ill for Israel's future relations with Europe. In most cases, European politicians pander to the growing constituency of anti-Semites by adopting hostile policies toward Israel. These policies then serve to further justify anti-Semitic attitudes, and so the number of European anti-Semites continues to grow, and in turn, European hostility to Israel increases.

No doubt recognizing the political advantage to be garnered by attacking Israel, last year Spanish investigative magistrate Judge Fernando Andreu Merellesis decided to use a specious complaint submitted by the discredited Palestinian Center for Human Rights to launch a war crimes investigation against Israel's top political and military leaders. Against the stated will of Spain's state prosecution, Merellesis announced last week that he is proceeding with his investigation into claims that a dozen senior Israeli leaders committed a war crime when they approved the 2002 decision to target Hamas terror master Salah Shehadeh.

ALL OF this brings us back to Europhilic Israel. Due to the fact that the majority of Israelis have yet to get their way, and Israel continues not to be a member in the EU, EU courts lack the power to enforce their rulings against Israelis. Today the only thing Israelis need to worry about is that we will be arrested if we visit Europe. This is inconvenient, but not impossible to live with.

Were Israel to join the EU, however, EU laws would supersede Israeli laws. European courts could compel Israeli courts to enforce their rulings. Israel, in short, would find itself subsumed in a hostile political entity that could simply adjudicate and legislate it out of existence.

So what explains Israel's unrequited love affair with Europe?

There is no all-encompassing explanation for the EU's popularity in Israel. It is a function of a number of complementary causes. The most important among them is the abject failure of the Israeli media to examine European anti-Semitism and its implications for European policy toward Israel in any coherent fashion.

Rather than recognize that European anti-Semitism and its concomitant hostility toward Israel is the consequence of internal European dynamics, the Israeli media tend to cast both as a function of Israel's actions. Doing so certainly makes for neat, easily digestible news stories, but it also trivializes the situation. Moreover, by acting as though Israel's actual behavior is at all relevant to European treatment of Jews and the Jewish state, the local media effectively buy into cynical European moves to belittle the significance of anti-Jewish violence. They give credence to false European claims that the firebombing of synagogues is simply the regrettable consequence of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Then there is the issue of Israel's constant quest to end its international isolation. For many Israelis, it is tantalizing to think that we can end our international isolation by joining the EU. The EU is seen as a club of rich and cultured countries with which Israel would benefit from merging. This view again is nurtured by the media, which have failed to report on the failure of the European welfare state model.

In light of the media's refusal to tell the story of Europe's hostility toward Jews and the Jewish state, or the story of the EU's severe economic problems, it is not surprising that precious few Israeli politicians have a clear understanding of Europe. Successive foreign ministers – from Shimon Peres to Silvan Shalom to Tzipi Livni to Avigdor Lieberman – have all voiced varying degrees of support for Israeli membership in the EU. Their statements have never been challenged in debate.

Finally, there is the nostalgia that many Israelis feel toward the old pre-war Europe from their grandparents' stories. That long gone Europe, where young women and men would walk along the promenades in Berlin, Paris, Antwerp and Prague holding hands and eating ice cream, breathing in the air of Heinrich Heine and Franz Kafka, has been kept alive in the imaginations of generations of Israelis. Many of them work today as leading journalists, movie directors and actors. For many Israelis, then, the myth of Europe is more familiar than the real Europe.

Looking to a future of an increasingly Jew-hating Europe it is clear that Israel and Israelis must quickly divest ourselves of our delusions about Europe. For Israel to competently contend with Europe in the coming years, it will be essential that both our political leaders and society as a whole gain a firm grasp of where Europe stands in relation to both the Jewish people and the Jewish state.

With a burgeoning and deeply anti-Semitic Muslim minority, and with a Christian majority increasingly comfortable with flaunting traditional anti-Semitic attitudes, dispensing with anti-Jewish myths ranks low on the priority list for most European leaders. In contrast, for Israel, gazing at this unfolding European state of affairs, it is clear that abandoning our adoration for a mythological Europe is one of the most urgent items on our national agenda.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post. 

It's only fair to share...Share on Facebook
Facebook
Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter
Email this to someone
email

17 Comments

  • Marcel Cousineau 05/15/2009 at 16:15

    After reading this I wonder how often the false prophets of our day,the Shimon Peres’s and the drunken stupor utopian dreamers try to silence or discredit you ?
    The facts you present go against everything thye say and stand for.
    These lords of darkness have had great success in dumbing down the masses in Israel who are programmed to want to be like the nations who now destroy them by way of the 2 State final solution.
    Ignorance is going to lead to the death of so many ,the brainwashed Catholics of Spain who again make the Jews their scapegoat while appeasing the Islamic hordes in their midst.
    Ignorance in Israel fostered by the dark,godless left AND RIGHT and their utopian, Stalinist dreams.
    How else could 58% of Israeli Jews back two-state solution
    http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3715759,00.html
    …unless the majority of Jews in Israel had been successfully braiwashed on the way to their own slaughter.The more things change the more thay stay the same.
    The only place of saftey in the coming storm is with the Holy One of Israel,no one,nothing else.

    Reply
  • Marc Handelsman, USA 05/15/2009 at 18:33

    The main reason for the rise of European Anti-Semitism is the collapse of Christianity on the continent and in England. For Anti-Semitism to flourish there needs to be a vacuum where morality hardly exists. Modern Europe has been overrun by amoral pragmatists and Moslem fanatics. Churches are closing and mosques are opening. We must draw a distinction between what Christianity teaches and how some people distort and betray that teaching. How can a devout Christian be an anti-Semite? Genuine Christians are friends of Israel because of deeply held biblical convictions.

    Reply
  • Anna 05/15/2009 at 18:39

    1. It is so shocking to continually learn of Israeli’s blindness to antiSemitism. I live in the U.S. where the problem is enormous and ever-growing. But, to read that Israeli’s themselves are so naive leaves me feeling hopeless. If Israel cannot see clearly, who then, what nation, what people can save us?
    2. I believe antiSemitism will continue to rise for a number of reasons, including this economic downturn. When times are tough, Jews become the target of blame.
    God bless you, Caroline. And, God help all of us.

    Reply
  • Dan 05/15/2009 at 19:31

    It’s not so much the “Catholics” as it is the Left.
    Compare those numbers to the percentage of Lefties within those countries.
    What we need is a study that doesn’t just compute anti-Semitism, but gathers together data that also indicates political and religious views. Then we would be able to accurately identify those that are Catholics, actually attend mass on Sundays, and also happen to be anti-Semitic.
    Marc accurately identified the role that the collapse of Christianity in Europe is playing here.
    Don’t overlook the role of the media in SHAPING and conditioning the European people. The Euro media is hard left, and rest assurred, there aren’t practicing Catholics, nor Christian.
    They’re aggressive secularists.
    The BBC for instance is passionately anti-Israel, and that naturally flows from their leftist ideology.
    What we’re seeing across Europe, and across America too, is a breakdown on sovereignty.
    Religious Westerners oppose one-worldism, or any loss of sovereigny.
    Israel, as a haven for the Jews, was created PRECISELY to be a SOVEREIGN refuge for Jewish people.
    Which means the very existence of that state flies in the face of the prevailing winds that blow
    Melanie Phillips speaks to this in her writings.
    The Left is POWERFUL today, this is their hour, and literally hourly my country the United States gets weaker and weaker.
    And the prospects of Israel darken.
    It’s not just Jews up the creek, with Obama, ————- we’re ALL in trouble.
    For every two dollars the federal government spends, one dollar of is borrowed. NOW JUST THINK ABOUT THAT SINGLE FACT and the enormous consequences such fiscal insanity will have not just on the United States, but on the overall prospects of the West.
    I’m increasingly convinced that Obama hates much of the United States, hates her history, despises American Exceptionalism, and I’m increasingly persuaded that he’s no Christian, but is in fact a muslim.
    He didn’t just bow to that creep from Arabia, he RAN UP TO HIM to bow.
    Now who does that?
    Who would even consider such a thing?
    We’re in trouble.

    Reply
  • Marcel Cousineau 05/15/2009 at 22:42

    ‘We’re in trouble.’
    If you understand all of what is happening as God’s judgment on the wicked ,then you can see that those who trust in Him are not in trouble or worried about a thing.
    All the esteemed ‘high places’ men have built for themselves are being shaken so that the only thing which will reamin is what belongs to Him.
    It’s interesting that all of Israel’s efforts to achieve peace ,all the appeasment,surrender,compromise,goodwill gestures,propping up of the Palestinian terrorist with billions in shekels over the years has had the opposite of the intended effect.
    The wise fools will eventually understand that their is no way to peace but HaShems way,sadly it will be too late for the proud, wicked rebels who assumed they were God.
    He’s speaking to those in Israel who can hear.
    “For thus says the LORD:
    ‘We have heard a voice of trembling,
    Of fear, and not of peace.
    Ask now, and see,
    Whether a man is ever in labor with child?
    So why do I see every man with his hands on his loins
    Like a woman in labor,
    And all faces turned pale?
    Alas! For that day is great,
    So that none is like it;
    And it is the time of Jacob’s trouble,
    But he shall be saved out of it.
    ‘For it shall come to pass in that day,’
    Says the LORD of hosts,
    ‘That I will break his yoke from your neck,
    And will burst your bonds;
    Foreigners shall no more enslave them.
    But they shall serve the LORD their God,
    And David their king,
    Whom I will raise up for them.
    ‘Therefore do not fear, O My servant Jacob,’ says the LORD,
    ‘Nor be dismayed, O Israel;
    For behold, I will save you from afar,
    And your seed from the land of their captivity.
    Jacob shall return, have rest and be quiet,
    And no one shall make him afraid.
    For I am with you,’ says the LORD, ‘to save you;
    Though I make a full end of all nations where I have scattered you,
    Yet I will not make a complete end of you.
    But I will correct you in justice,
    And will not let you go altogether unpunished.’
    “For thus says the LORD:
    ‘Your affliction is incurable,
    Your wound is severe.
    There is no one to plead your cause,
    That you may be bound up;
    You have no healing medicines.
    All your lovers have forgotten you;
    They do not seek you;
    For I have wounded you with the wound of an enemy,
    With the chastisement of a cruel one,
    For the multitude of your iniquities,
    Because your sins have increased.
    Why do you cry about your affliction?
    Your sorrow is incurable.
    Because of the multitude of your iniquities,
    Because your sins have increased,
    I have done these things to you.
    Jer 30:16
    ‘Therefore all those who devour you shall be devoured;
    And all your adversaries, every one of them, shall go into captivity;
    Those who plunder you shall become plunder,
    And all who prey upon you I will make a prey.
    For I will restore health to you
    And heal you of your wounds,’ says the LORD,
    ‘Because they called you an outcast saying:
    “This is Zion;
    No one seeks her.”‘
    Jeremiah 30

    Reply
  • Brad Macdonald 05/15/2009 at 23:46

    Hi Caroline,
    Enjoyed your column today. You are reading Europe well. “In contrast, for Israel, gazing at this unfolding European state of affairs, it is clear that abandoning our adoration for a mythological Europe is one of the most urgent items on our national agenda.” Exactly!
    As I got into the guts of your piece today, however, I couldn’t help but feel that it contradicted the premise of your column from earlier this week, in which you suggested Israel pursue a strategic alliance with the Vatican. Clearly, it appears that you perceive the Vatican and European states to be at opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to Jews and Jewish statehood.
    History exposes the flaws in this perception. Historically, Europe and the Vatican are practically inseparable, especially when it comes to Jews and Jerusalem. You discussed Pius XII and his complicity in the destruction of six-million Jews during World War II. But Pius was not an anomaly. The Vatican has a long and terrible history with anti-Semitism. Take the Crusades, for example, which were basically the Vatican’s attempt to gain of control Jerusalem. Before arriving in the Holy Land in the 11th century western European crusaders, responding to Pope Urban’s call to arms, slashed and slaughtered Jews and minorities on their way to the staging ground of the first crusade in Constantinople. There are plenty of other examples showing the Vatican to be a seat of anti-Semitism, proving Pius was far from an anomaly.
    History shows that the Vatican is largely responsible for forming and shaping the ideological underpinnings of Europe, even modern Europe. This includes European anti-Semitism, which, as you explained so well today, is deeply entrenched across the Continent.
    Anyway, long story short: To say Israel needs to abandon its adoration for Europe and strengthen its bond with the Vatican seems more than a little contradictory. This seems especially true considering the Pope toured Israel this week and did little to defend the standpoint of the Jewish state in relation to the Palestinians. Honestly, history tells us that pursuing a relationship with the Vatican would be more dangerous than pursuing a relationship with Europe.
    Thanks for listening. Let’s discuss this further.
    Brad Macdonald

    Reply
  • Anna 05/16/2009 at 3:03

    What Dan said.

    Reply
  • Ron Kilmartin 05/16/2009 at 6:16

    mark and Dan hit the nail on the head. Apparently Israel is as blind to developments in Europe as is the Obama regime. Melanie Phillips, Mark Steyn, Claire Berlinski,Bruce Bawer, David Selbourne, Bat Ye’Or and others are all pretty much on the same page. The EU is doomed to become Eurabia. Secularism is rampant among native Europeans with consequent low birth rates and a psyche of living for pleasure today. Islam will surely win against a secular Europe that no longer cares about such things as country, liberty, freedom, or religion. Israel must look to itself. The EU is not an answer for Israel with a future.

    Reply
  • Bill 05/16/2009 at 11:29

    The first commenter hit the nail on the head. Today’s European anti-semitism is a form of indirect appeasement of the Moslem minorities and Moslem states abroad. It is a way to say, Don’t hurt us, look, we’re hostile to the Jews too. The myth of the Jew as the Christ-killer goes way back, but I don’t think it is politically significant today. The reigning secularists don’t give a darn for Christ.
    The missing key to this article is liberalism, which is even more powerful in Israel than in America, where Jews are overwhelmingly liberal in political orientation. What liberalism really consists of is a “mystery of iniquity.” It can be described ideologically in terms of humanism, secularism, and egalitarianism, but it may be more meaningful to describe it religiously as idolatry or self-worship on the part of man. It could also be described psychologically (e.g., Michael Savage’s “liberalism is a mental disorder,” Stockholm syndrome, Oslo syndrome, etc.) and morally (cowardice, injustice, willful blindness, dishonesty, mistaken altruism). Liberal Jews and liberal Christians equally claim religious sanction for their liberalism, with varying degrees of sincerity. Ms. Glick is a political commentator and probably refers not to venture into an area where she does not claim expertise, but underlying politics are people’s views on the basic structure of reality. There is a theory that liberalism is based on the deire to avert envy, or “the evil eye.”
    Israelis, like Europeans, like Americans, must overcome their suicidal liberalism, which presents a dangerously false view of reality. M. Cousineau above gives the ultimate response: the only way is the way of the Living God.
    A comprehensive analysis of the devastating effects of liberalism on Western societies by the (Jewish) writer “Takuan Seiyo” is under way on the Brussels Journal website under the title, From Meccania to Atlantis.

    Reply
  • Ron Grandinetti, USA 05/16/2009 at 15:35

    Caroline one has to wonder how and why Jews became the target of all this hate.
    Children are not born with anti-Semitism.
    It’s not something passed on genetically.
    You don’t wake up one morning hating Jews.
    Jews don’t have a history of causing anyone grief.
    There is something wrong here.
    It must be a disease born out of envy of a people who are successful.
    In other words their success is reason for everyone’s failures.
    The Jews then become the distraction of another’s failures especially amongst Arab Muslims.
    Hitler used the Jews as the distraction while he moved along with his fascist scheme to rule the world.
    Now another Hitler has risen in Iran.
    We cannot allow this distraction to occur again under no circumstance.
    We cannot allow Israel to be a distraction either.
    Anti-Semitism must be eradicated once and for all.
    It’s not only up to every government or country to stop it. It has to begin with each and every one of us with no exceptions.
    All of us must assume responsibility to bring it an end.
    Further more not enough is said of Jews who have made numerous contributions to society.
    American Jews need to stand up and not be afraid to be too Jewish.
    An example is Caroline who is a great American and a great Israeli, you can be both.
    We don’t need to fear Jews only fear ourselves.
    Since we are all children of God/G-d we should start acting as such.

    Reply
  • yuval Brandstetter MD 05/16/2009 at 16:21

    I suggest reading brucebawer.com piece on Pym Fortuin’s heirs for a clearer understanding of Europe and it’s hesitancy in dealing with the Islamic invasion. Now, seeing how six European leaders came to plead with Olmert following the Gaza fiasco, it is clear European leaders fear more than anything else an even greater influx, this time coming from the Land of israel, of even more fundamentalist islamists.

    Reply
  • Marcel Cousineau 05/16/2009 at 19:01

    ‘Caroline one has to wonder how and why Jews became the target of all this hate.’
    The answer is simple,Israel ,the mother with child brought us God’s word and the Messiah who is to rule this world minus all the darkness so evident around the planet today.
    Even Rome kept the bible out of the hands of the ‘common man ‘ until recently and they still discourage their ignorant subjects from reading the book given to us by the Jew’s.
    The devil hates that book with a passion.
    It giveS us light in this dark world of lies,deception and confusion.
    He works thru the wicked,the elitist,humanist,greek mindset educated, liberals,godless left, athiestic communist’s, moslems,replacement theology Christians ,Rome,self loathing rebel Jews who all have his mark of pride on their forehead.
    The dragon hates Israel with a non human,abnormal,darkest hate.That is why no matter what kind of peace man cooks up for Israel it will never work.
    This is a spiritual war above a natural man made fix and Islam’s god is Satan and this is why they are so intractable when it comes to Israel and why the U.S. led Road map is doomed to fail.
    2 Kingdoms at war and Israel and the Jews are center in this final cosmic showdown.
    Israel is the woman here.
    NOW a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars.
    Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth.
    And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. Rev 12:4
    His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born.
    She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne.
    Then the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that they should feed her there one thousand two hundred and sixty days.
    And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought,
    but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer.
    So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
    Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, “Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down.
    “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.
    “Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.”
    Now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male Child.
    Revelation 12
    This is why an alliance with the U.S. or any nation , or group but God is futile and a waste of time for Israel. The devil controls the hearts and minds of his servants from Obama to Putin to Singh,to Merkel, to Harper, to Brown,every leader is under the influence of the dragon.ESPECIALLY ISLAM as the Holy One of Israel alone ends the aspirations of the dragon.

    Reply
  • Anna 05/17/2009 at 1:50

    Ron – Per your comment about American Jews needing to stand up at stop being afraid to be Jewish, I’m afraid that most American Jews suffer from feeling proud to be ashamed of being proud of being Jewish. This applies to ordinary folks who are not famous and prominent Jews including elected officials who are Jewish. It’s pathetic.

    Reply
  • Serge in Canada 05/17/2009 at 4:15

    In the hopes of being tolerant and in promoting multiculturalism, Canada’s medias also can’t see hatred for what it is. We have also seen Jews attacked and firebomb attempts.
    We have hate-crimes in Canada, any crime against race, religion, sex, age is a hate-crime. How is it enforce? Not enforced enough, is my opinion.
    But reporters can’t put two and two together, it seems. In 2006, Radio-Canada (tv) never mentioned once that they got a guided visit by Hezbollah organisers. They had handlers all the way through. There’s something inherently wrong with balanced reports about…Hitler, Pol Pot, Ernesto Guevara, Hezbollah… Take your pick.
    I have come to believe that balanced reporting is useless. Possibly harmful because we become used to it. It’s routine. We do not get the full picture any more.
    Just to add another example, Tamils in Canada have been protesting, but the news medias can’t find the courage to denounce their tactics.
    I support Israel, as someone who knows the difference between “occupied territories” and gas chambers. Offense and defense are barely the same game. How can anyone believe this propaganda? Shame on those who talk of genocide and apartheid.

    Reply
  • Arius 05/17/2009 at 8:20

    The Jewish people suffered genocide at the hands of the Muslim allied German Nazis in WW2. The Muslim heirs of the Nazi Jihad have been rehabilitated by the West and are again attacking the Jewish people.
    The Serbian and Roma people suffered war and genocide at the hands of the Muslims and their German Nazi allies in WW2. The Muslim heirs of the Nazi Jihad have been rehabilitated by the West and are again attacking the Serbian and Roma people.
    The Armenian people suffered genocide at the hands of the German allied Turks in WW1. Since WW2 the Turks have been rehabilitated by the West and since the 1990’s Western interests are supporting Muslim attacks on the Armenian people.
    Western centric Armenians and Jews should wake up to the fact that in a Muslim conflict with any other group the West will tend toward support of Muslims. The last hundred years of history tell us this. It is delusional to think that in the future it will be any different. Western centric Armenians and Jews are a great danger to the very survival of Armenia and Israel in their support of implicitly pro-Muslim Western policy. Our people in the West need to wake up!

    Reply
  • Bill 05/17/2009 at 13:21

    Re the reference to Bruce Bawer above, he made it clear in his May 4 post that he only considers people to be legitimate opponents of “Islamofascist tyranny” if they also accept the “liberal values” of the secular, anti-Judeo-Christian (gay) agenda. In true liberal fashion, he would rather permit Islam to triumph than join with non-liberals to defeat it, which might enhance non-liberal political power. Particularly he singles out for his disdain the pro-Israel Vlaams Belang, the Flemish sovereignty party.

    Reply
  • Ron Grandinetti, USA 05/17/2009 at 19:28

    For Anna
    You gave a real tongue twister.
    That’s unfortunate to say the least.
    I often relate here American Jews and likewise Jews all over the world are tied to Israel by tradition, heritage and by G-d.
    Israel is a Jewish Nation and not multli-cultural.
    American Jews should be proud of their faith and heritage and need to be reconnected to Israel.
    Wear the Star of David proudly.

    Reply

Leave a Comment