Robin Shepherd
How and at what point do isolated events start to form a pattern? Hold that thought as you consider the following examples.
On August 18, the Guardian ran a commentary by the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek which argued that Israel was attempting to eradicate Palestinians from the West Bank. In a clearly calculated attempt to Nazify the Jewish state, the writer used, and the Guardian editorial team allowed, the word “Palestinian-frei” — a blatant inversion of the Nazi term Judenfrei.
In the same week, Sweden’s top-selling newspaper, Aftonbladet, ran a two-page spread in its “culture” section alleging that soldiers of the Israeli Defence Forces routinely kill Palestinian children and harvest their bodily organs for sale on the black market. The allegations were juxtaposed with reports of an American Jew who had been arrested on charges of trafficking a human kidney.
Later in August, Virgin boss Richard Branson visited Israel and chided his hosts in the following manner: “After the Second World War,” he said, “the world had enormous sympathy for the Jewish people. Over a number of decades, that sympathy has been lost.” Last week in Spain, the newspaper El Mundo hosted Holocaust-denier David Irving as part of a series of interviews with “experts” on the Second World War.
Again, how and at what point do isolated events start to form a pattern? Four egregious instances in as many weeks may not make the grade for some. So, in my recently published book, A State Beyond the Pale: Europe’s problem with Israel, I have included dozens of such examples from the past 10 years to prove a point that I do not believe can now sensibly be denied. Vigorous and unremitting hostility to Israel has become part of mainstream discourse right across western Europe. Israel has become a pariah. Why?
Antisemitism is part of it, to be sure. But the deepest and most convincing explanation of what is going on centres on the nature of contemporary Europe itself: its civilisational weaknesses and pathologies; its post-imperial, post-Holocaust guilt complexes; its inability to see totalitarian ideologies for what they are; its propensity towards pacifism and appeasement; its relativism; its lack of self-belief.
Project such values and characteristics onto a discussion of Israel’s predicament, redouble the intensity with a legacy of antisemitism stretching back centuries, and you get a pretty good understanding of what this dispute is really about.
As for the human rights argument, it is simply not credible and adds the sin of hypocrisy to the larger charge sheet. Hostility to Israel cannot conceivably be part of a broader concern for human rights since the violations of so many other countries are routinely ignored.
Nor have opinion formers in Europe taken against the Jewish state due to a simple misunderstanding here or a gap in the historical knowledge there. Stories about Jews engaged in trans-continental conspiracies to sell human organs or comparisons with Nazi Germany have not entered the mainstream because someone has made an honest mistake. It is happening because the culture and values of modern Europe make it possible to happen. And it is here precisely, I’m afraid, that one begins to understand how and at what point, isolated events start to form a pattern.
Robin Shepherd’s book, ‘A State Beyond the Pale: Europe’s Problem with Israel’, has just been published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. The author is director, international affairs, at the Henry Jackson Society
This piece was published in today’s Jewish Chronicle.
To read the Jewish Chronicle online, click here:
Posts
Anti-Semitism has deep roots throughout Europe. The Holocaust did little to dispel the latent hatred towards those of the Hebrew persuasion. Add to the volatile mix a mass immigration of Muslims, who increase their demographic portent via an alarming birth rate. The result is an increase in hostility and acts of terror against Jews. Worse yet, by the end of our lives, Europe will be close to a Muslim majority.
ReplyDeleteThe Islamic jihad against Jews and Crusaders (against all infidels) will be accomplished not with guns, suicide bombers, rockets, abductions or beheadings. This jihad will be won with demographics, first over Europe, then over North America. In our lifetime, Europe will fall. In our grandchildren’s lifetime, North America will fall. The aim of global jihad will be accomplished not with violence by with birth rate.
How can we fight this ideological losing battle? The birth rate in North America is currently stagnant. The non-Islamic birth rate in Europe is DECLINING. Since we cannot win by playing the game their way, we must find another way.
Sadly, there is no viable course of action that Jews can take to overcome the new jihad. We have tried for years to be friends, to make peace and share the land. We educate our children to be open-minded and tolerant of other religions. We give Islamic immigrants equal rights everywhere, despite the fact that Jews in Arab and Persian lands have few, if any rights. Our history books do not fabricate astonishing acts of violence against our enemy. Our television shows do not denigrate our enemy. We try to be fair. But, what has it gained us?
If we cannot convince our enemy that we desire peace, then we must constantly prepare for war. But that has been the way of life for Jews as long as we can remember. In the end, we can only count on ourselves. We must be more intelligent, more prepared, more prosperous and more devoted to saving our progeny. This tiny strip of land called Israel, surrounded by virulent animosity, is all that we have. Judaism is Zionism. And, Zionism is the heart of our religion. All Jews look towards Jerusalem - and not just at Passover. This is the land given to us by God almost 3,000 years ago. If we lose it, there will again be no safe place on earth for Jews. This can never happen again.
So, we must wait for the world to mature. We must wait until our enemy no longer views us as a pariah. This may take another 3,000 years. Meantime, we must never forget our past, because it is also our future. We must remember the exodus from Egypt, the Babylonians, Greeks, Romans and the Crusades. We must remember the Spanish Inquisition and the Shoah. Millions of our ancestors were murdered because they had no safe place to go. This must be our dedication. Each new generation must be responsible for maintaining Israel as a safe place for Jews. Our future depends upon this.
Charles S. Weinblatt
Author, Jacob’s Courage
http://jacobscourage.wordpress.com/